518 
American Agriculturist, June 23,1923 
A Plea For Better Understanding 
Between the Folk of the City and the Man on the Land—A Radio Message 
1 LIKE to think that in my audience this 
evening there will be a g'ood many city 
folk and that I—a farmer—have the 
opportunity, through the courtesy of Amer¬ 
ican Agriculturist and WEAF, of speaking 
to them, if not face to face, then at least by 
far flung word of mouth, and I covet this op¬ 
portunity of putting into speech something 
of my ideas as to what ought to be the re¬ 
lationship of city and country folk. I v^ant 
to try and let you know what we—^my people 
—think of you and I want to 
bring to jmu some statement of 
our peculiar problems and difficul¬ 
ties. 
I am sure that there is nothing 
more essential than that we 
should come to know each other 
because acquaintanceship between 
any sort of worthy folk breeds 
understanding and regard and re¬ 
spect. One of the.fine things that 
spring from education and from 
contact with the world, is a kindly 
spirit of tolerance and ej^eem be¬ 
tween men of different modes of 
life. Only the foolish countryman 
pictures the city as'made up of 
idlers and wastrels and snobs; 
^ and only the city man of low de¬ 
gree imagines that the typical 
, farmer looks like a cartoon of 
Uncle Sam, who on all occasions 
wears chin whiskers and dirty 
boots, chews a straw, and vffiose 
conversation is made up mainly of 
such classic expletives as “By Heck” and 
“I vum.” 
Intelligent farmers refuse to believe that 
the city is a den of gentlemanly thieves whose 
main business and pastime is to rob and ex¬ 
ploit the farmer. Nor does he believe that 
anywhere in America is there a great, far 
flung conspiracy against the man on the land. 
He is convinced that on the whole, every¬ 
body including the railroads, big business 
and even that fabled region Wall Street, 
wishes the farmer well. He sees in the Land 
Bank Act, the new Fedei-al Credits System, 
the Fordney Tariff Bill and numberless 
other special agricviltural enactments an 
eai-nest, sincere—but it must be confessed— 
often mistaken and ill-advised effort to help 
him along the road. 1 am speaking now of 
. ' the attitude the farmer himself and not of 
some of his self-appointed leaders or of those 
who would hope to profit by his discontent. 
The farmer is not a mendicant. He is not 
asking dole of charity, from govern'ment, or 
anybody else. He is asking only for*under- 
^ standing and sympathy rathi'r than criticism 
r and advice. Ili; does ask recognition of the 
fact that certain not well understood eco- 
^ nomic forces for which he is not to blame. 
By JARED VAN WAGENEN, JR. 
for which no one is really to blame, seems 
to have made his way especially hard just 
these years. We want you men of the city 
to know and realize 
that when the great 
business reaction came 
almost exactly three 
years ago, the farmer’s 
business and the farm- 
ei-’s products were the 
first to slip. What 
mystifies him and per¬ 
haps discourages and 
angers him is that just* 
now when in all other 
lines men talk much of 
abundant prosperity, 
he finds his purchasing 
powers only 69 pe> cent 
of pre-war days. This 
fig'ure is not the vague 
estimate of some alarm¬ 
ist, but the official fig¬ 
ures of • the United 
States Department of 
Agriculture, based upon the index numbers 
of the things the farmer must buy and the 
things that he may sell. Farming, it is true, 
•has measurably come back from 1920, but 
not nearly so far or so fast as other indus¬ 
tries. This is a matter most vital to him and 
one concerning which he has a right to ask 
most earnest questions. 
The farmer has demonstrated the fact 
that when his economic position permits, he 
is a most liberal purchaser of all commodities 
that go into his business and his home, thus 
constituting a most im¬ 
portant prop under the 
general market. He 
serves notice now that 
the present much her¬ 
alded business revival 
will not go on to per¬ 
manency and its- full 
fruition unless some¬ 
how he has an oppor¬ 
tunity to ride along. 
He reads his daily 
paper just as you do, 
only after supper at 
night instead of at 
breakfast table or on 
the “L’^ or subway. 
