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FAMILY OF COLORED TENANT, 13 CHILDREN IN FAMILY (1 ABSENT)

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FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD PECAN GROVE NEAR ALBANY, SHOWING CLEAN SUMMER
CULTIVATION. THIS GROVE OF 20 ACRES PRODUCED 9,000 POUNDS OF PECANS
THIS YEAR OR 450 POUNDS PER ACRE, AT 40 CENTS PER POUND A VERY LOW
IT IS SUG-
AVERAGE TO BE EXPECTED. THIS AMOUNTS TO $170 PER ACRE.
GESTED THAT 10 ACRES OF PECANS BE PLANTED ON EACH 1-FAMILY 2-MILE
UNIT. THEY SHOULD BE PROFITABLE AT 8 YEARS, AND AT 15 YEARS SHOULD
THIS 20-ACRE GROVE
PAY A GOOD DIVIDEND ON THE ENTIRE INVESTMENT

HAS PRODUCED AN AVERAGE OF 10,000 POUNDS OF PECANS FOR THE LAST 3 YEARS

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part of the job. It is the problem of marketing-the intricate problems of marketing and farm finance. It is the problem of the farmer's keeping his hand on the products of his farm all the way from his field to the consumer's table. It is worth looking at― farm civilization that is doing these things; all of them. And God knows, if a civilization of the sort that you see in Denmark can be built out of the nature of the Dane, the thing is possible anywhere else on God's footstool; for of all the stubborn, hard-headed-well, a word comes to my mind which a young Dane used who was working his way across the continent, learning English and American conditions and customs" obsquatulate" people I know, it is the Danes. [Laughter.] The Danes are just that. And heaven knows, if you can get the Danes to learn the final art of living and working together happily, comfortably, and prosperously the thing is not an impossible dream, Doctor Mead, in America.

Now, who dreams this social dream? A civil engineer bred to the business of civil engineering. This is the man who has dreamed the most wonderful dream of social reclamation in America in my lifetime. It is Elwood Mead, who sets human values infinitely above reclaimed acres. [Prolonged applause.]

In traveling about over the heath lands of Jutland, Denmark, reclaimed by another social servant (an army engineer, not a sociologist), you will everywhere find busts and statues of Dalgas. I kept saying to myself I hope there is such a thing as reincarnation. I hope Doctor Mead will come back some day and see all the busts, statutes, and monuments that honor him for his social ideals realized at Durham, Calif., and in the Southern States of the Nation.

There are all sorts of problems to be solved in establishing colonies of directed farm owners. There is the problem of safely ordering the details and adjusting them to the needs of a going business, all the time offering not a charity but an opportunity. Nobody knows that any more keenly than Doctor Mead. There are all sorts of deft diplomacies in it. Whatever other problems there may be, we have got to solve in the South the problem of subsoiling the public mind about this thing. It is a whale of a job. We have got to go back to our constituencies and use the biggest tractor gang plow we can find to upheave the public mind in preparation for these colonies of directed farm owners.

I have been sitting down there in the audience listening all the morning to the stimulating utterances of the various speakers and thanking God that I have at last heard a United States Senator addressing himself to the essentials of an improved farm civilization in the South. I have been wonderfully inspired by everything I have heard, and yet I know that building a supporting public sentiment is the one indispensable preliminary objective.

We have for three years used Doctor Mead's book, Helping Men Own Farms, in seminars with groups of graduate students. One of these student groups turned out our own volume on Home and Farm Ownership.

During Governor Bickett's administration, and a golden-hearted gentleman he was, we had an opportunity to address both houses of the legislature, assembled in joint session in the senate chamber. We have worked for two years fingering, it may be fumbling, the things that Doctor Mead has just been talking about. When we got through presenting the subject of State aid to farm ownership, one dear old farmer member sprang to his feet like a jack-in-a-box, 6 feet 4 inches tall, and said, "I want to ask the gentleman two questions: First, is this thing you are talking about going to help me to get more and better tenants on my farm?" I knew legislatures well enough to know that the Angel Gabriel could not answer that question honestly and get away with it. He said, "Second, I want to know whether or not you gentlemen would be willing for the legislature to vote $1,500,000 instead of the $60,000 you ask, to be prorated to the counties and loaned to individual farmers here and there?" You get the significance of that? Senator Tyson sees that. I said to myself, the Angel Gabriel may resign, as the Lord God Almighty alone could answer that question with effective diplomacy. These two questions killed the proposition; killed it dead; killed it just as dead as a doornail, and you may remember that it took Dickens four pages to tell how dead a doornail was.

There is going to be needed in every State the most adroit, the most impressive, and the most convincing campaign of publicity that we have ever had in selling an article of commerce. I don't think we need to be in doubt about it for a minute.

I have had my lesson already. It is good to come into a gathering like this and to have the springs of youth and faith reopened in my soul, because I am just Presbyterian enough to believe that what ought to be will be. This thing ought to be. I don't believe our farm civilization or our national civilization can function properly without it. I don't believe that farm life can last forever in a civilization that is a tooth-and-nail, beak-and-talon struggle for survival and supremacy. We desperately need to learn the fine arts of working together and solving together the complex problems of farm civilization. We have got to dream of something that is better than the crowds I see on Pennsylvania Avenue or on the Hill, where the hub of the universe sticks visibly out. Crowds in every great city look to me like a lot of crabs in the bottom of a bucket, every crab crawling over every other crab trying to get on top.

The lesson of civilization that must be taught is mainly the lesson of living together comfortably, prosperously, and happily. With me it is a final social dream.

In closing, I want to call your attention to the fact that we might just as well lay our hands on our hearts as we go away from this conference. If it is possible for you to be convinced that directed colonies, that is, colonies of farm owners under expert guidance, are possible and necessary as a national policy, then it is a thing that we must solemnly pledgé ourselves to and devote ourselves to singlemindedly, with courage and unfailing patience during long years of effort. And meantime, we must stretch out a hand to this selfless public servant. He is almost the most timid man I know. In these days we don't often have a chance to look upon a genuinely modest man. When I leave I shall take him by the hand and say, "Count me in on this dream." [Prolonged applause.]

Mr. COKER. Gentlemen, two thoughts that I think may be emphasized came into my mind when Doctor Branson was giving us those mature and excellent thoughts of his. We have a very small audience as compared with the great millions of people in the South, but I found that, if you can get a small group of men pretty well scattered through the territory, if they understand the proposition and become enthused and determined and are willing to throw themselves into it and become responsible before the public, they can accomplish wonders; and I hope and believe that each one of us will go away thus enamored of this great ideal work that we are trying to start.

We are going to ask the Congress of the United States to do something to initiate this work. We are going to ask them for some money. I believe they are going to give us what we ask for. I feel confident they are. If we knew that without lifting a hand or saying another word the Congress would appropriate the money so that we could initiate these great experiments in the South, it would be none the less important to create the great public sentiment to sustain the action of our legislative body.

Just one other little thought. Have you ever thought of the rural schools in the South? Have you ever traveled through Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee; in fact, any of the rural districts? In most of those sections there is on every 10 miles of improved highway a fine school building right in the rural district. Our farmers there are attempting to educate their children to meet rural conditions. They have been unable to do it. They are imposing upon themselves, voluntarily, tax burdens which they are unable to bear. What is the result? They are educating their children

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