(C) Underwood & Underwood

life. Tropical and sub-tropical plant insects are again enabled to flourish in California, Florida, and other Gulf States. One wonders why there are not more farmers and fewer lawyers in Congress.

"America is over-industrialized," complains one farmer. "Factories are turning out luxuries, frills, and nonessentials. Our wealth must be replenished-we need more capital rather than more credit. We need more bumper crops. The Government should make it easier for industrious people to own farms. The Federal Farm Loan System cannot because it is limited to loaning to those who already own land and can offer security amounting to at least forty per cent of the loan. Through Federal, State, and local co-operation a loaning system might be modeled after building and loan associations."

One Maine farmer wants it made a crime punishable by imprisonment to speculate in farm products; he adds that marketing can never become satisfactory until we have a Government standard in grades. Another demands clarification and amendment of the anti-trust laws.

Here are six planks which the farmers of America asked the Republican and Democratic parties to put into their platforms:

1. We recognize agriculture as the fundamental industry, and we pledge

ourselves to give it practical and adequate representation in the Cabinet and in the appointment of Governmental officials, and of commissions on a bi-partisan basis.

2. We pledge to all farmers the full, free, and unquestioned right of cooperative maketing of their farm products and purchase of their supplies and protection against discrimination.

3. We pledge effective National control over the packers and all other great inter-State combinations of capital engaged for profit in the manufacturing, transportation, and distribution of food and other farm products and farm supplies.

4. We pledge legislation that will effectively check and reduce the growth and evils of farm tenancy. We pledge the perpetuation and strengthening of the Federal Farm Loan System, the improvement of facilities for loans on farm commodities, and the inauguration of a system for co-operative personal credit that will enable farmers to secure short-time credit on more favorable terms.

5. We pledge comprehensive studies of farm-production costs, at home and abroad, and the uncensored publication of facts found in such studies.

6. We pledge ourselves to accord agriculture the same consideration in tariff legislation as is accorded to other interests.

An agricultural economist from Pennsylvania declares that the hope of America lies in the harmonious devel

opment of her resources instead of sp cial privileges for certain other indus tries at the expense of agriculture. I Springfield, Massachusetts, the agr cultural center of the North Atlant States, the policy advocated is being worked out by the Hampden County Improvement League and the Eas

States Agricultural and Ind trial League. Their effort is to bring about a better understanding betwee country and city, to rebuild the dying agricultural life, to promote genen business prosperity. To the League be long leading manufacturers, merchants bankers, and farmers. All are conscios of the interdependence of manufactur ing, banking, and farming.

"More agricultural products are co sumed here in the East than are pro duced here," a large manufacturer d Springfield tells me. "The cost of food and of manufacturing is constantly in creasing as the population increases. I finance and manufacturing the West is the competitor of the East. But the East imports the greater part of it foodstuffs as well as most of its rav materials for manufacturing, while the West, in addition to raising most of its own foodstuffs, exports great quantitie of them. The West also has most of its raw manufacturing materials nearer a hand than the East."

The Eastern manufacturer, as are sult, has to pay his employees higher wages and has to pay more for his rav materials. When he goes into the mar ket with his goods in competition with the Western manufacturer, this double differential is greatly to the Easterners disadvantage. Abundant crops raised in the East would help offset this dis advantage and would mean greater social contentment on the part of employees through reduction of their cost of living. New England manufacturers cannot continue much longer to increase wages more rapidly than their Wester competitors. Driven by these conditions, some New England industries have moved West and some South, but either an extensive exodus of industries from New England or a lowering of standards of living of New England wage-earners would be fatal to New England. Manufacturers and bankers have begun to comprehend that their prosperity is fundamentally dependent upon that of the farmer.

ONE LEAGUE THAT WORKS

Hampden County, Massachusetts, has not been the same since the League got under way. The League has shown farmers how they can increase their potato crops from twenty-five per cent to seventy-eight per cent. The county to-day produces about two hundred per cent more and better fruit than in 1913. Rotation of crops has been ap plied to idle lands. There has been a large increase in swine raising. Five years ago the county was rapidly abandoning

dairy farming; to-day the League has imbued dairymen with new confidence. Production of eggs has increased. Carloads of sheep have been brought from the West. Balanced rations for animals, modern farm plants, drainage, and sanitation are now the rule. Co-operative buying and marketing have saved these farmers thousands of dollars, and have headed off the tendency toward too great an individualism among farmers. The Granville Apple By-Products Plant has recently been organized on co-operative lines, and will save the farmers thousands of bushels of apples heretofore almost given away or not even picked. The plant will manufacture apple juice, apple butter, vinegar, and jellies.

