CHAPTER II

THE WORLD OF THE RURAL WORKERS

There have grown up on the western plains of Canada a number of large cities and a great many small villages and towns. These are the direct results of a process of civilization dependent upon the fertile soil from which vast quantities of wheat are reaped each year. Just before harvest the sea of grain extends as far as the eye can see. The first settlers built their little cabins, bought as much seed grain as was available, and planted it; doing nearly all of the work themselves. Improved methods of planting and harvesting have added thousands of acres to the wheat-fields. Railroads have been built to carry the wheat to the great shipping and milling centers. Cities such as Winnipeg have grown rich through being the connecting-links between the farmer, with his field and his wheat, and the breakfast tables all over the civilized world.

=Our Daily Bread.= The development of the grain-belt of western Canada is similar to that which has taken place in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and other Northwestern states. In California, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, and Kansas we find great areas devoted to the growing of wheat. The wheat that is put on the market is of two general varieties: what is known as winter wheat sown in the autumn, and spring wheat that is sown early in the spring. These great wheat areas have been called the bread-basket of the Western world. Few of us realized the importance of wheat to the life of the world until Mr. Hoover began to tell us that we must save it by having wheatless days and by eating more corn bread and war-breads of various kinds. The total annual consumption of wheat is 974,485,000 bushels, and of this amount the United States produced, in 1917, 678,000,000 bushels. The needs of the world have been figured as calling for about 20 per cent. advance upon all that is available under normal conditions.

Not many of us who live in cities stop to consider the man who made possible the roll or the piece of white bread that we eat with our meal. We forget the long day’s work, the painstaking toil, and the grim struggle of the pioneers who first worked the land. We seldom think of the planting and reaping year after year, the construction of transportation, the building of warehouses, the venturing of money in mill-building, until finally were developed not only the vast farms but also cities, railroads, wheat-carrying steamship lines, elevators, and the mills that go to make up the great bread-making industry. Only when the war interfered with the processes and threatened to cut off the supply of wheat, did we begin to realize how important the wheat farm is to the very life of the nation. If bread is the staff of life, wheat is the chief material out of which that staff is made. Other grains when used for bread, as we are forced to use them to-day, are all substitutes for wheat.

=The Cane-Sugar Makers.= If we travel in a direction a little east of south from the wheat-fields of Canada, we come to the great plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi where sugar-cane is grown. Here we find people of a different type living under different conditions. Sugar-cane is grown in fields that have been won from the swamps by hard toil. In this rich soil, cultivated and ridged by the plow, the sugar-cane is laid in long parallel rows. After it has been buried a few days it begins to sprout, and from each one of the joints on the stalk of cane there grows up a new plant. These are tilled and come to maturity in October. The stalks grow from eight to fifteen feet high and at harvest-time are cut down and then stripped of their leaves by the workers, who take them up in their hands and with a flat knife slash off the long, bladelike leaves, leaving them clean and smooth. The stalks are piled in rows to be picked up later and put into wagons, taken to the siding, loaded into freight-cars, and hauled to the mill, where they are crushed between rollers, and the juice pressed out. The liquid so obtained is then put into large vats and evaporated, leaving brown sugar and molasses. The crude or brown sugar is sent to the refinery and passed through various processes until we get the white sugar that comes to our tables. Practically all of the work on the sugar plantation is done by Negroes. These people live in small cabins and work for a very small wage, ranging from 75 cents to a $1.25 a day. Their tiny houses, which are usually whitewashed and surrounded by a little plot of ground, are the property of the owners of the plantation. The Negro is expected to buy everything from the company’s stores. The prices are high and it is rarely that one finds a family that is not in a perpetual state of debt to the owner of the plantation.

When the migration of Negroes from the South to the North began some few years ago, a great concern was felt in many quarters as to what the result would be. A meeting was held in one of the Southern cities and the Negroes were invited to be present. One of the Negroes said: “If you let me tell you what I think, it is about like this. We-all have been working here for about 75 cents to $1 a day, but we never see the time when we have any money of our own. It takes more than we make for the things we use. Folks in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Massachusetts offer us $15 to $18 a week, tickets for ourselves and our families, and a free house to live in with two weeks’ rations provided and in the house. Now none of us wants to leave Louisiana, and if you want to keep us here just raise our wages to $2 a day. We would a heap rather stay here than go North.”

=Sugar from Beets.= Not all the sugar that comes to our tables is made from the cane; in fact only a small proportion is cane-sugar. Most of it is produced from the beet which is grown in large quantities in the West. Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and California are the extensive sugar-beet producing states. The beets grow to an enormous size; they are planted in rows and cared for much as the beets that grow in our vegetable gardens. In California the Japanese are entering very largely into the sugar-beet culture.

