Volume I Part 6 (1/2)

I send you (wrongly, perhaps, when you are trying to rest) the shortest statement that I could make about the demonstration field-work of the Department of Agriculture. This is the best tool yet invented to shape country life. Other (and shorter) briefs will be ready in a little while.

You asked me who I thought was the best man for Secretary of Agriculture. Houston[7], I should say, of the men that I know. You will find my estimate of him in the little packet of memoranda. Van Hise[8] may be as good or even better if he be young in mind and adaptable enough. But he seems to me a man who may already have done his big job.

I answer the other questions you asked at Princeton and I have taken the liberty to send some memoranda about a few other men--on the theory that every friend of yours ought now to tell you with the utmost frankness about the men he knows, of whom you may be thinking.

The building up of the countryman is the big constructive job of our time. When the countryman comes to his own, the town man will no longer be able to tax, and to concentrate power, and to bully the world.

Very heartily yours, WALTER H. PAGE.

_To Henry Wallace_

Garden City, N.Y.

11 March, 1913.

MY DEAR UNCLE HENRY:

What a letter yours is! By George! we must get on the job, you and I, of steering the world--get on it a little more actively. Else it may run amuck. We have frightful responsibilities in this matter.

The subject weighs the more deeply and heavily on me because I am just back from a month's vacation in North Carolina, where I am going to build me a winter and old-age bungalow. No; you would be disappointed if you went out of your way to see my boys. Moreover, they are now merely clearing land. They sold out the farm they put in shape, after two years' work, for just ten times what it had cost, and they are now starting another one _de novo_. About a year hence, they'll have something to show. And next winter, when my house is built down there, I want you to come and see me and see that country. I'll show you one of the most remarkable farmers'

clubs you ever saw and many other interesting things as well--many, very many. I'm getting into this farm business in dead earnest.

That's the d.i.c.kens of it: how can I do my share in our partners.h.i.+p to run the universe if I give my time to cotton-growing problems?

It's a tangled world.

Well, bless your soul! You and the younger Wallaces (my regards to every one of them) and Poe[9]--you are all very kind to think of me for that difficult place--too difficult by far, for me. Besides, it would have cost me my life. If I were to go into public life, I should have had to sell my whole interest here. This would have meant that I could never make another dollar. More than that, I'd have thrown away a trade that I've learned and gone at another one that I know little about--a bad change, surely. So, you see, there never was anything serious in this either in my mind or in the President's. Arthur hit it off right one day when somebody asked him:

”Is your father going to take the Secretarys.h.i.+p of Agriculture?”

He replied: ”Not seriously.”

Besides, the President didn't ask me! He knew too much for that.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles D. McIver of Greensboro, North Caroline, a leader in the cause of Southern Education]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Woodrow Wilson in 1912]

But he did ask me who would be a good man and I said ”Houston.” You are not quite fair to him in your editorial. He does know--knows much and well and is the strongest man in the Cabinet--in promise.

The farmers don't yet know him: that's the only trouble. Give him a chance.

I've ”put it up” to the new President and to the new Secretary to get on the job immediately of _organizing country life_. I've drawn up a scheme (a darned good one, too) which they have. I have good hope that they'll get to it soon and to the thing that we have all been working toward. I'm very hopeful about this. I told them both last week to get their minds on this before the wolves devour them.

Don't you think it better to work with the Government and to try to steer it right than to go off organizing other agencies?

G.o.d pity our new masters! The President is all right. He's sound, earnest, courageous. But his party! I still have some muscular strength. In certain remote regions they still break stones in the road by hand. Now I'll break stones before I'd have a job at Was.h.i.+ngton now. I spent four days with them last week--the new crowd. They'll try their best. I think they'll succeed. But, if they do succeed and survive, they'll come out of the scrimmage bleeding and torn. We've got to stand off and run 'em, Uncle Henry.

That's the only hope I see for the country. Don't d.a.m.n Houston, then, beforehand. He's a real man. Let's get on the job and tell 'em how.

Now, when you come East, come before you need to get any of your meetings and strike a bee-line for Garden City; and don't be in a hurry when you get here. If a Presbyterian meeting be necessary for your happiness, I'll drum up one on the Island for you. And, of course, you must come to my house and pack up right and get your legs steady sometime before you sail--you and Mrs. Wallace: will she not go with you?

In the meantime, don't be disgruntled. We can steer the old world right, if you'll just keep your shoulder to the wheel. We'll work it all out here in the summer and verify it all (including your job of setting the effete kingdoms of Europe all right)--we'll verify it all next winter down in North Carolina. I think things have got such a start that they'll keep going in some fas.h.i.+on, till we check up the several items, political, ethical, agricultural, journalistic, and international. G.o.d bless us all!