THE ECONOMIC CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCH
As one travels through the rural districts of America and observes
differences in the standards of living he is convinced that human
welfare depends very largely on economic conditions. The broad,
well-tilled fields of Iowa, surrounding large, well-built houses, big
red barns and other outbuildings, form a marked contrast with the
patches of corn in irregular fields cleared from the brush and scrub
trees on hillsides in Tennessee or Kentucky, and the hovels and
rundown farm buildings which go under the name of homes for the hill
people. Healthy, well-dressed, happy children attending good schools
of the most modern type in the corn belt undoubtedly have the
advantage of the boys and girls in the hills who often do not learn to
read and write before they are ten years old, if at all, and when they
do go to school must be taught by poorly trained teachers for short
terms, ending before the holidays, and in one-room schools often
attended by nearly a hundred children. Religious service and
leadership in the one section under the direction of college and
theological seminary men can hardly be put in the same class with the
highly emotional expression of religious impulses of the mountain
section led by once-a-month absentee pastors with no education, or,
worse still, by wandering so-called evangelists of doubtful morality.
One could go through the whole list of contrasts between the
economically well-favored sections of the country and the less favored
agricultural sections and in no way would the advantage be on the side
of the latter.
Efficient social and religious institutions cannot be built on poor
economic foundations. So long as a section of the country cannot
afford to pay more than five hundred dollars per year for teachers or
preachers, it cannot hope to have the leadership possible to another
section where ministers to rural people can easily secure eighteen
hundred to three thousand dollars per year. Good buildings cannot be
erected, nor can any of the material comforts which go to make up the
foundation of civilized life be enjoyed.
For the sake of the church, as well as the people, the church must
attend to the economic foundations of rural life. It is unfortunate
for many parts of the United States that the ministry has become so
separated from real life by the mystical trend in religion that it has
rendered practically no service in laying the foundations for the
continuance of the communities themselves.
The shift of population from rural to urban centers which the census
records show has continued, if anything, at an accelerated speed,
indicates the seriousness of the problem. A part of the shift is
doubtless due to improvements made in methods of production. So far as
this is the cause there is no reason to be disturbed over the
tendency, as it is useless to try to keep young men and women in an
occupation that does not offer opportunity for earning a living. Part
of the shift may be due to the living conditions in the country. This
is but an indication of the task of the church on the social side and
can be changed as economic welfare permits. But the fact that rural
population has been leaving the farms and that agricultural lands
have been abandoned by thousands of acres, indicates that urban
opportunities have far outbid the rural in financial returns, variety
of openings, and in working conditions. The farmer's income must be
increased as compared with other groups before there can be a
well-balanced relatively stable American life. Until this is achieved
those who are trying to build up rural institutions as strong as those
in urban centers will be engaged in a hopeless task.
Eminent, conscientious Christian gentlemen, leaders in religious
thought, and occasionally country ministers, have accused those who
maintain that the church should have a vital active interest in
improving economic welfare of trying to make hog-cholera experts out
of preachers, thus taking them away from their real tasks. It is
believed that knowledge of hog cholera and of the agencies that can
help the farmer to prevent it will not injure the standing of any
rural minister. It is maintained with reference to care for economic
welfare that it is the business of the church to encourage economic
improvement so far as possible (1) by giving advice and assisting in
demonstration work when no other organized agency is in a position to
render this service, and (2) by opening the way to other organized
agencies to perform this service. This is the prime business of the
agricultural colleges through their extension service. But it has been
the experience of agricultural colleges that they have the greatest
difficulty in establishing relationships in those agricultural
sections where their service is needed the most. The minister of the
gospel, being one of the two or three paid leaders in a local
community, enjoying a measure of the confidence of the people, and
having a large part of his time available for pastoral duties, has the
opportunity and the obligation to tactfully bring to the community the
assistance of these other agencies now provided by the State. When he
has done this he can rest assured that he has accomplished something
that will become the foundation for a far higher, more satisfying
rural life.