A farmers' co-operative market has been organized at Springfield to sell I direct to the consumers only. The League has established through two loan associations a credit system which is patronized liberally by the farmers. It is striking at the solution of one of the biggest farm problems, that of labor. Farms have a knack of demanding that they be operated by human beings. A perfectly amazing system of boys' and girls' clubs has been established with a membership of nine thousand for the single county of Hampden. All of these young Americans are actively engaged under expert supervision in the care of chickens, pigs, calves, sheep, bees, and gardens. I was amazed at the zest, the eagerness, and the spirit of play these young people put into their new-found earning power. They are catching the farm spirit, and many of them are already laying plans to become owners of farms.

The Home-Making Department of the League lays great stress upon the relation of foods to health. In four years fifty groups of women have taken up this subject. The importance of milk as a food is widely taught and advertised. The League is fighting malnutrition, lack of teeth care, the housefly, and poor clothing habits. It introduces labor-saving devices, and teaches household accounting and budgetmaking. Each woman pledges herself to pass on to others what she herself learns. All these and other activities are carried on among the foreignspeaking populations as well.

This significant programme is for city people as well as for country folk. Teaching and practicing sound economics of production and distribution, making better and brighter homes, bringing city and country into better understanding and closer co-operationsuch are the services of the Hampden County League.

The Eastern States Agricultural and Industrial League, Incorporated, now operating in the ten North Atlantic States, was organized about two years ago. It has thousands of members. They believe that farmers need pros

THE REMEDY

What should our future policy toward agriculture be? What programme of agricultural reconstruction do we need?

1. The vital relation of agriculture to National and personal wellbeing should be taught to the 25,000,000 or more people attending our schools.

2. The number of our agricultural schools should be greatly increased at once, and a truly National system of agricultural education effected.

3. Our rural school system needs to be overhauled and reorganized, and city-bred boys and girls should have the chance to learn farming.

4. All newspapers and magazines in the United States should keep their readers consistently informed as to the real problems of agriculture, and should make constructive criticisms.

5. The existing system of distributing food products from the country to the cities and towns, which has been organized without the slightest consideration of the farmers, should be reorganized in the interest of both producers and consumers. Our present system is costly, inefficient, wasteful, and unfair.

6. Some sound system of effecting ownership of farms by those who wish to own farms, but cannot on account of lack of capital, should be devised. In this system the capitalizing of approved character must be an essential part.

7. Farming must be so reorganized that it can pay wages and grant working conditions that will compare favorably with other industries.

8. Both National and State legislation should recognize and encourage collective bargaining among farmers.

9. The farmer must have actual and practical voice in government by appointment and election to public positions, and should be called into council when questions affecting commerce, trade, and transportation, both National and international, are being discussed and decided.

10. The Government should keep men in all foreign countries studying the methods and the tendencies of agriculture, and widespread notice should be given of the results of such studies.

11. Farmers and consumers should organize throughout our country for direct dealing with each other.

perous industries and thriving customers, and that manufacturers, bankers, merchants, and urban consumers need prosperous farmers.

The League is accomplishing its purposes through six special means. The Eastern States Farmers' Exchange purchased at wholesale for farmers $1,725,518 worth of farm supplies. The Eastern States Consumers' Exchange buys at wholesale prices for scores of employees' co-operative stores; new stores are constantly being established, especially in manufacturing centers. The Farm Finance Bureau has established the Eastern States Agricultural Trust and has arranged credit among bankers and business men sufficient to finance $10,000,000 of farm business annually. The credit can be expanded to almost any amount as the business of the Farmers' Exchange increases; and this phase of the work of the League alone is a great factor in getting city and country to understand each other. The Home Bureau of the League operates along lines similar to those pursued in Hampden County.

