592 
lb*  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
April  14,  1923 
HOPE  FARM  NOTES 
‘‘The  Commuter” 
Part  II  '  > 
You  take  a  town  where  people,  have 
grown  up  together,  where  they!  have 
known  each  other  from  childhood.  They 
have  what  I  call,  a  background  of  human 
association.  Unconsciously  they  have 
taken  up  some  common  interest.  Ur  take 
a  new  town  in  the  Far  West,  where  peo¬ 
ple  have  come  together  from  all  parts  of 
the  .country.  They  cannot  well  move 
away.  They  know  they  must  stay  and 
work  out  their  own  salvation.  So  there 
arises  some  sort  of  rough  understanding 
that  all  must  work  together.  Back  home, 
in  the  old  town,  society  had  divided  into 
“classes,”  based  on  money  or  education  or 
breeding  or  what  not.  In  the  new  town 
there  are  no  class  distinctions  to  begin 
with;  and  people  find  themselves  going 
through  forms  of  co-operation  which 
coulq  not  have  beep  possible  in*  the- old 
town-  One  of  the  most  interesting  things 
about  these  new  tdwns  is  the  way  society 
dually  separates  into  “classes” — how  the 
“upper  crust”  beconies  distinguished  from 
the  “lower  crust.”  There  are  such  dis¬ 
tinctions  in  every  town,  and  no  one  seems 
to  know  how  they  ever  arise.  The  strang¬ 
est  thing  of  all  is  the  way  such  things 
happen  in  the  commuters’  town.  Some¬ 
how  ipeople  of  common  mind  seem  to  form 
soeiajl  groups.  The  women  seem  better 
able  .to  do  this  than  the  men.  You  might 
think  that  strangers  of  mature  years  com¬ 
ing  together  in  this  way  .  would  realize 
some  of  the  mistakes  of  former  associa¬ 
tions,  and  in  the  new  town  start  afresh 
and  cultivate  friendliness  and  true  co¬ 
operation.  That-  is  not  always  true. 
Most  men  who  have  knocked  about  in 
business  and  thus  studied  the  actions  of  j 
their  fellow-men  seem  to  have  developed 
suspicion  and  reserve  rather  than  eon-  | 
fiden.ee.  As  a  rule,  thev  want  to  be  j 
“shown.”  Industrially  the  commuter  j 
comes  to  he  very  much  of  a  machine,  lie 
is  a  creature  of  routine — day  by' day  and 
every  day,  doing  much  the  same  thing. 
If  he  is  able  to  do  so  he  will  give  his 
children  a  fair  education,  but  frequently 
the  struggle  for  life  is  so  hard  that  the 
boys  and  girls  go  to  work  as  they  pass  , 
out  of  high  school',  OT  even'  before.  They  ! 
go  into  “business,”-  which  means  that  they  j 
•step  onto  the  treadmill  and  “accept”  a 
white-collar  job.  Thus  the  business  of 
commuting,  like  that  of  the  bird  of  pas¬ 
sage,  is  banded  down  from  father  to  son. 
*#'■**  * 
To  me  the  remarkable  thing  about  all 
this  is  the  great  number  of  women  and 
girls  who  are  dancing  around  this  endless  j. 
