“Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.”
The failures of history are repeating itself. We are doomed.
“...those best fitted for the land...”
A great tragedy of agriculture is the fact that people become slaves to the land. So often, a man with all kinds of talents OTHER than farming, and no love for farming, is forced to spend his life on a farm simply because his entire family history and fortune is tied up in the land.
I’m all for agribusiness. Let those who love to farm do so. If a man’s son hates farming, he can do something else. If the son’s son wants to farm, let him do so.