Although ultimately the problem of production in agriculture will
probably be a most serious one, because of influences such as
soil-mining, deforestation, and depletion of soil through erosion,
the immediate problems are, rather, the adjustment of production to
demand so that the farmer will be on a more equitable income basis
with other elements in the population. When there is newspaper talk of
again burning corn for fuel, when wool is a drug on the market, and
when farmers' organizations are urging the decrease in the acreage of
cotton, it is idle to talk of agricultural welfare being synonymous
with ability to increase crop acreage or production per acre.
Agricultural colleges and other State agencies have devoted the large
part of their efforts to study of problems of production. The results
of their services to date have been to so improve production as to
hasten the population movement from the farms to the cities. This
tendency to aid production to the point of exceeding equitable demand
has been of economic value to the great centers but it has not
encouraged the continuance on the farm of a large population, nor has
it enabled the farmer to compete with the townsman in maintaining a
satisfactory standard of living. It would seem that the producing
ability of the farmer has been his misfortune, and that his friends
who have taught him to produce more have been his worst enemies.
When a manufacturing plant closes down because it cannot sell its
goods at a given price, or when a retailer refuses to handle goods
below a price believed by many to be excessive, little is said. But
when the farmer tries to adjust his production to demand by limiting
production there is widespread criticism of his conduct. There should
be continuance of efforts to retain the fertility of the soil, to
improve methods of cultivation, and to prevent destruction of wide
areas through erosion. The patrimony of the nation must be preserved
through wise policies of reforestation and reclamation of waste lands.
But the great immediate task is that of adjusting production to demand
so that the rural population may advance in material welfare along
with other groups. In a competitive organization of industry the
farmers success is gauged by his net income rather than by the number
of bushels of corn or bales of cotton he produces.
A sinister tendency in the higher-priced general agricultural sections
is that of increase in the number of farms operated by farm tenants.
Certain writers have attempted to prove that this tendency is taken
too seriously. But the evidence of the United States Census from
decade to decade indicates that the danger is real; and that the
sooner a policy of control is adopted the better.
The handicaps to agriculture through this increase are manifold. In a
large proportion of cases, as shown by studies in typical areas, the
landowner does not live on a neighboring farm, nor is he a retired
parent or other relative of the tenant farmer. He lives in the
neighboring city. Consequently, the rental from the farm goes to help
build up the material welfare of the urban center. The contributions
of the absentee landlord to church work go to supplement the salary of
a city pastor on a scale far beyond the competing ability of the rural
church where his land is located. His contributions to benevolences
are paid for out of the income from his four-hundred-acre farm but are
credited to the city church of which he is a member instead of to the
rural church in the community where his land is located. Because of
the transient nature of his residence the tenant, who remains on the
farm on the average less than two years, has but little permanent
interest in the life of the community and lacks the stability to
become a valuable factor in building up strong rural institutions. The
landlord, as previously suggested, has been known to oppose measures
for consolidation of rural schools because such consolidation might
increase taxes, and has been known to threaten tenants with
dispossession if they should vote for consolidation. The constant
moving of the tenant has handicapped the children in getting a good
common-school education because of the breaks in their training
resulting from this constant changing of residence.
The tenant house, with all its implications of class-distinction, has
come to the country side in increasing numbers. And slowly but
gradually a landed aristocracy is growing up in rural America as
marked as the landed aristocracy based on the purchase of a few acres
of Manhattan Island several generations ago. And with the tenant has
come the farm laborer, alien to the community, transient, and as much
a member of the proletariat as if he were working in a great factory
in the city. The I. W. W. movement in the wheat fields and lumber
camps of the Northwest is but the beginning of the wage-earning
consciousness as it spreads out from urban centers.
The short term of tenant operation is lowering the standards of
agriculture. Instead of farming on a long-time schedule, expecting
returns on a system of husbandry reaching through the years, the
tenant is inclined to produce such crops as can be disposed of at the
close of the year, regardless of the effect of such a form of
agriculture upon the fertility of the soil. Tenant contracts as yet
offer little inducement for the tenant to remain permanently on a
given farm or to keep up needed improvements.
