Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1912 — Plan for Starting Honest Men on Farms [ARTICLE]

Plan for Starting Honest Men on Farms

By WILLIAM EISEN, Chicago

The newspapers at the present time are crowded with inducements and offers of farms. The present cry is: “Back to the farm!” Meetings are held, organizations convene, all in order to help the overflow population ter go to farming. The government opens lands, and, in fact, everything is done to “boost” the country life. But who goes there? Who gets the land? Only people possessed of at least some means, like the farmer or the small merchant, who has a bank account after selling out.

The extremely poor man who longs for the country, who would joyfully till'the soil, has to take a back seat. He has not the means to travel the distances or to acquire the first requisites. 1 myself -bought, years ago, ten acres in the east, intending to go there and raise small garden truck, but fate kept me here, until now. when, because of high expense, I am totally unable to go. The land is there, unused. So we see that with all their good intentions the different organizations have not got at the root of the evil. 1 here should be institutions which furnish to willing and honest men the first substantial means to start them on land which they own, taking such lands for a certain length of ifine as security for the amount received. I here are thousands who could thus be happy to become farmers and raise the food supply for the cities. r l he government should advance, to those the means needed and not compel them to spend the little they have saved for traveling hundreds of miles only to find out. that their lottery ticket did not win.