The League is organizing rural and urban boys and girls into Junior Achievement Clubs. Although this effort is only a few months old, over one hundred thousand boys and girls already belong to the clubs, and more than $300,000 of the $500,000 asked for the work has been subscribed. 'In Springfield seventy leading business men have volunteered as leaders in this work. Its objects are to set a standard of achievement in work programmes; to make work popular through club projects under trained leadership; to develop a sportsmanlike attitude toward productive work; to capitalize industry, commerce, and agriculture for the benefit of boys and girls; to assist young people to earn money and own property; to acquire habits of thrift and be businesslike. To attain independence at fifty is another aim.

Had I not seen with my own eyes, it would be rather difficult for me to believe what these clubs are achieving.

To the manufacturer it means more and better food supplies for his emΤο ployees at lower cost efficiency. the employee it means more purchasing power in his dollar, better living conditions, and greater efficiency. To the banker it means a steadily increasing field for his operations due to greater industrial and farming prosperity. To the merchant it means more sales and quicker payment of bills. To the farmer it means more economic production, more satisfactory marketing accommodations, greater prosperity, and better home and community life.

"The well-being of the people is like a tree agriculture is its root; manufacture and commerce are its branches and life," wrote a Chinese philosopher. "If the root is injured, the leaves fall, the branches break, and the tree dies."

W

THEN Simon Lee, the shoemaker, left Blue Hill Village on his strange quest, he seemed to steal away. It is a curious fact that you cannot get out of Blue Hill Village even in the daytime without seeming to steal away. When you walk down the only street, which twists exactly like the letter S, you are never visible from more than one house at a time. A branch which you have disturbed sweeps into place behind you, or an oak tree shadows you, or the corner of a log cabin conceals If you step out of the village in any direction, north or south or east or west, meaning to descend into the valley or to ascend the mountain, you are swallowed up, even in the narrow road, by a sea of verdure.

W

you.

HEN young John McIntyre and Benny Lucas marched away early one summer evening, there could be no formal procession, because there was no place in which to march. There was, however, an escort. Grandfather McIntyre walked first, tooting on an old fife, and then came the boys, each with a little bundle, and then the fathers and mothers and the few young girls and the children. They kept close together, and the group was so small that they never occupied at one time more than one limb of the letter S.

Not only did elderberry bushes and early shadows and corners of house walls hide their bodies, but a loud sound drowned out their voices and made their little celebration seem ridiculous. The sound was that produced by whippoorwills whooping above their heads. The whippoorwills seemed to mock them and jeer at them. It is to be regretfully recorded that Will Lucas, who could not go to war because he was lame, turned and put out his tongue in the direction of a particularly scornful bird.

Simon Lee, sitting in his little house, tapped and tapped and did not bestir himself. But Blue Hill Village knew that Simon Lee had given each boy twenty-five dollars, a princely gift, and that it was he who would look after Gran'pa McIntyre. What Blue Hill Village did not realize was that Simon, seeing a faint glow of amazement and disapproval in the breasts of Blue Hill Village in the summer of 1914, had watched it and sheltered it and put fuel delicately upon it, so that in this summer evening of 1917 it flamed to a consuming fire in the hearts of John and Benny and other Blue Hill Villagers. Simon had books and newspapers and knowledge of the outside world; he was Blue Hill Village's only Mercury.

He was also Blue Hill Village's only

A STORY

BY ELSIE SINGMASTER encyclopædia, and of him Benny and John made constant use.

"Do you think they had guns on the Lusitania, Simon ?"

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'No," thundered Simon. He was a little man, but his voice was the voice of a giant.

"Do you think we ought to go into it, Simon ?"

"I think we ought to be in it," roared Simon.

About matters nearer home Simon knew everything. Thin and spare, he looked to be about sixty-five, but he was in reality seventy-three, and his memory went back to a time about which the lads now grew suddenly curious. Blue Hill Village had remained exactly as it was for fifty years, since war had maimed and molded it. It did not realize that the earth had more than once turned upon its axis. It held old traditions, it felt old griefs, old antagonisms, old divisions. In the minds of Blue Hill Village there was still a North and a South.

66

"T's a pity we had to fight the

South," said John McIntyre. He sat on the edge of Simon's bench piercing a piece of leather with an awl.

