OCR Text |
Show BACK TO THE SOIL The editor has been writing for many months that we were soon to face the greatest "back to the soil' movement the United States has ever seen, and has given his reasons for so predicting. Now comes Henry Ford into print, as our best little helper, saying: "People are coming back from the cities, or are being forced back. Men who were laid off during the shutdown shut-down of industry are taking off their ilk shirts and are drifting back to the farms. Many of them belong there by right. The fictitious war lime prosperity of the United Slates lured them away." Thanks, Henry. Let us analyse Mr. Ford's remarks "Are coming back from the cities." Yes, more, and more. The lure is lessening daily with every repeated wage reduction. "Or are being forced back;" many men are actually being forced back to the farms, "where they belong by right." Forced back by shut-downs, forced back by half time; forced back because the nearer we approach to a normal condition, con-dition, the more the farm really and truly appeals. And that is good where he says workmen who were lured to the cities by a temporary condition, are now "taking off their silk shirts and are drifting back to the farms" to the very farms from which they came a few years ago. Most of young men who left the farms do really and truly "belong there by right." We don't and Henry doesn't mean any slam in that; not that those men are unfit "or city duties and city life, but that ;' ose very men belong by right of normal conditions right back on the farms, producing, earning, making themselves more independent than they could ever hope to become In the artificial life of the big workshops work-shops and factories. Henry means that for seven years past any city could offer your boy or mine higher wages than the farm could pay; glittering pay per day for wage earners; payrolls making munitions at "cost plus" any price whatever to get It done, plus profit. Shooting men down Is expensive, either for nations to do It, or for Individuals to do it, and we spared no price at the game, nor did Germany. Ger-many. Hence an abnormal condition condi-tion arose, which many foolishly thought permanent. "Who'd come back to the old times?" was the wont of comment oft heard anytime in the last several years. Of course not. But Henry says. "The real damage done to the country was during that period, when we all said 'everything is fine, and the goose hangs high.' That was when the damage was done, for everything was not right; and the higher we shoved that fictitious goose the harder he plunked when he hit the skids again on the downward down-ward slide. Back to the soil. Thousands upon thousands of men will flock back. Farms will be in demand. As to how it applies to us In this region, let us say that there will he the heaviest demand for land right here we have ever had. if we only get in the midchannel of affairs and catch the drift. They will, want acreage. They will seek for acreage. And they will come to Delta If they are only told an opportunity exists here. Don't be behind Idaho, Oregon, Colorado or other states In telling homeseekers, "Here is the spot." Within ten months we will witness In the United States a nationwide movement. Prepare for It; bid for It; be In line with the other communities com-munities when they grab off theirs. For "back to the soli" It will be with a vengeance. It's coming. |