miring auditors replied in chorus, "We'll be with you next year." Viewed from any angle, the first annual tour of the Junior Live Stock show exhibitors was a complete success and a similar demonstration tour, Mr. Hill has announced, will be conducted by the Great Northern railroad as a grand finale to every Juniɔr Live Stock show of the future. The tour, however, was simply one of many lines of endeavor to make the boys and girls of today better men and women, better farmers and farmers' wives, in the future. In December of each year a National Boys' and Girls' Farm Club Congress 18 held in Chicago in connection with the International Live Stock Exposition. Last December, President Coolidge sept a message to the 1600 boys and girls assembled, representing clubs with a total membership of over 700,000. Minnesota was one of the first northern States to organize for this work and the Minnesota clubs now have an enrollment of 23,000 boys and girls. T. A. Erickson, Minnesota State club leader, explained, "Each club has a regular plan of organization, officers, plan of work, meetings, with each member carrying a definite home or farm enterprise and endeavoring to use the better methods of agriculture and home economics in developing his or her project. Each club has an adult leader or adviser who works with a local committee. The committee is a part of the county extension service, working directly with the State Extension Service of the College of Agriculture, which in turn cooperates with the U. S. Department of Agriculture in promoting this work as a very important part of the educational program for better agriculture and more happy, prosperous homes. "We have ten fundamental projects which our club members use as their club projects. In live stock, each member raises a baby beef or a dairy calf, or some lambs, pigs or poultry. In the crop line, each one grows from one to five acres of corn or one to eight acres of potatoes or a good sized home garden or an alfalfa plot. In the home work the girls learn how to bake, sew and can. "It is interesting to note that almost as many girls join the stock clubs and feed calves, lambs or hogs as join the home economics clubs. This means that in the future many farmers' wives will be real partners in the business, able to discuss intelligently farm problems. "Each member keeps careful records of all operations, including cost of feed, labor and profits. These records are very important in presenting results to the community. "The state program for Minnesota includes: 1-Club short courses at the Agricultural colleges at St. Paul, Crookston and Morris; 2-Club Department with exhibits at the State Fair which gives 1100 county club winners free trips to the Fair; 3-The Junior Live Stock show; 4-Club department in connection with the annual meeting of the state horticultural society when county and district winners in the garden, potato and canning clubs come to St. Paul as the guests of the society; 5-Interstate club meeting at Sioux City Ia., when winning teams from 12 states compete; 6-National Dairy Exposition at which, in 1924, Minnesota had 47 dairy club members out of 200 club winners representing 25 states. "Last year, we had 2100 dairy calf club members, each with a high grade or pure bred dairy heifer: Many of these were on farms where it was the only good animal. For countless generations, agricultural training has been too much on the order of 'Ask Dad he knows.' And too often, Dad didn't know. The result, in many cases, was that Son farmed exactly as his great-great grandfather or left the farm. Times changed but farming didn't." Some epigrammatist has observed that the boy is father to the man. And it is on that unquestionably true premise that club leaders are working out the salvation of agriculture in America. America's Place in the World Condensed from The Century Magazine (April '26) No the United States as isolated from the rest of the world. To him it is the place where thousands of his countrymen have sought and found comfort and happiness. Whoever wanders abroad soon realizes the manifold ties that bind the Old World to the New America. Everywhere peoples and governments are anxious to please us. The American is transfigured and glorified by the strength and reputation of the country from which he comes. Let no one suppose that this is because the world likes us. There is scarcely no feeling that we have ever made an unselfish contribution to Europe. America is too powerful to be liked abroad. Every one likes Switzerland because no one fears it. But no one knows what America may or may not do. The United States has already purchased or conquered an area larger than the whole of Europe, and no one feels certain just what the next turn in our ambition may bring. The astute European statesman sees us as children playing with the new-won toy of World Power, hardly realizing its value, uncertain whether we wish to break it, throw it aside, or try to do something with it. He would love to have us use it in a way that would be to his advantage, but he does not quite know the best way to bamboozle us. He is always sure, however, that a good dose of flattery can do no harm, and he invariably tries that first. discredit upon their country are Seymour Parker Gilbert and Jeremiah Smith. They have not made them. On the contrary they have shown the same skill, tact, and patience in the administration of a task involving delicate international relationships as that which added so much to the reputation of the British people in the last century. Young Mr. Gilbert showed his capacity in the Treasury Department during the war, and was suddenly thrust