Will Lucas answered from his perch on a shelf. Will always clambered about as though bent upon proving that lameness was nothing.

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They hadn't any business to cut up the way they did. They were rebels.

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"There are Southern boys and Northern boys together in the camps," said John McIntyre. "Do you suppose there will be any trouble? It would be a shame if there were.

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"Don't you give trouble!" cried Simon. There are words must be forgotten, like 'Yank' and 'Reb.' They can be forgotten if you think of what you have to do now. You must be peacemakers if you can." Simon trembled. The proximity of boys from Maine and boys from Alabama was to his mind full of peril; the action of the Government in placing them together a tragic mistake.

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But we were right," said John McIntyre, earnestly.

Simon Lee rose from his old bench. "As right as right," said he.

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They say there was folks in this State didn't think so," said Benny Lucas. My pop says that. He says there was none of them round here, though. They were going to betray the North even though they were Northerners. 'Sons of Liberty,' they called themselves, and Knights of the Golden Circle.' But the Government found them and took their names, and made a record of them, thousands and

thousands. I wouldn't like to have my name on that record."

Simon Lee began to put away his tools. He looked very pale; it seemed that the perfidy of Sons of Liberty was too much for him.

"God bless Abraham Lincoln !" said he, apropos of nothing at all.

HEN the procession was over and John and Benny had been swallowed up and the whippoorwills seemed to grow hysterical in their mockery, and doors closed and shut out the cool ere ning air, Simon Lee laid down his ham mer and put his shop in order for the night and took off his leather apron and went up the rough street. It was a starless night, and he made his way slowly to Grandfather McIntyre's door. There he lifted the latch and went in with an explanatory "It's me." Inside he locked the door and then sat down heavily in the unoccupied chair of the two which were all the little kitchen could accommodate.

Grandfather McIntyre looked up with tearful eyes. They had been boys together, but Simon Lee did not show his years, and Grandfather McIntyre, white-bearded and tremulous, looked much older than he was.

The cries of the whippoorwill pene trated here; they seemed to mock, be fore they were uttered, any thoughts or plans which were to be expressed.

"You seen 'em go?" said Gran'pa McIntyre at last. He spoke like the rest of Blue Hill Village in a patois which had in it now a Southern drawl and now a Yankee crispness.

Simon made no direct answer; he said, "God help me!" not profanely. but as though he were actually calling upon God, and covered his face with his hands.

"Don't, Simon!" protested Gran'a McIntyre. He did not know the reason for his friend's depression, but he was always sympathetic.

Though he had only just come, Simon rose from his chair.

res read, but he stayed, not wishing hurt Gran'pa McIntyre's feelings. "I will read from Leviticus, the twenfifth chapter," announced Gran'pa cIntyre as though he were in church. e was Blue Hill Village's lay reader, d he believed that which he read. "And thou shalt number seven sabths of years unto thee, seven times ven years; and the space of the seven obaths of years shall be unto thee rty and nine years.

"Then shalt thou cause the trumpet the jubilee to sound on the tenth day the seventh month, in the day of onement shall ye make the trumpet und throughout all your land. "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth ar, and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants ereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you."" Gran'pa McIntyre went on and on. e was proud of his round voice and his ability to read without stumbling er the hardest words. He did not ow when Simon rose and slipped way. When he reached the end of the enty-seventh chapter and found him ne, he was afraid that he had nodded d that Simon was offended.

But Simon was not offended. He was tensely preoccupied, and he walked wn the dark, rough road uncertainly ke a drunken man. His breath came ickly and painfully. Simon saw sudnly a light, pale and wavering, against great darkness. Sometimes it grew ighter, then it faded away, then once ore it brightened. It was Gran'pa cIntyre's reading which had created e illumination.

Inside his little house, he leaned gainst the door, which he had closed hind him. He passed his hand before s eyes as though to clear away some Oscuring medium. Presently he burst to speech:

"A year of jubilee!" said Simon. A year of jubilee !"

Suddenly he stretched out his arms though reaching for some great boon. eads of perspiration appeared upon is forehead, and his eyes stared as ough he saw again a pale gleam of Fope. Into his mind came disconnected ords and phrases, and he repeated em aloud.