chain  of  travel  to  the  job  and  return,  i 
When  I  first  began  commuting,  35  years  j 
and  more  ago,  there  were  only  a  few  ; 
women  who  followed  the  life.  Now  there 
seems  to  be  mox-e  women  than  men.  They 
run  all  the  way  from  young  girls  with 
bobbed  hair  to  women  with  white  hair,  all 
grinding  away  at  some  sort  of  business 
service.  The  modern  typewriter,  the  add¬ 
ing  machine  and  similar  devices  have 
given  these  women,  old  and  young,  a  great 
industrial  opportunity.  -Many. of  them  are 
far; more  efficient  and  more  reliable  than 
the''  untrained  young  men  who  formerly 
had  a  sort  of  monopoly  on  the  job  of 
“clerking.”  I  think  the  young  women 
are  pushing  the  young  men  out  of  certain 
lines  of  industry.  This,  I  think,  will  go 
on  until  there  will  be  so  much  competition 
in  the  white-collar  job  industry  that  it 
will  not  carry  a  living.  The  untrained 
man  or  hoy  will  find  in  the  future  that 
he  must  compete  with  women  and  girls 
unless  he  can  learn  to  do  something  with 
his  hands.  The  most  prosperous  young 
men  in  our  commuter  towns  today  are  the 
mechanics  and  expert  hand  workmen,  biit 
the  trouble  is  that  in  too  many  cases  the 
girls  seeip  to  prefer  the  white-collar  wear¬ 
ers,  and  in  every  age  and  every  town; 
from  London  to  Gopher  Prairie,  the  girls 
have  had  most  to  do  about  deeding  the 
man’s  job-  Thus  woman  is  not  only  com¬ 
peting  with  men  by  entering  industry,  but 
she  is  largely  deciding  what  certain 
classes  of  young  men  shall  do.  Before  the 
Great  War  there  was  hardly  a  single 
cobbler's  shop  to  be  found  in  all  pur  com¬ 
munity.  People  bought  a  pair- of  shoes, 
and  when  flip  soles  wore  ‘through  the' 
wearer  went  and  bought  another  pair. 
It  was  considered  a  little  low-toned  to 
have  shoes  tapped.  Then  came  the  en¬ 
forced  economies  of  the  war.  A  young 
Italian  c-arae  into  our  community  and 
opened  a  shoe  shop.  He  went  around  on 
a  wheel,  picking  up  jobs  of  shoe  repair¬ 
ing,  did  a  good  job.  and  built  up  a  busi¬ 
ness.  Starting  with  nothihg,  he  now  has 
two  good-sized  stores,  and  employs  a  small 
gang  of  workers.  In  a  few  years  he  will 
own  a  shoe  factory.  In  a  nearby  town  a 
Russian  came  and  opened  a  small  place, 
worked  hard,  lived  cheaply,  and  now 
has  put  up  a  good-sized  building  for  rent 
He  has  developed  a  good  business  and 
will  send  his  children  through  college.. 
In  most,  of  our  high' schools  the  leading 
pupils  if  re  'tjie  children  of  such  people- 
The  children  of  Americans  usually  lead 
in  sports  and  social  work,  hut  children  of 
these  working  foreigners  are  getting  far 
more  out  of  the  instruction.  Many  of  our 
commuters  at  present  living  close  up  to 
their  income,  might  have  done  what  the 
Italian  or  the  Russian  did  had  they  been 
willing  to  work  and  live  as  these  men 
were  forced  to  do.  The  Americans  feel 
that  they  could  not  get  down  out  of  their 
class  and  do  such  work.  They  might  per¬ 
haps  take  their  families  off  to  some  far 
.disth'pt  place,  where  all  must  work  at 
hard  .  labor,  and  do  pioneer  work  with 
good  grace,  but  they  cannot- do  it  in  their 
:bpme  town-^-they  must  do  as  their  friends 
do.  I  do  not  believe  the  children  of  these 
foreigners,  will  ever  work  as  hard  their 
parents  have  done.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  think  some  of  the  American  children 
will  in  time  rise  out  of  their  education 
and  training  and  learn  to  work  hard  with 
their  hands.  They  will  have  to;  or  the 
families  will  fade- away. 
