Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs

• The farm labor problem, however, is complicated by several special conditions, such as the fact that the need for labor is not continuous, the lack of conveniences of living for the laborer, long hours, the want of companionship, and in some places the apparently low wages. Because of these conditions the necessary drift of workmen is from the open country to the town (p. 42).
• On the part of the employer the problem is complicated by the difficulty of securing labor, even at the relatively high prices now prevailing, that is competent to handle modern farm machinery and to care for livestock, and to handle the special work of the improved dairy (p. 42).
• It is further complicated in all parts of the country by the competition of railroads, mines, and factories, which, by reason of shorter hours, apparently higher pay, and the opportunities for social diversion and often dissipation attract the native farm hand to the towns and cities (p. 42).
• The difficulty of securing good labor is so great in many parts of the country that farmers are driven to dispose of their farms, leaving their land to be worked on shares by more or less irresponsible tenants, or selling them outright, often to foreigners (p .42).
• All absentee and proxy farming create serious social problems in the regions thus affected. There is not sufficient good labor available in the country to enable us to farm our lands under present systems of agriculture and to develop our institutions effectively (p. 42).
• The most marked reaction to the labor difficulty is the change in modes of farm management, whereby farming is slowly adapting itself to the situation (p. 42).
• The excessive hours of labor on farms must be shortened (p. 43).
• The growing tendency to rely on foreigners for the farm labor supply, although the sentiment is very strong in some regions against immigration (p. 43).
• The most difficult rural labor problem is that of securing household help on the average farm. The larger the farm the more serious the problem becomes (p. 43).
• The necessity of giving a suitable education to her children deprives the farm women largely of home help; while the lure of the city, with its social diversions, more regular hours of labor, and its supposed higher respectability, deprives her of help bred and born in the country (p. 43).
• Under these circumstances she is compelled to provide the food that requires the least labor. This simple fact explains much of the lack of variety, in the midst of the greatest possible abundance, so often complained of on the farmer’s table (p.43-44).
• Labor-saving appliances in the future will greatly lighten the burdens of those who are willing to use them (p. 44).
• With the teaching of home subjects in the school household labor will again become respectable as well as easier and more interesting (p. 44).
• There is widespread conviction that the farmer must give greater attention to providing good quarters to laborers and to protect them from discouragement and from the saloon (p. 44).
• The shortage of labor seems to be the least marked where the laborer is best cared for (p. 44).
• While all farmers feel the shortage of help, the commission has found that the best farmers usually complain least about the labor difficulty (p. 44).

Developing the Local Attachments of the Farm Laborer

• Such reorganization of agriculture must take place as will tend more and more to employ the man the year round to tie him to the land (p. 45).
• The employer bears a distinct responsibility to the laborer, and also to society, to house him well and to help him to contribute his part to the community welfare (p. 45).
• Eventually some kind of school or training facilities must be provided for the farm laborer to cause him to develop skill and to interest him intellectually in his work (p. 45).
• Some kind of simple saving institution should also be developed in order to encourage thrift on the part of the laborer. It would be well also to study systems of life insurance in reference to farm workmen. The establishment of postal savings banks should contribute toward greater stability of farm labor (p. 45).
• The development of various kinds of cooperative buying and selling associations might be expected to train workmen in habits of thrift, if the men were encouraged to join them (p. 45).

The Question of Intemperance

• The Commission has made no inquiry into intemperance as such, but it is impressed, from the testimony that has accumulated, that drunkenness is often a very serious menace to country life, and that the saloon is an institution that must be banished from at least all country districts and rural towns if our agricultural interests are to develop to the extent to which they are capable (p. 44).
• Intemperance is largely the result of the barrenness of farm life, particularly of the lot of the hired man (p. 44).
• There is most urgent need for a quickened public sentiment on this whole question of intoxication in rural communities and order to relieve country life of one of its most threatening handicaps (p. 44).
• At the same time it is incumbent on every person to exert his best effort to provide the open country with such intellectual and social interests as will lessen the appeal and attractiveness of the saloon (p. 44).