The beet-fields call whole families to work. Several towns in the Northwestern states have sections made up entirely of Russians, and people from other lands, who have been attracted by the opportunities for employment offered by the beet industry. One family consisting of a father, mother, thirteen children, and the mother’s sister worked all last summer in one of the beet-fields. The youngest child was only five years old but he put in long hours every day. This family is typical of many. The statistics regarding child labor in the United States show that the vast majority of children employed in gainful labor are the children in the rural districts. Thus sugar comes to your table through two sources: from the workers, including a large number of children, in the beet-fields and the workers on the Southern plantations.

=The Corn Belt.= In the Middle states we have the great corn-producing areas. A great deal of the philosophy of this region is summed up in the reply of a farmer to the question as to why he was planting more corn than usual. He said: “So that I can feed more hogs.”

“What will you do with the hogs?” he was then asked.

“Sell them and buy more land to plant more corn to raise more hogs to buy more land.”

The price of hogs and the price of corn, in normal times, keep on a level with each other. When corn is high pork is high, and when corn falls we find that pork falls with it.

=Food and the Land.= It is impossible within the limits of this book to give more than a glimpse of a few of the great food-producing industries of America. The packing-houses and canneries contribute their share to the feeding of the people; but when all is said and done, we get back to the fact that even in this age when factory and city make claims, all values finally rest on the land. The growth of our cities has emphasized their dependence upon the country. People in the city must be fed, and the food comes from the soil. It is now claimed that the gravest mistake made by Kerensky, a leader of the Russian revolution, was in not giving sufficient attention to the food question in Russia. After the revolution became a fact Kerensky tried to spur the army to greater activity, but the people, unused to the new ways of freedom, failed to keep up the processes that would produce food. The railroads were congested; fuel was scarce; lacking fuel--the railroads and boats still further failed in their undertaking. The result was that the food supply became less and less in Petrograd and other centers. Behind the lines hungry people grew restless. Leon Trotzky would not have succeeded in overthrowing Kerensky but for the hunger of the people. These people were willing to accept any change of government because there was at least a hope, however desperate it might be, that the new government would furnish the food which they needed so badly. One writer dealing with this subject said: “Oratory and precepts failed to feed the hungry people.”

We have heard over and over again the phrase, “An army travels on its stomach.” It is also true that the civilian population of a country lives and labors on its stomach. Food is the foundation of life. “Give us this day our daily bread” is the first demand of man upon God and upon his fellow man. The solution of all our problems depends finally on the question of bread. “Who shall be king?” The answer to this question is very likely to be, “The one who will give us bread.” The peace of the world must finally be based upon an appreciation of economic values. Justice means that conditions will be such that in each nation food for all the people will be produced in abundance.

=The Country and the City.= Much has been said of the freedom and independence of farm life. The producer of food is a real benefactor of the race. The farmer works in the open air and lives a simple life, and so gains an opportunity for developing the very finest traits of human character. But when we compare the changes that have been taking place in the rural districts, we find strong reasons for the exodus from the country to the city. The city offers a more interesting and profitable life which makes it difficult to maintain the center of attraction on the farm. The history of humanity began in a garden and ends in a city. The word “city” comes from the old Latin word which means the citizen, the place where the citizen lived.

The city is really the center of authority and governmental power. It offers the best and at the same time the worst; has the best in intellect, which it attracts and claims for its own, and it has the best in amusement and entertainments. We have heard people say: “The country is a good place in which to rest and work, but the city is the place to have your fun.” The city has the best and the worst of morals, and the best and the worst health conditions. Side by side with the city mansion are the tumble-down hovels and the cramped, narrow tenements that are a disgrace to our land. The robust, strong man pushes his weaker fellow to the wall. The worst forms of disease and the most acute physical suffering are found in the city. In the city there are many intellectual giants and many half-sane intellectual weaklings. The man dwelling in the country has a greater independence than these. He can at least have three meals a day, and knows how to take care of himself. Hundreds of thousands of people in our cities have just brains enough and just education enough to do one thing; if hard times throws one of these out of his job, he is left utterly helpless--a derelict on the sea of humanity. The culprit is safer in the city than in the thickest forest. Men without character and women without principle huddle together in its sordid districts. The tides of the city wash up queer specimens to the light of day, and reveal to the passer-by the saddest and most gruesome sights, and the worst types of humanity.