The tenant for the time being may even make larger profits as a tenant
than as an owner. But the tendency everywhere for rents to rise, and
the consequent increase in the value of the land, will ultimately
bring the tenant to the position of securing from his labor on the
farm an income not much in excess of what he would receive from
working as a day laborer. The result in the long run will be that the
best agricultural sections of the country will be occupied by a
population lower in ability than in a landowning section and
constantly kept down by poverty. This prediction may be deemed
fanciful by some, but the writer believes that it is worthy of the
most careful consideration and study.
Since the organization of the great combinations in the oil and sugar
industries during the 70's and 80's of the past century the movement
toward close industrial organization has proceeded with little
interruption. Legislation has been passed designed to break up
industrial combinations and from time to time various industries have
been disintegrated. But the layman has not been able to discover that
such disintegrations by court order have had any marked influence on
the progress of the fundamental tendencies toward industrial
consolidation. The farmers have been the last to get into the
organization field on any extensive scale. The Grange and the Farmers'
Alliance, and later the Farmers' Union, have made attempts and,
although many failures are recorded, their work paved the way for a
far larger movement toward farm organization now under way. The
tendency toward close organization of industrial groups may also be
seen in the labor movement, the American Federation of Labor and the
Industrial Workers of the World in this country, and the syndicalist
movement in Europe; and in the organization of employers' associations
and the National Chamber of Commerce on the part of business men.
Whatever may be thought of the unfortunate phases of this movement
toward closely organized group consciousness, however Bolshevistic it
may be said to be, it must be recognized that class consciousness has
come to stay. The old-type citizen who voted as a Republican or a
Democrat and as an individual regardless of his industrial
affiliations is passing away, and to-day the business men as a class,
the wage-earners as a class, the farmers as a class, approach the
leaders of both traditional parties with their ultimatums as to what
they will do if certain policies are not recorded in their respective
platforms. And the best-organized groups, those that can swing the
most votes or can produce the largest financial inducements, are the
ones that get most consideration. This may be Bolshevism, but if it
is, it is a fact in American life, and we may as well adjust ourselves
to handling the situation wisely instead of lamenting the passing of
the system of individual representation which was the basis on which
American government was founded.
The farmer cannot be accused of leadership in this change in the
American State. Business men and wage-earners began it, and the farmer
has been forced to follow their example. The old type individualism of
the landowning-operating farmer has long handicapped the farmer in his
relations with other industrial groups. And it is with many mistakes
and setbacks that he is now endeavoring to follow the example so ably
set by the multimillionaires of the other groups. Better organization,
not for exploitation but for protection and maintenance of a safe
balance of influence in economic affairs, is fully justified, and the
minister of the gospel is serving the farmer best when he encourages
right and efficient organization.
The American Farm Bureau Federation, begun a few years ago through the
encouragement of county agricultural agents in order to give them a
point of contact with groups of farmers and to give local support of
the county agent's work, has now taken into its own hands the task of
farmer organization. And now, with resources far beyond what could
have been dreamed of a few years ago, this organization is embarking
on programs of farmers' business organization almost too staggering in
their size to be comprehended. If rightly managed, and if farmers can
prove loyal to their own organization, this movement is destined to
solve many of the problems of intergroup relationships confronting the
farmers during the past few decades.
As a part of the modern farmer organization movement, and holding
within itself the largest promise of social values, is the
encouragement of cooperation. Since the days in 1844, when a little
group of wage-earners in England, out of work and gathered round a
fire in a tavern, decided to go into business for themselves on a
basis of one-man one vote, and distribution of profits on business
done with the concern instead of stock held, the movement has
continued to spread all over the world until to-day it holds a very
important place in many lines of industry in leading countries.