"A far country," said Simon, and hen other words which sounded like I will arise and go."

After a long time he began to move owly about. He took from a shelf a usty satchel, and wiped it with his iff shoemaker's apron and put into it few articles. Then he lay down pon his bed. The whippoorwills still houted, as though they mocked his trange distress.

Not only the woods hid Simon, but arkness seemed to swallow him when e went away. He announced his going no one; between the hour of his esolution and the hour of his departre his friends slept. It was not the

first time he had gone away from Blue Hill Village, and this was his invariable manner of departure. He was so early that he seemed to wake the birds, and dawn was a pageant spread especially for him. The boles of the trees turned golden, the surface of the brown streams brightened. But, though he was not insensible to beauty, he was at this moment blind and dull. He walked on, his head bent. He longed for John McIntyre's Bible.

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They forgave everything and everything was wiped out in the year of jubilee," said he to himself. That much I am certain of. Oh, I hope this may be wiped out for me!"

John McIntyre and Benny Lucas had walked eighteen miles to the county seat, where they were to take a train with other drafted boys, but Simon, being a rich man, walked only to the nearest village, and there hired a team. The boys would go West to a camp, but he was going east to Washington. He had never seen Washington, and it had to him all the beauty of a dimly imagined heaven and all the dangers of a forbidden city. "Government" had its seat there, and to Simon, who was familiar with "Les Misérables," Government was a sort of Javert, cold, unforgetting, implacable. Woe to him who by his own crimes wrote himself down on its black books!

To

OWNS and cities sped by, the train climbed hills and tunneled mountains and crossed rivers. Simon slept through short, uneasy naps, finding himself with less courage at each waking. That which he hoped to find at the end of his journey was a miracle.

He was sufficiently well informed about war-time conditions to know that one does not walk into Washington and choose one's room. He was prepared to sleep in a park or on a seat in the railway station if it were necessary to stay over one night or two. A few hours of bodily discomfort would be a small price to pay for the cure of his soul's anguish.

But he was not prepared for the chaos which he found. He spoke on the first day with a hundred persons who could tell him nothing, young clerks who answered him vaguely and sent him to other young clerks, who answered him impatiently or who directed him to still other clerks in order to be rid of him. When some one asked him, savagely, savagely, "Can't you explain what you want?" he stumbled away. The clerk had touched the heart of his trouble. Without an explicit statement of his case they could not advise, and Simon could not tell his shame to these young

ears.

At the end of the day he sat down in the railway station and closed his eyes. He did not even try to find a room; he was too weary now to attempt a useless quest. His little satchel on his

knee prevented a reminder that the station was not a hotel.

When, after an hour or two, he woke, his mind was keener. Again the light of hope glimmered. He blamed himself for a foolish waste of time. He would not have needed to ask any questions. There was a library in which Government records were kept; there was the place to go. There he might even see for himself what was written against him. He turned his gray head to the other side and slept heavily.

At the end of the second day he rested his head once more on the hard back of a seat and was again for some reason left undisturbed. He had found the library and had walked about dazzled and confused.

"I will get acquainted," said he. "After a while I will know whom I must ask."

But he found no one. He sat down in the reading-room and there nodded. Kindly attendants let him be, seeing

that he did no harm.

To-morrow he would go back. He began now to be frightened. He felt so small, so unimportant, except for his long-past crime. A miracle seemed as impossible to him as to the most cynical of atheists. His sin was written, his quest was a mad one. He would try only one more day.

This time Simon went directly to the desk.

"I want to see the records," he explained, frightened by the sound of his own deep voice.

"What records do you mean?" asked the young woman. "The Congressional records?"

Simon drew a sharp breath.

"There are hundreds of volumes,' explained the clerk. "What particular subject were you looking for?"

Simon's face colored darkly. "The Civil War, ma'am," he explained vaguely.

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"You look over there in that catalogue and if you can't find what you want come back."

Simon did as he was directed. With shaking hand he pulled out drawer after drawer, with wavering glance_he stared at card after card. It seemed to him that records were like the leaves of his forest for multitude. He returned to the desk.

"Is there any one here who can explain to me about these books?" he asked, hopelessly.

"Major Bain will be here presently. He is a veteran of the war; perhaps he can tell you.'