The best in the city is matched by the worst. Philanthropy cures, or tries to cure, what rogues have created. Just as the incentive to goodness in the city is highest, so the temptations to the opposite course of life are of the strongest. The artificial life creates new and unusual wants, and together with the excitement caused by city conditions, makes temptations hard to resist. The city is the rich man’s paradise and the poor man’s hell. The lure of the city is strong upon us all. There are a thousand voices calling us there; and this is impoverishing our rural districts and making the question of food a more serious one every year. In the country one can plod along and with the present prices be independent, but this does not satisfy. The men of to-day think in thousands where their fathers thought in terms of hundreds. Hundreds of dollars are made on the farm and millions in the city. The city calls every young man and young woman. Everybody who is at all familiar with the small towns knows that one of the hardest facts which must be faced is that just as soon as the young people finish school they leave for the city. Church work is made hard by the continual drain on the best life in the community.

=The Tenant and the Absentee Landlord.= Over against this question of the lure of the city there is that of the tenant farmer. The Industrial Relations Commission, making its study of the rural conditions in America, finds that there is a very grave danger that America will produce a peasant class like that of some of the European countries. The independent landowners are decreasing; in Mississippi 62 per cent. of the land is tilled by tenants, in Louisiana 58 per cent., and Kansas 36 per cent. So many of the owners of the farms have moved to the city that the actual production of food has been left to the people who are known as “birds of passage.” Most of these tenants are here to-day and gone to-morrow. The retired farmer presents the problem of the absentee landlord. The tenant farmer suffers under the handicap of his limitation, and his poverty is often his undoing. The absentee landlord of the farm enjoys the fruits of the labor of another. We must not forget, however, that the retired farmer has contributed his share toward the development of our nation. He has helped to make his community. The man who actually remains on the soil to produce the food is producing less, and takes less interest in his community, than the man who owns the land and who made a success of production in years gone by. The tenant does not cultivate the land as intensively as it can be cultivated; he does not attempt soil conservation, and takes but little interest in the community and its institutions.

=Study of a Rural Community.= It is interesting to make a study of the rural community and to compare present conditions with those of the past. Such a study convinces one that the success of the church is closely bound up with the economic situation of the community. An investigation was made in three townships in the central part of Wisconsin just a few miles from the state capital.[1] The land in this section is rich, the homes of the people are comfortable, the barns and sheds substantial, and everything about the farms well kept. Fences are up and all the buildings are neatly painted. The land produces anything that can be grown in a temperate climate: peas, grain, barley, potatoes, oats, hay, cattle, sheep, and hogs. Other parts of Wisconsin produce more milk and butter; but the large herds of Holstein cows and the number of creameries and cheese factories found in this part of the state convince the visitor that no small part of the farmer’s income is derived from this source.

[1] Survey made by Social Service Department of Congregational Churches, 14 Beacon Street, Boston.

The state university is the Wisconsin farmer’s best friend. Through its instruction at Madison, its extension department, experimental stations, and institutes held throughout the state, it shows this friendship; and the splendid economic conditions found in rural Wisconsin prove that this friendship is not wasted. The land in these townships is valued at $100 to $150 an acre, but upon inquiry at a dozen or more farms it was learned that no one knew of any farm land that was for sale.

About 2,500 people live in the three townships described. Sixty years ago nearly all the people were Americans, many of them having emigrated from New York State. In later years the Americans have been supplanted by Germans and Scandinavians. The old settlers now lie at rest in the beautiful cemeteries which are taken care of by the communities with the same care and affection that is bestowed upon private homes and grounds. Many of the descendants of the first settlers are scattered far and wide throughout the United States. The Rev. Hubert C. Herring, Secretary of the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States, and one of the best known among home missionary leaders in America, was born and spent his early life in this section of Wisconsin. The school he attended is at the country cross-roads and near the school is the Presbyterian church which he joined. Dr. Herring’s first efforts at oratory were practised upon the neighboring boys and girls in the Philomathean Society, a country debating society, at that time a leading social and literary organization among the people of the community. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, one of the most popular and prominent of the magazine and newspaper writers, and who is well known to every reader in America, was born in this same township. Twelve other people who are influential nationally and internationally were born and reared in this community.

Most of the people hold their own farms and most of them have money on interest in the bank. The few families who rent farms are working, planning, and saving so that they can buy land and own their farms. The school-buildings are adequate and the grounds well kept; the teachers are efficient and intelligent; and the high school maintains an advanced standard. The young people go directly from these schools into the state university. Here, then, we have the material conditions that would seem to guarantee success in the work of the church. There is no poverty, and very few people can be said to be living on the fringe of the community. There is no overcrowding on the part of the churches, for there are only two American churches and they have a parish twelve miles wide and fifteen miles long, and the pastor serving both is the only English-speaking preacher in this whole district. Now what are the facts? One of these churches was closed for a number of years and now has services only once in every two weeks; the other was also closed for a number of years. One church has a Sunday-school with fifty members and a Christian Endeavor Society of thirty-six members; the church service is attended by twenty-five to forty people. One of the men in the community said: “Many of the people are foreign and have their own churches, of which there are seven in this district; but they have their troubles, for the children are breaking away from the old churches as they have broken from the old languages, and are beginning to come to our Sunday-school.” The community has a good moral record. There has never been a saloon, except at one point, and the two saloons that were located there were voted out years ago. The people are home-loving and law-abiding, but the two churches are not as successful as they were fifty years ago when they were filled at every service.

