all the warring nations will be how best to get great numbers of
soldiers and sailors back into productive industry. The task will be
the largest of its kind in all human history. We find in Europe those
who advocate that the government should place many of the soldiers and
sailors back upon the land by making practicable a system of small
farms. To some this appears the wise way to help the partially disabled
soldiers and sailors. The problem of men suffering from nervous
instability deserves special attention. Many who have seen service will
return with slight nervous difficulties that will handicap them in
certain forms of urban industry. Their best protection from serious
disorders will be in many cases opportunity to engage in agriculture. At
this point the question of competition with experienced farmers who
suffer from no disability naturally arises. Experience may prove that
the government can wisely give financial assistance to those placed on
the land, by government aid in one form or another, to protect them in
their undertakings.
It has been pointed out by European students that the small farm is not
likely to increase much the production of the staple crops, since in
Europe garden truck is more easily handled by those who cultivate small
farms. Because of this fact, the effort of the government to encourage
the growing of staple crops for purposes of national safety is likely to
be independent of the movement to place soldiers and sailors on the
land. In Europe the success of the small farms appears to be conditioned
largely by the ability of the land owners to cooperate. Stress will have
to be placed upon the development of the spirit of cooperation, and
this, fortunately, will have a social influence in addition to its
economic advantages. How much governments may do to encourage the
building up of efficient cooperative enterprises is more or less
problematical, but the experience of Denmark teaches that more can be
done than has been done by most governments.
It is interesting to notice how the war has stimulated cooperation in
Europe. None of the countries illustrates this more than Russia. January
1, 1914, there were about 10,000,000 members of cooperative societies or
about 5.8 per cent of the total population. In 1916 this membership had
increased to 15,000,000. Counting in the families of the cooperators, it
is estimated that 67,500,000 people in Russia are interested in
cooperative enterprises, or about 39 per cent of the population. We find
that development of cooperation in consumption has been in Russia
directly related to the pressure for food due to war conditions. The
large majority of Russian cooperative societies are rural.[12] Other
countries, notably England and France, have also felt the influence of
the war in increasing the development of cooperation.
In America we are still too distant from the bitter consequences of war
to feel the need of planning for the care of the crippled and nervously
injured soldiers. Imagination will not allow us to picture the returning
of the soldiers as a problem. Our remarkable success in getting the
soldiers back into industry after the Civil War gives us a strong sense
of security when we do consider the matter. Probably if the war
continues for several years our problem after this war will be more
serious than it was in 1865. In any case we shall have a considerable
number of those who, because of physical or nervous injuries, will
require public assistance of a constructive character. If such men can
be made fully or even partly self-supporting by being placed on land it
will help both them and the food productiveness of the nation. Of
course, this form of public aid, like every other method of giving
assistance, has its political and economic dangers. The prosperity of
other farmers must not be disturbed. So many interests are involved that
the entire problem demands time for serious discussion, so that we may
not be troubled by hasty, half-baked legislation.
Anyone who has visited an army cantonment has felt the gregarious
atmosphere of army service. For a few men this is the most trying
experience connected with the service. Others find in it the supreme
satisfaction. Every soldier is influenced by it more or less. What will
it mean to the soldier who has come into the army from the small country
place? We know, as a result of what social workers among the soldiers
tell us, that the country boy is often very sensitive to this enormous
change from an isolated rural neighborhood to the closest contact
possible in a community which is literally a great city. By necessity
the recruits from the country are forced into the conditions of city
life, into an environment that is more gregarious than any normal urban
center experiences. What result is this likely to have upon the future
social needs of the men from rural districts? It is to be expected that
many of them will not be content again in the country. They will have
developed cravings that the country-life environment cannot satisfy. For
this reason it is not likely that the placing of former soldiers and
sailors on the land will have in any country all the success desired.
Much will depend upon who are selected to go into the country. On the
other hand, it is safe to predict that this war will add momentum to the
city-drift of our population and increase the number of those who form
the mobile class of rural laborers.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] _International Review of Agricultural Economics_, August, 1917.
End of Project Gutenberg's Rural Problems of Today, by Ernest R. Groves