his troubles, about being a victim, about being a poor farmer, that he has settled down to being a poor farmer.' Paternalism as revealed in our educational system is resulting unfortunately. Control of the schools is no longer entirely local and professional boosters have begun to reform us through our children. There has been much talk of fitting children for farm life — implying that their fathers and mothers have not been so fitted. The phrase 'ruralized education' is used. I dislike the phrase. It means class education. Quite aside from the fact that not all country children will or ought to remain on the farm, the present tendency to use time in rural grade-schools for so-called agricultural subjects seems to many of us undesirable. Education in elementary schools should be broad for a country child, the same as for a city child. Breadth is not secured by emphasizing from the grades the details of one's life work. Education which assumes what a child's occupation is to be is most undemocratic. Occupational education is inevitably narrowing, yet the great need is a public that recognizes the interdependence of all groups. We farmers have been led astray in this matter of schooling by a lot of zealots. We read frequently that the education of the country child is inferior to that of the city child. The reformers who state this people for the most part interested in education as a commercial proposition - point to the one-room school, the poorly paid teacher, and the short school-year. However, they do not try to prove that the children who have remained on the farms have ever fallen down on the job of production or that those who have left have been unable to compete successfully in business or professional work. Some of our reformers forget the advantages of disadvantages. IV There are those who deny that paternalism is destroying self-reliance and others who argue that government interference does not increase our trouble and that eventually government aid will be a cure-all. But everyone agrees that taxes are too high. All candidates for office announce a determination to lower them. Even the very officials who have assisted in the creation of jobs, commissions, and so forth, bewail the lot of the farmer taxpayer. We learn that the thing to do is to elect men who will lower the price of things we must buy and also force the manufacturers of these articles to pay more taxes. Most tax-reduction schemes are merely tax-transference. Taxes on farm property in this region are absorbing over half of the net rental value. Consequently land values are decreasing. Ownership of land, instead of being an asset, is becoming a liability. Between 1900 and 1922 expenditures of the State of Wisconsin rose from $2,997,155 to $32,191,049 per annum. We need to re-recognize the function of government and the purpose of taxes. Recently in this county a special meeting of the county board was convened for the purpose of considering an appropriation to be distributed as loans to certain farmers who had not carried insurance and who had suffered severe losses in a windstorm. (Taxpayers effectively protested and prevented the appropriation.) It is and should be the privilege of any man to carry or not to carry insurance. If it is to be paid from taxes then it becomes compulsory. In a conversation with an instructor of one of our state normal schools I mentioned the fact of the special meeting as indicative of the local trend toward paternalism. To my surprise this teacher of teachers thought that there was nothing wrong in using public money for such a purpose. His concern was with the men who disbelieved in insurance until too late rather than with us who believed in it beforehand. I asked if the use of county money for such a purpose did not mean that the county would become eventually an insurance company. As we continued the discussion it appeared that he believed in increasing the functions of government. Taxes so low as to hamper the logical and original functions of government prevent appreciation of property. On the other hand extra services and illogical use of government funds cause rapid depreciation of property. If a farm were not complemented with adequate schools, roads, police protection, and so forth, it could not reach its normal value. But if schools, roads, and police protection are increased beyond the ability of the farm to maintain them, and if a host of advising and interfering public officials also are added to the farm's burden, then the farm depreciates rapidly. Many years ago I asked my father why the United States was so foolish as to sell land to pioneers for $1.25 an acre when everybody knew it would go up in value. He replied that public land yielded no income, that not until a settler made the land produce did it have more than a potential value that a combination of land and government resulted in no tax income, but a combination of land and private enterprise resulted in the creation of wealth, assistance to the government, and that the assistance was in proportion to the success of the individual. Near by is the county demonstration farm, of about 120 acres. It was bought before the war. Various owners paid taxes on the land in this farm from the time it left the possession of the United States in the thirties or forties until it was bought by the county. All this time it had been creating wealth for its owners and had assisted in carrying public burdens. Since it has been used as a model farm not only has it ceased to help carry the public burden, but the farmers of other land must carry the interest on its investment, its insurance, its taxes, and make up its annual deficit. For the year ending November 1, 1922, interest on the value of the farm, added to insurance, taxes, and $2115 deficit, meant that the taxes of about twenty farms its own size were required to carry it! Of course if such misuse of public money were only occasional the increase in taxation would not be felt. But where many other institutions having no logical place in a democratic government are added, and when care of the unfortunate is so elaborate as to make it worth while to be criminal or indigent, the total cost takes tax money which should be used on the farms for washing machines, lighting systems, and so forth. There is no group of people who would benefit so much by the elimination of public servants, offices, and paternalism in general, as farmers. We are an industry- I almost wrote the industry in which it is impossible to add our taxes and other overhead to the price of our products. Probably prices of articles we buy will never come down materially until we lighten the general expense of governing. This is not argued by those who have the most time for speech-making and writing, those who are holding jobs which make the unbearable taxes necessary. We need help in the retrenchment of public expenses. As for the other sane remedy—well, very few classes know more about thrift and wise management than the American farmer. AND IN THE HANGING GARDENS BY CONRAD AIKEN AND in the hanging gardens there is rain From midnight until one, striking the leaves And stretching strings of sound from eaves to ferns. Down from the turret window (curtained with rain) Into the lilacs. And at one o'clock The Vulcan under the garden wakes and beats The gong upon his anvil. Then the rain Ceases, but gently ceases, dripping still, And sound of falling water fills the dark Of golden hair. And reads: 'From there I went To a wild village in the hills, where none Was living save the vulture and the rat And one old man who laughed but could not speak. The roofs were fallen in, the well grown over VOL. 134-NO. 6 With weed. And it was here my father died. To turn, remembering home." And we were silent And at two o'clock The Vulcan in his smithy underground, Under the hanging gardens, where the drip Of rain among the clematis and ivy Still falls from sipping flower to purple flower, Was withered, and the horses, all but one, Upon the page between her two white arms And golden braids. The knave of diamonds wakes And at his window in the darkened room Watches the lilacs tossing, where the king Seeks for the goblet. And at three o'clock The moon inflames the lilac heads, and thrice The Vulcan, in his root-bound smithy, clangs His anvil; and the sounds creep softly up Among the vines and walls. The moon is round, Round as a shield above the turret top. The princess blows her candle out, and weeps In the pale room, where scent of lilacs comes, Holds in his hands a key, and softly steps Along the corridor, and slides the key Into the door that guards her. Meanwhile, slowly, The king, with raindrops on his beard and hands, And dripping sleeves, climbs up the turret stairs, Holding the goblet upright in one hand; And pauses on the midmost step, to taste One drop of wine, wherewith wild rain has mixed. |