I have now tried to explain the weak spot in American rural economy. It may be regarded from a more general point of view. If we were considering the life of some commercial or industrial community and trying to forecast its future development, one of the first things we should note would be its general business methods. No manufacturing concern with a defective office administration and incompetent travellers could survive, even if it had an Archimedes or an Edison in supreme control. I cannot see any reason why an agricultural community should expect to prosper while the industry by which its members live retains its present business organisation. I have urged that as things are, the farming interest is at a fatal disadvantage in the purchase of agricultural requirements, in the sale of agricultural produce, and in obtaining proper credit facilities. Whatever the cause--and I have set down those which I regard as the chief among them--American farmers have still to learn that they are subject to a law of modern business which governs all their country's industrial activities--the law that each body of workers engaged in supplying the modern market must combine, or be worsted at every turn in competition with those who do.
I do not much fear that this general principle, overlooked, perhaps, because it was too obvious to be worth enforcing, will be disputed. I hope I may gain acceptance for my further contention that the inability of American farmers to sustain an effective business organisation has been due simply to the fact that the not obvious distinction between the capitalistic and the coöperative basis of combination suitable to town and country respectively was missed. For it will then be clear why, in the working out of Mr. Roosevelt's formula, better business must precede and form the basis of better farming and better living. The conviction that in this general procedure lies the one hope of solving the problem under review accounts for the otherwise disproportionate space given to that aspect of rural life which is of the least interest to the general reader.
I shall now attempt to determine the principles which must be applied to the solution of our problem. Those who have followed the arguments up to this point will have a pretty clear idea of the general drift of my conclusions. The substitution in rural economy of the coöperative for the competitive principle, which I have so far advocated as a matter of business prudence, will be seen to have a wider import. This course will be shown to have an important bearing upon the application of the new knowledge to the oldest industry and also upon the building of a new rural civilisation we must provide for the dwellers of the open country a larger share of the intellectual and social pleasures for the want of which those most needed in the country are too often drawn to the town.