Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs

• Remedies for the disregard of the inherent rights of the farmer
  • Speculative Holding of lands
  • Monopolistic Control of Streams
  • Wastage and Control of Forests
  • Restraint of trade
• Highways
• Soil Depletion and Its Effects

Remedies for the Disregard of the Inherent Rights of the Farmer

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 36-46):

• There is need of a new general attitude toward legislation, in the way of safeguarding the farmer’s natural rights and interests (p. 37).
  • We recommend that the welfare of the farmer and the countryman be also kept in mind in the construction of laws (p. 37).
  • We specially recommend that his interests be considered and safeguarded in any new legislation on the tariff, on regulation of railroads, control or regulating of corporations and speculation, river, swamp, and forest legislation, and public health regulation (p. 38).
• Recognize the necessary rights of the individual farmer to the use of the native resources and agencies that go with the utilization of agricultural lands and to protect him from hindrance and encroachment in the normal development of his business.
  • If the farmer suffers because his business is small, isolated, and unsyndicated, then it is the part of government to see that he has a natural opportunity among his fellows and a square deal (p. 36).
• An attitude of government, both state and national, as will safeguard the separate and individual rights of the farmer, is in the interest of the public good.
• We commend the general policy of the present administration to safeguard the streams, forests, coal lands, and phosphate lands, and in endeavoring to develop a home-owning settlement in the irrigated regions (p. 37).
• One of the most available and effective single means of giving the farmer the benefit of his natural opportunities is the enlargement of government service to the country people through the post office.
  • We hold that a parcel post and a postal savings bank system are necessities; and as rapidly as possible the rural free delivery of mails should be extended (p. 37).
• A thoroughgoing study or investigation of the relation of business practices and of taxation to the welfare of the farmer, with a view to ascertaining what discriminations and deficiencies should be conducted (p. 37).
  • This investigation should include the entire middleman system, farmers’ cooperative organizations, transportation rates and practices, taxation of agricultural property, methods of securing funds on reasonable conditions for agricultural uses, and the entire range of economic questions involved in the relation of the farmer to the accustomed methods of doing business (p. 37).
• We think that the Federal Government should be given the right to send its health officers into various States on request of these States at any time, for the purpose of investigating and controlling public health; it does not now have this right except at quarantine stations, although it may attend to diseases of domestic animals. It should also engage in publicity work on this subject (p.46).

Speculative Holding of Lands

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 80):

• Reclamation of the Land
  • Landowners who possess large areas of land in available locations tend to hold it for speculative purposes. This prevents the land from settlement and the development of an agricultural community.
  • It is important to the development of the best type of country life that the reclamation of the lands in rural regions proceed under conditions insuring their subdivision into small farm units and their settlement by men who would both own them and till them.
  • Recommendation: The Federal Government should act to the fullest extent of its constitutional powers in securing the reclamation of these lands under proper safeguards against speculative holding and landlordism.

Monopolistic Control of Streams

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 30-34):

• Waterways: Protection from Monopolies (p. 30-31)
  • The legitimate farming interests of the whole country would be vastly benefited by a systematic conservation and utilization, under the protection of the State and Federal Governments, of our waterways, both great and small. (p. 30).
  • Important advantages of these waterways are likely to be appropriated in perpetuity and without adequate return to the agricultural inhabitants of the use of them. (p. 31)
  • The protection from monopoly is one of the first responsibilities of the government. (p. 31)
• Waterways: Uses (p. 33).
  • Drainage Lines
  • Sources of Irrigation Supply
  • Carriers and equalizers of transportation rates
  • Readily Available Power Resource
  • Raising of Food Fish
  • River navigation affords the best and cheapest transportation of farm products of a nonperishable nature. The rivers afford the best means of competition with railroads, because river carriage is cheap, and because the rivers once opened by the Government for navigation are open to all, and monopoly of their use should not be possible.
• Unfortunately, the tendency of the present laws is to encourage the acquisition of these resources on easy terms, or their own terms, by the first applicants, and the power of the steams is rapidly being acquired under conditions that lead to the concentration of ownership in the hands of monopolies. (p. 32).
• Recommendation: The commission suggests that a special inquiry be made of the control and stream resources of the United States, with the object of protecting the people in their ownership and of reserving to agricultural uses such benefits as should be reserved for these purposes. (p. 34).