into the most important adOverministrative job in Europe. night he became Reparations Czar, supervising the most delicate and complicated mass of financial machinery ever devised by the mind of Plan is wel! man. The Dawes launched upon its second year without a hitch, without a serious dispute of any kind. It is an American plan financed largely with American money and administered with American brains. Europe may not like us any better for having put it through, but Europe certainly has a high respect for the way it was thought out and is now being worked out. There is another American ambassador of business sense and good will in Hungary. Jeremiah Smith of Boston is doing the same sort of League of Nations job in Budapest that the Dutch Burgomaster Zimmerman has been doing in Vienna. He has to see that the government of Hungary is run efficiently and economically. And he has been so careful not to abuse his authority, to suggest rather than to command, that he has won universal esteem in the Hungarian capital. But whatever else Europeans may say about us, they cannot and do not deny our skill as bankers and executives. The two Americans who now have the greatest opportunity For five years scarce a month has to make mistakes that would reflect passed in which America has not a In Palestine the intelligent use of few millions, contributed by American Jews, is transforming a desert into a fertile agricultural area. Of all the movements which Americans are sponsoring in foreign lands none has a more practical and at the same time a more appealing aspect than the transformation of the arid hills of Judea into flourishing agricultural settlements by those who look upon bleak Palestine as the promised land. In Cairo the Egyptian minister of agriculture had just had word that the United States Department of Agriculture would lend him two experts to supervise a vigorous campaign against the boll-weevil. Egypt's young government appreciates the unselfish willingness of the United States to lend its experts to help Egypt compete more effectively with the cotton farmers of our own South. And yet the agricultural minister's greatest enthusiasm was reserved for the Ford tractor. He sees Egypt's fields enriched, her agricultural methods revolutionized by trac tors sold at a price even Egypt can pay. And in Spain I found King Alfonso XIII a great admirer of still another phase of American life. He is an enthusiast about American sportsmen and American sportsmanship. A few days later I talked with Edouard Herriot, ex-premier of France, and he was full of reminiscences about his visit to America, the profound impression created by its lusty young strength and its eager aspiration for a better world. "We must work together," he said, "for peace, France and America." In England there is a new note of admiration for America's industrial and financial power in world markets and for her political contrib utions to recent World War settlements. The fact that Great Britain now recognizes her wayward child of the New World as an equal. in world power and world councils is a compliment that we have thus far appreciated more in promise than in performance. Ours is an opportunity, but much remains to be done if we are to realize it. Fundamentally there is a marked similarity in the democratic traditions and political ideals of the English-speaking peoples. This possibility of joint power should be used for the world's good. and Americans who wander abroad with seeing eyes realize the amazing growth of our foreign interests. Politically, financially, industrially, we have become integrated with the Old World to an extent which few of us appreciate. America's power world America's opportunity are wide. Isolation or insulation from foreign entanglements is alike im possible or inadvisable. We canno turn back. We must go forwar facing our destiny. We have al ready won material power. We mus achieve spiritual leadership. We can do it by responding graciously t those generous instincts and tradi tions which are the most preciou part of our American heritage. The "Main Street" Banker Condensed from Scribner's Magazine (April '26) ECENTLY a friend of mine was Retelling me of his visit to a Penu sylvania town of 1500 where he had first started in business. While there he had renewed his acquaintance with John Lavery, the president of the local bank. My friend had this to say: constantly-but only normally. What I mean is that it is located in the East where old communities are not doubling in size every ten years as some baby towns are in the West. Think of it. What an answer that is to the 'Main Street' cynic who seems to be very popular at present! "If the country bank generally throughout the country," continued my friend, "can rise to meet the opportunities before it, life in the small town can be made much more delightful than in the cities and at the same time much more profitable in money terms and much more secure. It is to the small town that we must look for a return to the American dollar that will buy 100 cents' worth of food and clothing and recreation. I refer to building the community-thousands of them-rather than the few great centers. It can easily be the solution of farm credits, distribution of manufacturing and population, congestion of cities, development of natural resources, perfection of railroads, roads, and truck-lines, and-solution of the labor problem!" "For years that banker has been originating ideas and theories on the possibilities of the country bank. For example, I started my first business venture in that town. Lavery used to talk to me at great length about my little retail store and the