From Cornfield Philosophy, by C. D. Strode, Illustrated, Chicago: The Blakely Printing Co., 1902; pp. 20-23.
20
KEEP THE YOUNG MAN ON THE FARM.
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According to the last census nearly 40 per cent of the total population of the United States is in cities of 4,000 population and over. This, to my way of thinking, is not as it should be, but it is not surprising. The whole tendency of modern civilization is to attract the young men to the cities, and where the young men go the young women go also. Of the great inventions which have added so much to the comfort and pleasures of the world, none has done much for the country man. Electric light, steam heat, skirt dances and cake walks are not for him.
Then the hours are too long. When the farm hand learns that in the city eight hours is considered a day’s work it makes his tongue hang out. Life in the country is better for a man in every way, mentally, morally, physically and financially, but it lacks attractiveness. There is too much sameness to it. I worked on a farm with three other hands for eighteen months once. I had a flute and another hand had a base drum and our only entertainment after working fifteen hours a day consisted of flute music with base drum accompaniment. It was 21 fairly pleasing, but not by any means exciting. I could only play three tunes and had to dodge the high notes in those. The gentleman with the base drum had more versatility and could play almost any tune, but a base drum solo lacks what the critics call “convincingosity.”
If the young men are to be kept on the farm there must be more variety introduced into their lives. A great deal has been said and written about keeping the young man on the farm, but so far as I know no organized effort has been made in that direction. When I get a little time I intend to organize a “Society for Bringing Brightness Into the Lives of Farm Hands.”
I know that in this work I will have the hearty cooperation of everyone who has been a farm hand or who is familiar with his habitat. It would not be a difficult work either. Almost anything will help him along. He is not critical and his life can easily be made brighter and happier.
I have great faith in music as a brightener. I would have a law passed compelling each farmer to equip his farm with a certain number of musical instruments. The following list I submit, after careful deliberation based on a thorough knowledge of the surroundings and aspirations of the farm hand:
One base drum, one tuba horn, one pair of cymbals, one fife, one mouth organ. It is not necessary to enumerate a jewsharp, for nearly every farm hand has one. With such an equipment many a dreary hour could be made enjoyable.
Another thing which is a source of vexation to the average farm hand is the difficulty he experiences in taking a bath. Farming, in summer at least, is dusty work, and it is absolutely essential that a man take a bath once in a while. Few farms have any facilities. It used to 22 be our practice to wait until everybody had gone to bed and then go out and bathe in the horse trough. Besides its other disadvantages, this system was only available in warm weather. We had no system for cold weather, and just let her rip till spring. This is a matter which may easily remedied by compelling the farmers to equip a bathroom somewhere. In equipping such a room it will be necessary to provide ample drainage facilities, as the soil which the average farm hand will remove in bathing would choke up an ordinary sewer.
The thing which I think more than any other drives the young man to give up farm life is the lake of congenial female society. The hired girl is usually all right in her way, but she lacks style and versatility. The Midway Plaisance of the World’s Fair, with its “Beauty Show,” its dancers and rope walkers, did much to make the farm hands of the West dissatisfied with their lot. After the Midway the hired girl seemed commonplace and unromantic. One of the first things which the “Society for Bringing Brightness Into the Lives of Farm Hands” would undertake would be the training of the hired girl. She would be taught a number of bright and graceful stunts. The training would, of course, need be arranged with reference to the individual capacity of the girl. Not all could be trained to walk the tight rope, or even to perform on the high trapeze, but any of them could be taught to do a skirt dance or a cake walk. Provided with suitable costumes, she would add greatly to the desirability of farm life and would be a powerful influence to keep the young man from wandering away to the cities in search of the beautiful and the true.
It would not be necessary to incur any expense in fitting up a gymnasium. In providing for the pleasure of city young men the gymnasium is the first and most expensive 23 requirement in order to furnish a means of physical exercise. But the farm hand doesn’t need exercise. Not by any means. A striking machine and a lung tester would be all right if a few cigars be provided as prizes, but as a rule no outlay will need be made to provide means of physical exercise.
These are some simple and wholesome pleasures which can only be made available occasionally. Nothing gives a farm hand keener pleasure than to have a nigger stick his head through a piece of canvas and allow him to throw a baseball at it. It would be too much to ask a farmer to keep a nigger for this purpose, but the territory could be divided into districts, with a nigger to each, so that he could get around to each farm once every week or so. The same arrangement could be made with a bright and entertaining young man with a pea and thimble outfit.
There is no use talking, the young man can be kept on the farm if an intelligent effort be made. His life is too monotonous. He is full of virile manhood and has all the impulses and desires of his city brother. As a rest he goes off to town on a Saturday afternoon seeking dissipation, and has so much fun he longs to live in town all the time. Now, why could not peanuts and red pop be kept on the farm? They are not expensive. The way it is the town becomes associated in the young man’s mind with such things and he comes to believe that life in town is one continuous round of peanuts and pop. By bringing such things within his daily reach they lose their attractive glamor. Let us move in this matter. Let us be up and doing.