The first minister in the district was a graduate and honor man of Williams College, and the church was the center of the community life. People looked to the church, were helped and inspired; it sent out teachers, preachers, and other men and women trained in thoughtfulness, to enrich the world. Contributions of such a range cannot spring from the conditions in which the church finds itself to-day. What are the reasons? Some of the people blame the universities. When the young people return from college they seem to take no interest in the church. But the universities are really not to blame. The church fills so small a circle in the community that when the young man has finished his course at the university he cannot fit himself back into the narrow groove of the church activities. In sixty years the old methods of farming have changed. Tools and machinery are of another type. Conditions on the farm are totally different, because the farmers have recognized that new methods are demanded. When the old settlers have their picnics and reunions, one of the older men shows the young men how they used to “cradle” the grain. It is an interesting thing, but compared to the modern reaper the cradle is simply an archaic tool, and no man would think of harvesting his crop with it to-day. The fields of the church life of rural Wisconsin and in other sections of the country are “white to the harvest,” but the ministers are forced to use the old-fashioned “cradle” in harvesting the whole crop. The university is showing the church its opportunity and at the same time pointing out its failure. In the particular locality under discussion the churches have no program. Religion is limited to a very small part of life. The farm demands all the time of the people during six days of the week. On Sunday the work clothes are changed for Sunday clothes and part of the day given over to the church. This is religion. The line of demarkation between the sacred and the secular is much more clearly drawn in the country than anywhere else. The average minister of the country church is much more a man apart from the rest of the community.

The program of the church must be made a part of the whole life of the people. The church out in the districts where the people live who are producing the food for the world is responsible in a large degree for the pleasures of the people. Country people find it difficult to think in terms of the community. It is hard for them to cooperate. The church must shape its program with a clear understanding of the great facts of the community life, and appeal primarily from this standpoint and not simply from that of the needs of individuals.

Another rural study shows a community where 80 per cent. of the people were living on land owned by somebody else. There were five churches, and each of them was struggling for a pitiful existence. Less than 20 per cent. of the people had any connection with the church or any other organization. A minister was sent into this district to make a study of the situation with a view to possible work by the home mission board of his church. In his report he stated that the needs there were just as pressing and demanded just as much statesmanship as any field in India or China. He was furnished with sufficient money to put up a good church building, and the plans of the building provided for social and game rooms. He brought a doctor into the community and attached him to the church as a lay worker. He promoted an interest in better farming methods, and began with organized groups a course of lessons in thrift. Gradually this minister gained the interest of the boys and girls through baseball, basket-ball, singing school, and other community exercises and agencies. People began to come to church. They wanted to hear this preacher, for as one of the farmers said, “A feller who knows enough to talk about the things that we are interested in must know something about heaven. I want to hear what he’s got to say.” The church in this community succeeded, but its success was primarily dependent upon the program that considered the economic needs of the people, and studied to find a remedy for the bad, and to build up the good.

=Socialism’s Message to the Church.= Socialism has been sneered at as being a “stomach philosophy.” There is ground for this criticism, for a great deal of socialism is purely materialistic; but the fact that it interests itself in the feeding of the people is not a serious fault. Socialism has emphasized many things that the church has failed to appreciate. Consideration of the food problems and of the economic basis of our civilization is something that the church cannot afford to ignore. The great mass of workers who are producing the food of the world are truly ministers to the needs of humanity.

=The World of Rural Workers.= Figures are dull or they would be marshaled here to show that the producers of the world’s food live in a world to themselves. There are many divisions in this world, and many cross-sections of the life of the people. That the rural church is not succeeding is evident. Its sons and daughters of the past generation are the leaders in the world of finance, art, commerce, and letters; but are the conditions within it to-day such that may produce sons and daughters to fill the places of those who are now occupying the positions of trust and honor? The call and the opportunity of the church are urgent in that great part of the world of work which produces the things that we eat. Shall those who feed others themselves be denied the bread of life? It is a call for leadership, for statesmanship, for planning, for devotion, for sacrifice, and for heroic service.