Simon sat down in the nearest chair. His head nodded. Then he straightened up, a sharp fear jerking him out of sleep. This fear was a ghastly one. He rose and approached the desk.

"Was more than one copy of the

H

E meant now to hasten home, to take the first train. Miracles he knew could not happen.

Then he felt a touch on his arm. Despairing of making him hear, the young woman had reached across her desk and laid hold on him.

"Here is Major Bain. He'll tell you what you want to know."

Simon tried to protest. "I know everything I want to know. I am going home. Oh, let me go home!"

But Major Bain, a gray-haired veteran, had him by the arm. It was his special business to be kind to his comrades, and it was a comrade whom he thought he saw. He led Simon across the room and into a little office and closed the door.

Now, sir, we can talk in peace. What is it you are hunting for?"

Simon Lee looked at him. His cheeks quivered.

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Nothing, sir. I found out what I wanted to know."

Major Bain looked at him the more kindly.

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It's fine to see our boys going," said he, genially. "I have four grandsons. I suppose you have your share, too? They are adding to our record, sir."

Simon was a reserved and composed person. But he was mentally and physically exhausted, he was sore of heart, he was despairing. Grandsons? Alas for the romance of his dim past, ended by death! His record? Alas for that! He was seized, and suddenly, by an irresistible impulse to tell all his woes. It was entirely an impulse of self-pity, but a single indulgence in self-pity in seventy years may be excused.

"I have no children or grandchildren," said Simon. "I have no living kin. And I have nothing to recall but In '63 I was tempted and I misery. fell. I was young, and I was worked upon by those older than me."

"You were a Confederate?" said Major Bain. Then he smiled. "Why, sir, that is nothing. That is past. We were fair enemies. We-"

Simon interrupted the friendly speech.

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No," said he steadily. "I was not a Confederate. "I was a Son of Liberty."

"Oh!" The exclamation was long drawn out. Clearly a Son of Liberty was a different order of being from a Confederate. Major Bain looked gravely at Simon, his bright color a little dimmed.

"I was misled. I have repented it for fifty years. I thought there might be a year of jubilee to wipe it out. The Government took our names and wrote them down, thousands of them. I thought they might be destroyed now. I could not bear to die and have my name on such a list. There must be other old men like me. But I understand the records are printed. It is too late. I have not even a grandson to blot it out. I'

Simon was shown hundreds of books

row upon row, alike in binding. "There are the others," explaini Major Bain. "But two are lacking Then Major Bain capped the situatio neatly. "Mercy is better than justice," said he.

IMON did not know how he said good-by. His next conscious moment found him outside. He stood looking down upon an enchanted prospect, and it seemed to him that he felt a spirit near him. It was not Javert; Jave was gone; it was another, great, wis beneficent, who became for him a sym bol. Simon stretched out his arms He did not realize that his hands wer empty and that the little satchel which he carried was somewhere behind him: he never, indeed, remembered where it

"God bless Abraham Lincoln!" said he with a full heart.

But an emotion even more intense was to fill the breast of Simon Le Toward him came a group of soldier brawny fellows who sang loudly a song which made his heart stand still. The were Southerners-he could tell it from their voices. It was cruel to have bea so elated and to be now so terrifie as was poor Simon. For they sang "Dixie" loudly, defiantly, as though they did not realize that the past mus be ignored, forgotten, forgiven. Sime stumbled toward them. Perhaps could persuade them that their cou was perilous. Then he stopped short It was a world gone mad! They ha changed their tune; they were singing. they were singing, these lads from Alabama:

"The Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,

The drums rum-tumming every-
where."

"The Yanks!" said Simon, and again. "The Yanks!" and still again, "The Yanks!"

The boys swept by him and Simon Lee looked after them. From the bottom of the steps he saw them sil houetted against the sky. They stood with their arms locked, magnificent as though sculptured from some warm marble.

They don't know what they're singing," said Simon, hysterically. "It's past and gone. They'd as soon sing one song as another. They don't know any better; South or North or Sons of Liberty, it's all one to 'em. God bless 'em!"

Then Simon stroked his thin old cheeks. The climax of his happines was, after all, tearful. “Oh, I wish I was young like them." said Simon Lee.