Show electricity reaches the homestead 1 I farming ca regains favor with youth rural depopulation trend reversed as agricultural industries begin developing new cultural A and mechanical opportunities 1 by JOSEPH W labine how ya gonna keep em down on the farm we used to have a lot of fun singing that good humored old ballad in the war days the question was qualified of course by the addition of the words after seen paree the idea was supposed to be that once a lad from the cornfields of iowa or the plantations of the old south had had a fling at the worlds gayest capital it was no simple task to reconcile him once more to a life of har hard d chores and high boots everybody sang it nobody believed it and it was swell propaganda for raising an expeditionary army today its not so funny keeping em down on the farm is a serious problem better educational opportunities lean times and the broader sophistication for which that same war was largely cespon sible have lured to the city many a young man who would otherwise have proudly aspired to the farming tradition land up population down in 1925 some per cent of the land area of the united states was in farms in 1930 this ratio had increased to per cent and by 1935 it had jumped to 6 per cent during these same years the rural population which had been per cent of the nations total in 1925 declined to per cent in 1935 but in a real democracy the social and economic pendulums do not swing too far out of line before a way is found to bring them back the last few years have seen a new appreciation of sociological readjustment and its effect has been to create new machinery for spreading to the farthest reaches of the land the cultural and mechanical benefits which have all too long obtained chiefly to the cities nowhere is this more apparent than in the concerted drive now under way to electrify american farms electrification booms the rural electrification administration organized in 1935 and feeling its way for the last two or three years is getting into full stride with plans to electrify american farms before june 30 during the first six months of this year it will aiu have lent or allocated funds to bring the benefits ot of electricity to a number of farms equal to more than one third of all the electrified farms there were in this country at the end of 1938 it is sate safe to predict that with the farms to be added independent of REA aid the present total will be doubled cloaked in these statistics are im ik V av this lad may some day be a i better poultry raiser than hit his dad homing future hens un der an electric hover certainly far vaster than the figures themselves portents far beyond the power of any allegorical string of electric light bulbs seven times the girth of the globe to illuminate it takes no more than a little anecdote to illustrate how electricity cable steel reinforced and miles of this have been required by REA in tour four ayearst years 1 new 1939 2939 orders will help to stabilize employment tor for arkansas vast bauxite mines from which the ore used in REA aluminum cable comes for or aluminum plant workers tor for the railroads for aluminum reduction and fabricating plants and even tor for the steel industry which provides cores tor for the cables still further good news for industry as well as an indication of the fuller life in store tor for the halt half million farms to be added to REA lines line s in the remainder of the fiscal year is an immediate demand tor for worth of appliances which the program is expected to create on the face of past records it may be prophesied that families will buy refrigerators will buy washing machines water pumps vacuum cleaners and will buy buy radios which is just one more indication perhaps that it is the cultural benefits of electricity that appeal to the farm AM zi 5 n 4 4 S stringing tri nging four lines of aluminum cable at once near horton hoi ton K kan a n REA projects have required miles of this cable and manufacturers of wiring materials even with the vast nature ot of Us this years program there will be much left to be done when REA first began to function only one farm in nine had electricity when this years program is carried out to its fullest extent three farms in five will still be without it it must not be imagined either that REAs path has been entirely T 41 X 9 se aw K Z Z REA and coop co op officials rode in an ox cars symbolizing the inconveniences of rural life in day as center ala paraded to celebrate its new electric service coupled with this day of the automobile the highway and the radio may well be a starting gun for the long awaited back to the soil decentralization which may some day supplant the br eadline the anecdote concerns a southeastern farmer who had bad been persuaded finally to sign up with an REA BEA coop co op social significance 1 I never would have believed what it has meant he told the coop superintendent some time after electric power had bad begun to relie relieve e his family from most of its drudgery my boys who are just entering or about ready tor for high school are making their plans about what they are going to do on the farm when they grow up it used to be they talked about what they wee wee going to do when they grew up seeming to have in mind everything else except farming nor will the cities be without compensation pensa tion for the benefits extended to the farms manufacturers will be materially helped new figures from the REA statisticians reveal that the total lent or made available by REA in the tour four years which will end june 30 will be of this amount is tor for material orders from which all industry draws extensive benefits twenty nine million dollars will have gone into poles and into line hardware and cross arms the effect upon industry is easily seen by making a brief analysis of any one of these items take the largest conductors for instance the united states has consumed some miles of aluminum er tor for only will buy elec trie irons small towns profit profit has come also to the small urban communities which exist as marketing and recreational centers tor for surrounding farm areas As an example from 1935 through 1938 farm homes were electrified to in the united states almost au requiring new wiring of the expended for this aspect of the work half was spent for labor performed locally by small electrical contra contractors actors who had not had much employment because of lack of local home construction the other hassone has gone to distria rosy REA makes no grants it lends money only and theoretically cannot be counted as one of the santa claus agencies its loans must be self liquidating or it wont lend but of all the millions loaned up to march 1 1939 less than in principal and interest had been repaid officials were plainly worried that revenues and repayments were not up to expectations now john M carmody REA administrator hopes a remedy will be found in legislation by the states which will be favorable to REA cooperatives experiencing financial difficulties REAs legislative plan now in effect in six states win will s seek eek to have lightened the state tax bur den on coops co ops relieve them of control by state power commissions and exempt their securities from blue sky laws how successful carmody gift be remains to be seen it seems plausible to expect from utility companies whose rural lines are benefactors from no such leniency 0 western newspaper union |