In this country cooperation has been an agricultural rather than an
urban development, primarily because economic conditions have made it
more necessary in agriculture than elsewhere. Farmers' elevators,
live-stock shipping associations, insurance companies, fruit-and
produce-marketing organizations have all gained a sound footing and
each year shows an increase in their numbers. The movement has been
consistently fought by competitive profit-seeking interests but
without avail further than to delay the movement. In the early days
discrimination in furnishing cars, underbidding, misrepresentation,
adverse legislation all had to be overcome, in addition to the fact
that ignorance of business principles often led to failure. Even now,
within the past five years, agricultural colleges have been prevented
from adding advisers on cooperative organization to their extension
staffs, retail merchants' associations have prevented cooperative
organization legislation, and insidious attempts have been made to
prevent popular education with reference to the movement.
The cooperative movement offers the greatest opportunity for the
country minister for definite service in the farmers' economic
progress. The principle underlying the movement is "Each for all, and
all for each." Instead of the capitalist and laborer being in opposite
camps under the necessity for bargaining, and each doing as little as
possible and getting as much as possible for their respective shares
of the product of the industry, the cooperative movement brings them
into harmony for production of goods, in the belief that all are to
share fairly in what is produced. The storekeeper and the buyer no
longer haggle over the price because both will share in the returns of
the business done. The cooperative movement bids fair to solve many of
the problems of open and closed shop, collective bargaining, labor
organization, and of relations between producer and consumer. Its
steady growth is bringing about industrial peace and since it
represents the true spirit of Christianity the minister is justified
in encouraging its development wherever he may be.
What is the challenge to the church of the economic conditions and
tendencies outlined above? First and foremost, the minister must in
season and out of season preach honesty in business relations. One of
the most important discoveries in the study of problems of the
farmer's business relations is that his success or failure depends
largely upon the moral principles of the farmer as a group. The farmer
who puts poor apples or potatoes in the middle of the barrel, who uses
false weights and measures, who fails to produce the best of which he
is capable, lowers the price of all farm products. The dealer who must
throw out a certain proportion of bad eggs in his miscellaneous
purchases makes the buying price low enough to protect himself. The
consumer's demand is gauged very largely by the quality or reliability
of the goods he purchases. So dishonesty in farm business hurts the
farmer more than it does anyone else. The minister can render a
service when he imbues his people with the highest ideals of business
morality.
Moreover, he can help in eliminating the loss to the farmer through
attempted sale of ungraded, miscellaneous products by encouraging
standardization and guarantee of quality. This requires organization;
and while it should be the pastor's aim to encourage the formation of
agencies independent of the church to attend to this and to establish
contacts between his community and State and independent organizations
that will assist in this work he should not hesitate so far as his
time will permit to organize such standardization work and
organization for guaranteeing products until other agencies can take
the work over. His obligation as community leader extends to the
encouragement of every phase of life that makes the country more
livable in the way demanded at the particular stage of development in
which he finds the community.
As stated before, his primary task in encouraging production is now
that of establishing contacts with State agencies and encouraging the
support of their work. In some sections of the country, as among the
colored people, for example, a country preacher might well be a
trained farmer capable of doing in a local community what a county
agent tries to do on a larger scale. But the State has now progressed
in most sections to the point where, if opportunity is offered, it can
assist in this work and relieve the pastor for other duties.
The rural pastor should be a leader in community economic
organization. It is accepted now that economic organizations along
cooperative lines should be independent of either educational,
religious, or social groups. After such organizations are well
established the pastor has met in this respect the challenge to the
church and to the pastor as community leader.
The church as a whole should have some form of organization whereby it
can register its influence in favor of State legislation making safe
the development of the cooperative movement, the better organization
of marketing, the proper control of land ownership, taxation, and
other business relations affecting the farmer. Many of these problems
cannot be solved by a minister working alone in a local community. He
can preach honesty, stability, loyalty to community organization with
all the fervor and liberty of a prophet, but so long as the tenant
contract remains an inducement to transient tenant population; so
long as class distinctions continue to become more marked; so long as
discontent over high rents, high prices of land, and other conditions
continues, he will not get far toward the establishing of the kingdom
of heaven in agricultural life. These problems must be attacked by the
church as a whole as the obligation of the general church to the
minister who is on the firing line of the great world-wide struggle
for the establishment of industrial peace.
