THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN FARMERS 1
The title of this paper indicates that, for the present purpose, the words " the rural community " have been interpreted to apply chiefly to farmers. Eight millions of our people are classed by the census as " semi-urban." The village problem is an interest- ing and important field for social investigation, but we shall dis- cuss only the conditions and needs of farmers.
In America the farm problem has not been adequately stud- ied. So stupendous has been the development of our manufactur- ing industries, so marvelous the growth of our urban population, so pressing the questions raised by modern city life, that the social and economic interests of the American farmer have, as a rule, received minor consideration. We are impressed with the rise of cities like Chicago, forgetting for the moment that half of the American people still live under rural conditions. We are per- plexed by the labor wars that are waged about us, for the time unmindful that one-third of the workers of this country make their living immediately from the soil. We are astounded, and perhaps alarmed, at the great centralization of capital, possibly not realizing that the capital invested in agriculture in the United States nearly equals the combined capital invested in the manu- facturing and railway industries. But if we pause to consider the scope and nature of the economic and social interests involved, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the farm problem is worthy of serious thought from students of our national welfare.
We are aware that agriculture does not hold the same relative rank among our industries that it did in former years, and that our city population has increased far more rapidly than has our rural population. We do not ignore the fact that urban industries are developing more rapidly than is agriculture, nor deny the seriousness of the actual depletion of rural population, and even of community decadence, in some portions of the Union. But
1 Read at the Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis, before the section of "The Rural Community."
606