Wastage and Control of Forests

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 34-36):

• The forests have been exploited for private gain until not only has the timber been seriously reduced, but until streams have been ruined for navigation, power, irrigation, and common water supplies and whole regions have been exposed to floods and disastrous soil erosion. (p. 34)
• The conservation of forests and brush on watershed areas is important to the farmer along the full length of streams, regardless of the distance between the farm and these areas. (p. 34)
  • The loss of soil in denuded areas increases the menace of flood, not alone because of the more rapid run-off, but by the filling of channels and the greater erosion of stream banks when soil matter is carried in suspension. (p. 34)
• The wood-lot property of the country needs to be saved and increased.
  • Wood-lot yield is one of the most important crops of the farm, and is of great value to the public in controlling streams, saving the run-off, checking winds, and in adding to the attractiveness of the region. (p. 35).
  • In many regions, where poor and hilly lands prevail, the town or county could well afford to purchase forest land, expecting thereby to add to the value of the property and eventually to make the forests a source of revenue. (p. 35-36).

Restraint of Trade

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 35):

• The commission has heard much complaint, in all parts of the country and by all classes of farmers, of injustice, inequalities, and discrimination on the part of transportation companies and middlemen.
  • If the statements can be trusted, the business of farming as a whole is greatly repressed by lack of mutual understanding and good faith in the transportation and marketing of agricultural produce.
• We feel that there should be a free understanding between transportation companies and farmers in respect to their mutual business.
  • We find that farmers who have well-informed opinions on tariff, education, and other public questions are yet wholly uninformed in respect to the transportation man’s point of view on freight rates and express rates that may be in dispute.
  • A disposition on the part of all parties to discuss the misunderstandings fairly would probably accomplish much.
• The whole matter of the railway freight rates should be made more understandable.
  • There should be a simplifying or codifying of rates that will enable the farmer or a group of farmers or of other citizens who use the railways to ascertain readily from the published tariffs the actual rate on any given commodity between two points.
  • The rates are a large factor in the development of population; in many instances the railway rates determine both the character of the population and the development of industry.
• The railway companies, by their rates, may decide where the centers of distribution shall be, what areas shall develop manufacturers, and other special industries. To the extent that they do this they exercise a purely public function, and for this reason alone, if for no other, the Government should exercise a wise supervision over the making and publication of rates.

Highways

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 38):

• Highways that are usable at all times of the year are now imperative not only for the marketing of produce, but for the elevation of the social and intellectual status of the open country and the improvement of health by insuring better medical and surgical attendance.
• We suggest that the United States Government establish a highway engineering service, or equivalent organization, to be at the call of the States in working out effective and economical highway systems.

Soil Depletion and Its Effects

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 39-41):

The Knowledge and Information of Soil Usage

• There are two classes of farmer – those who make farming a real and active constructive business, as much as the successful manufacturer or merchant makes his effort a business; and those who merely passively live on the land, often because they cannot do anything else, and by dint of hard work and the strictest economy manage to subsist (p. 39).
• The social condition of any agricultural community is closely related to the available fertility of the soil. “Poor land, poor people,” and “rough land, rough people” have long since passed into proverbs (p. 39).
• When the land begins to yield with difficulty, the farmer may move to new land, develop a system of self-sustaining agriculture (becoming thereby a real farmer), or be driven into poverty and degradation (p. 39).
• The evolution of a really scientific and self-perpetuating agriculture is beginning to appear here and there, mostly in the long-settled regions (p. 39).
• The drift to poverty and degradation is pronounced in many parts of the country. In every region a certain class of the population is forced to the poor lands, becoming a handicap to the community and constituting a very difficult social problem (p. 39).
• The great agricultural need of the open country is a system of diversified and rotation farming, carefully adapted in every case to the particular region (p. 41)
• It is a general feature of our agriculture, due to a lack of appreciation of our responsibility to society to protect and save the land (p. 41).
• Although we have reason to be proud of our agricultural achievements, we must not close our eyes to the fact that our resources are still being lost through poor farming (p. 41).