way I was handling it. To make a long story short, he loaned me the limit at the bank, and made it possible for me to press on with the development of the opportunities I saw at every hand. With Lavery's help, within seven years I trebled the size of my retail business, developed a fine little manufacturing business, and helped to organize, bring to the town, and direct three other small, growing factories. While Lavery was doing this with me, he was working in similar ways with some others. Why, he tells me that only recently he went to the Owner of the old hotel and showed him that there wasn't a modern, comfortable hotel in a radius of 30 miles. He got him to agree to the organization of a new, modern hotel. hotel account is four times as large as was the old one and the town is immensely benefited. Traveling men are riding 25 miles out of their way to stop there, especially over week ends. The conclusion to the story is that he showed me a statement of the bank that totalled resources of more than $2,000,000. Think of that alongside of the $10,000 Farmers' Bank he started 30 years ago. The town has grown since, of course-it couldn't help it with a man like Lavery whipping it The new Until recently, the well-to-do men of the small town naturally gravitated to the bank directorates. Too often these men were well-to-do by inheritence only or by very gradual accumulation through painful personal economy. They were not progressive in any sense. That explains why the bank has been one of the very last lines of business to use the power of advertising for service, greater growth, profits. Then came the new idea. Younger men, without regard to their personal worth at the moment, but with proved ability, were made directors because of what they knew about constructive business, finance and advertising. Ser. vice to the community became the keynote of banking. Finally was A young man with a past experience in several large cities came to a small town of less than 2000 population, and purchased the weekly newspaper. He transformed the paper and tripled its profits. The cashier of one of the banks kept his eye on him. convinced that this young man well schooled in advertising and selling, he asked him to become one of his bank directors, even though he was only 32 years old. In less than four months the young publisher had grappled with one of the pressing risks of the bank and changed it into an asset. None of the other directors had given such a possibility a thought. Yet it was comparatively easy to do when studied by an experienced man. A small factory in the town was more than $5000 in permanent debt to the bank. The young publisher was able to reconstruct the factory's selling and advertising policy so as to wipe out its debt, and change the account from a liability into a going business of $50,000 the first year with a balance running to four figures. Undoubtedly he is continuing that kind of value to the bank. The sharp contrast between the old and the new methods is brought out by the respective treatments of a young hardware merchant by the two banks in one small town. This young fellow inherited several thousand dollars before he had learned the rudiments of business management, and had bought a retail store. His financial affairs soon went from bad to worse. He had reason to believe that the cashier of the First National Bank, where he kept his account, intended to press him and knowing what that would do to him at the particular moment, the hardware man called on the president of the Second National Bank and poured out the whole story. For several nights each week, the president went to the hardware store and acted in an advisory capacity. Under his careful and tactful tutoring, the young man placed himself on a limited weekly budget; started a strenuous campaign to collect his book accounts; and wrote confidential weekly letters reporting his financial progress to all creditors except the other bank. He was delighted by the cooperation he received all around and made rapid progress toward a sound footing. When the disgruntled cashier of the First National Bank served notice a little later, the young merchant's affairs were in such good condition that the Second National Bank was justified in taking over his account, and sav ing the day for him. But that wasn't the best part of it. The best part is that America has one more young retailer who is capable and successful. That's national wealth! I could cite case after case of this new way of doing things. One banker in a small town said to me: "The country bank is fast becoming not merely a repository for community funds, but the fountainhead of town business development. In the future its main idea will not be the making of money. It is reorganizing its direc torate so as to secure business brains, experience, breadth, and activity. Especially activity. This makes it equal to its appointed job of showing every kind of business man how to take advantage of the best methods, and to make and to have more money-not more debts at 6 per cent per annum. The day is coming when even the small bank will consider another official than the cashier essential. This man will be the manager of the promotion, or business-building, or business-aid department. All towns do not have the men needed on their bank directorates. Some banks will have to import that kind of talent. And when that kind of a man is finally at the head of a recognized department in all banks, then we will cut commercial failures to the minimum." The country banker has found that he grows only as the whole community grows and prospers. So he is studying and working to that end. |