if  *  *  if  if 
The  life  of  the  average  commuter  is  no 
bed  of  roses.  It  is  more  like  sleeping'  in 
a  brier  patch.  In  the  Winter  he  is  up  in 
the  morning  before  daylight — earlier  than 
many  farmers.  If  he  has  a  farm  or  any 
live  stock  be  must  attend, to  at  least  some 
of  the  chores  himself.  Very  often  he  must 
get  his  own  breakfast.  Then  comes  a  long 
trip  to  the  train,  and  he  must  make  it  if 
he  is  to  hold  his  job.  Some  of  you  folks 
think  you  would  like  to  travel,  but  I  know 
a  commuter  who  for  over  38  years  has 
averaged  300  days  a  year  and  55  miles  a 
day,  going  and  coming.  As  I  figure  it 
that  makes  <527. 000  miles  of  railroad 
travel  merely  to  reach  his  job  and  come 
home!  You  get  to  know  the  landscape 
quite  well  as  a.  -result  of  this  trip.  There 
are  men  who  have  traveled  in  this  way 
nearly  1,000,000  miles.  They  do  it  largely 
because  they  fee]  that  the  country  offers 
better  opportunity  for  the  family.  Day 
after  day  through  the  jar  and  shock  of 
this  long  travel  they  stick  to  the  job.  I 
have  seen  young  flippers  and  flappers 
start  at  this  monotonous  journey  and  as 
the  years  went  by  I  have  seen  their  hair 
turn  gray  or  fall  out,  their  eyes  grow  dim 
and  the  lines  come  into  their  faces.  1 
have  seen  them  grow  up  from  youth  to 
become  grandfathers  and  grandmothers, 
still  grinding  away  at  their  monotonous 
journey.  Old  friends  and  relatives  pass 
away,  the  world  goes  smashing  on,  and 
still  they  travel  over  the  old  beaten  track. 
Spring,  Summer,  Autumn.  Winter,  chase 
each  other  across  the  face  of  New  Jersey, 
but  the  commuter  cannot  stop  to  play 
with  them.  It  is  strange,  but  I  have  seen 
men  and  women  turn  into  human  ma¬ 
chines.  without  imagination  or  vision,  as 
a  result  of  this  long-continued  grind. 
These  are  the  people  who  glance  through 
the  dull  columns  of  some  evening  paper 
and  then  sit  in  some  idle  reverie,  looking 
straight  before  them.  Others  always 
carry  some  book,  and  through  the  long, 
tiresome  journeys  they  have  traveled  far 
into  literature  and  enlisted  the  friendship 
of  great  companions.  I  have  met  farmers 
who  think  these  commuters  have  a  soft 
job.  and  live  on  the  fat  of  the  land.  I 
know  that  some  of  these  commuters  look 
with  envy  at  what  they  think  must  be  the 
ideal  life  of  a  farmer.  If  they  could 
have  a  farm,  well  stocked  and  paid  for, 
how  gladly  would  they  take  it  in  exchange 
for  their  tiresome  life.  It  is  probable, 
however,  that  the  wife  and  children  would 
rebel  at  living  on  a  lonely  farm,  and  there 
are  plenty  of  farmers  who  can  never  .ex¬ 
pect  to  have  a  well-stocked  farm  fully 
paid  for.  So  it  is  thatf  the  man  back 
among  the  hills  may  envy  the  man  in  the 
commuter’s  town,  while  the  weary  job- 
rider  may  long  to  be  back  among  the  hills. 
The  trouble  is  that  neither  man  can  quite 
understand  the  other’s  life.  If  they  could 
have  full  understanding  the  world  would 
be  better. 
*  *  *  * 
I  have  heard  people  say  that  the  com¬ 
muter  is  an  “industrial  parasite,”  and  a 
competitor  of  farmers.  Most  of  the  com¬ 
muters  I  know  are  clerks,  salesmen, 
agents,  or  perhaps  engaged  in  some  little 
business  of  their  own. 
It  is  true  that  many  of  these  jobs  are 
not  necessary.  They  have  been  created 
as  a  part  of  the  present  industrial  system 
of  distributing  goods.  I  imagine  that  at 
last  40  per  cent  of  the  unskilled  handlers, 
in  New  York  City  could  be  dispensed 
with.  With  more  efficient  management 
the  remaining  60  per  cent  could  do  all' 
necessary  work  better  than  it  is  now 
done.  We  often  hear  city  men  tell  how 
slack  and  inefficient  farmers  are  in  their 
business  management.  Farming  suffers, 
from  a  lack  of  good  helpers,  while  city' 
industry  is  jammed  full  of  people  who 
just  hold  down  a  job.  As  towns  and! 
cities  increase  in  population  it  becomes 
necessary  to  create  more  jobs  in  order  to 
keep  people  busy,  and  this  has  built  up 
the  vast  army  of  handlers  which  operate 
between  the  producer  and  the  final  eon- 
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