Just these days he sees 
in glaring headlines 
that the bricklayej’s 
New York are striking 
for t$14 per day and a 
four day week. Then he remembei-s that 
only exceptionally skillful farming will per¬ 
mit a wage of thirty cents per hour. He does 
not therefore, however, proceed to vote the 
Socialist ticket or go Bolsheviki, but he 
surely cannot find it in his heart to go'catly 
blame the hired man or even his own son 
when he decides, as one man put it, “to go 
and get a little piece of that easy money they 
give away every Friday noon.” I wonder if 
you know that the old time “hired man” 
threatens to become an extinct species like 
the American buffalo or the Dodo bird. I 
read that there is an acute housing problem 
in nearly all cities, but it is estimated that 
there are somewhere between ten and twenty 
thousand good sized, comfortable, but of 
course not modern, farm houses vacant in 
our State. It is evident that in some re¬ 
spects things are economically out of joint. 
I wonder if you folk of the cities know the 
peculiar handicap of the farm boy in the 
matter of education, and that the cross¬ 
roads, one-room schoolhouse is at once the 
most expensive and the most inefficient sys- 
term of public education ever devised. 
• ■ Oh, if I wanted to, I could make a long 
speech upon this mournful theme of the dis¬ 
advantages of country living, but I am not 
accustomed to allow myself to dwell upon 
these things. I merely want to tell you city 
folks to-night that farming has its troubles. 
We deal with the rawest of raw materials, 
air and water and sunlight and 
crude plant food, and against 
these no government can lay an 
embargo or a protective tariff. 
In addition, the hazards of our 
business are unapproached by 
any other, ,for we are dependent 
upon the benedictions of a kindly 
Providence, “the early and the 
later rain,” and we are at the 
merej^ of the untimely frost. 
But let me turn to brighter 
things. For example, I am proud 
of the fact that we have no strikes 
or lockouts or shutdowns—some¬ 
thing of which perhaps no other 
business can boast. In the face 
of the most discouraging condi¬ 
tions we maintain production. I 
suppose this is the reason why, 
despite food shortage and suffer¬ 
ing in certain quarters of the 
world there is almost a plethora of 
foodstuffs in all American cities. 
Many otherwise well informed 
people have been led to believe that while the 
farmer may be virtuous and industrious and 
plodding, yet he is x wonderfully poor “busi¬ 
ness man”—in a word that he is sadly lack¬ 
ing in that overworked term “efiiciency,” 
{Continued on page 526) 
ol; 
“In the face of the most discouraging’ conditions, we maintain produc¬ 
tion. Despite food shortage and suffering in other quarters of the 
world, the A is plenty of foodstuffs in all American cities.’’* 
“We deal with the rawest of raw materials, air and water and sunlight 
and crude plant food. We are dependent upon the benedictions of a 
kindly Providence, we are at the mercy of the untimely frost.” 
We Carry Farm Problems to City Folks 
hk FARMER said to us the other day, “If only city folks could read 
the farm papers, what a lot more the farm press could accomplish.” 
The farmer was rig’ht. One of the’ big problems of the day is a better 
understanding between country and city people. 
This idea is one of the main reasons why American Agriculturist 
is cooperating with WEAF in furnishing at 6:50 P. M., standai-d time, 
every Wednesday evening, a farm radio program. This station has 
an audience of half a million people, a majority of whom are city 
folks, and we are taking to that great audience weekly, a discussion 
of many of the acute problems of the farm. 
One of the very best of these talks right on this point of better un- 
derstamding is that by Jared 'Van Wagenen, Jr., which is printed on 
tyis page and which was broadcast from WEAF Wednesday even¬ 
ing, June 20. Some of the good things we have in store for future 
Wednesday evenings at 6:50 are: June 27, Henry Morgenthau. 
Sr., ex-Ambassador to Turkey; July 11, Senator Nathan Straus, 
Jr., Chairman of the Agricultural Committee of the New York 
State Senate. On dates immediately following, we hope to have 
Commissioner Berne A. • Pyrke of the New York State Department 
of Farms and Markets and F. P. Willits, formerly president of the 
Interstate Milk Producers’ Association at Philadelphia, now Sec¬ 
retary of Agriculture of Pennsylvania. Tune in and then tell us 
how to make this^ farm program better. 