One or two concrete illustrations will show the necessity of general
church action on these matters if the rural church is to be saved from
conditions now acute in the large centers. Wage-earners in the large
centers who have no assurance of permanence of jobs are not inclined
to give liberally toward providing adequate building and equipment for
religious services. No wage-earner can be expected to give hundreds of
dollars out of his income toward building a church when the next month
may find him compelled to move to some distant city. In like manner it
is difficult in large centers to get wage-earners even to maintain a
church adequately. Consequently the church is to-day spending
millions of dollars to provide church buildings for wage-earners in
large cities. Yet it does not have any program for bringing about wage
returns, permanency of employment, or interest in business that would
make it possible or desirable for the wage-earner to finance his own
church building. Neither does the church have a plan whereby the
industries of a city make any adequate contribution to the housing of
religious institutions for those connected with the industry. Although
the wealth of America is centered in the great cities, the provision
for religious service to city people is being made by people living in
small towns and in the open country.
As in the city, so in the open country. It has become necessary for
the general church to provide even pastoral maintenance in certain
sections where land is worth three hundred dollars per acre. The
transient tenant has no abiding interest in the community because he
expects to move at the end of the year. This condition is gradually
becoming worse; and unless the general church undertakes the solution
of problems affecting the local church but over which the local
church has no control, the future will bring either a decline in
religious influence in rural sections or a continuous burden on
national boards that should and would under proper conditions be cared
for by local communities.
That the church can help in improving economic conditions to the
advantage of all rural life has already been abundantly demonstrated.
On the Brookhaven District, Mississippi Conference, Methodist
Episcopal Church, the missionary board of that denomination made a
contribution of three hundred dollars toward the support for the
summer of a man and woman engaged in organizing community clubs.
Twenty-one clubs were organized, and as a result of their efforts over
fifty thousand pounds of fruit and truck were saved during the period
of the war when food conservation was a necessity. As a result of this
contribution, at last reports there were three colored county
agricultural agents employed in counties of that district, all
supported by the State, and no further contribution of missionary
funds to continue the work was necessary. For years Bishop Thirkield,
of the New Orleans area of the Methodist Episcopal Church, had been
encouraging keeping of gardens by the pastors and land ownership among
colored people. It is impossible to estimate accurately the results of
his broad program, but one district superintendent reported for his
own official boards that while at the opening of the year 25 per cent
of his official board members on the district were in debt, at the
close of the year not one of them was in debt. They had been taught
how to save money and to pay their debts, and the members of the
churches were encouraged to follow their example.
On a little charge in southeastern Ohio the pastor began to preach
good roads. Before the end of the first year a township organization
had been formed and a vote taken providing for the macadamizing of
every road in the township.
Four years ago the missionary board of the Methodist Episcopal Church
made a contribution of four hundred dollars toward the support of a
pastor in a village in New York. He organized a community club, led in
securing a community house, installed moving pictures, and provided
for the recreational life of the community. To-day no contribution is
being made by the Board for this work. Yet the membership of the club
has increased from fifty-nine to two hundred and twenty-five. It has
been responsible for the establishment of a national bank which had
one hundred and seventy thousand dollars deposits in the first six
months; it paved over five hundred feet of street; it provided for the
consolidation of four rural schools with the village school. And plans
were under way for opening a ferry across the Hudson that had not been
run for thirty years and for the establishment of an important
manufacturing plant. Thus a little stimulation has resulted in
economic development that must result in better financial support of
all community activities.
In conclusion it may be said that it is the business of the pastor to
concern himself with all economic problems that affect the welfare of
his people. The type of problem will vary with the community and its
stage of development. As rapidly as possible the church should turn
over to private or State agencies the task of economic development.
But the church should encourage in every way every movement that is
destined to bring about a higher stage of economic welfare; and the
pastor cannot relinquish his obligations in this respect until he has
succeeded in establishing other agencies that can effectively perform
this task. His duty, then, is to encourage this form of development by
educating the people as to its value and by giving it his moral
support.