--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Ward, J. H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 2 number: 11 published: 1899-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Ward, J. H., "The Tide of Life: A Plea for Mormon Civilization," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 11 (September 1899): 856–860.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera211unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera211unse start_page: 856 end_page: 860 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera211unse publication_year: 1899 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Tide of Life: A Plea for Mormon Civilization TIDE OF LIFE, A PLEA FOR MORMON CIVILIZATION. BY J. H. WARD. II. As noticed m a foregoing article the application of machinery has a restricting influence on the number of farmers required to meet the world's needs. Inasmuch as the world cannot eat three or four times as much food simply to oblige the farmers, it is easy to see that m proportion as improved farming implements are used and scientific methods adopted, just in that degree will the pro- portion of farmers be decreased. Simply bearing in mind that the worlds capacity to consume food is limited, will throw much light on economic conditions both present and future. To increase the food supply beyond this limit will only serve to decrease the farmer's income.American farmers in 1890 cul- tivated twenty-five million acres more than they did in 1880 and their total cereal product was four hundred and ninety-one million bushels greater; but they received for it forty-one million dollars less than for the smaller crops of 1880. This fact which has been repeated a number of years would seem to indicate that already the supply IS fully equal to the world's demand. It is true that there IS want even to starvation, but that is through lack of dis- tribution not through lack of adequate production. It is quite possible that hundreds may go hungry, though twice as many THE TIDE OF LIFE. 857 bushels are stored away in the elevators. This fact emphasizes the argument that the world stands in need of a new and higher civilization. Even the increase of population will not, for many years to come, require any increase in the number of farmers, because improved methods ought to increase the product as rapidly as increasing demand will require, until we have reached a much higher standard of agriculture. If scientific methods were gener- ally adopted, we might undoubtedly double our product without any increase in acreage or in the number of farm laborers. True it is that every application of science to farming restricts the number of farmers, still we must not take refuge in unscientific methods, and it would be still more foolish to rail against capitalists who employ labor-saving machinery. The men who rail are the very ones who do the same, so far as their limited means will allow. If our agriculture is not improved we shall endanger our European markets, which are worth to us annually not less thanfive hundred and seventy million dollars, and give employment to one million seven hundred thousand farm laborers. We have been able to gain those markets and retain them, not- withstanding our wasteful and unscientific methods, because of free farms of virgin soil. About two million five hundred thou- sand farms of eighty acres each have been given away by the gov- ernment during the past thirty years. But the government has no more good land to give to anyone. This fact is one of the landmarks that define the new conditions of civilization in the twentieth century. The advantage we have had by our free farming lands, together with our improved agricultural implements has enabled us to compete so successfully with the farmers of Europe as to produce a general depression of agriculture there, and attempts have been made to awaken interest in it. Ministers of agriculture now exist in almost all countries through which subsidies have been granted, seeds distributed, prizes offered, agricultural colleges founded and free lecture courses established. The people are being instructed and encouraged and organized into co-operative agricultural societies, which are rapidly multiplying on the conti- nent. Already six thousand five hundred such societies have been 858 IMPROVEMENT ERA. formed in France and seven thousand two hundred in Germany. It is said that every parish in Holland and Denmark has its co-op- erative dairy. This widespread revival of agriculture in Europe will force us out of their markets unless we cheapen our products by more scientific methods, which will of course still more restrict the proportion of American farmers. If our agriculture refuses to progress, and we thereby lose our foreign markets, the one million seven hundred thousand men now employed in producing our agricultural exports will be forced off the farm and be com- pelled to seek other employment. We must face the inevitable. The great problem of the twentieth century is upon us. The springing up of factories to produce agricultural imple- ments and a thousand other things has created a demand for labor and attracted the laborers who are being driven from the farms. While in 1850 scarcely four per cent of our population was engaged in manufactures, now more than double that number is so engaged. It should be observed that all these causes are permanent; the tendency which springs from them will therefore be permanent. Beyond a doubt an ever-increasing proportion of the world's pop- ulation must get their livelihood by means of the mechanical and the fine arts. It is thought that if life on the farm can be rendered less distasteful, the young people, who are now eager to go to the city, may be persuaded to remain. At this juncture a question arises which is fraught with the most important consequences. Is it not possible to found an ideal society, in which the young of both sexes may find all that is desirable in the city, separate and apart from that which is per- nicious. In the whirl of the city many a young man from the country is often more lonesome than in a pathless forest. The city is too large and strange. He seeks for a few choice friends of congenial tastes, and happy is he who finds such a society. It becomes his home, and the great city outside of this circle or society is quite or nearly as strange to him as ever. If unfortu- nately he finds no such congenial circle, when the toils of the day are over and night comes on he will walk abroad. The brilliantly lighted restaurant or saloon may attract his gaze, the sound of * THE TIDE OF LIFE. 859 music may allure his ear, and the laughter of the inmates may for a moment drive away his lonesomeness. He is attracted, he is tempted, he falls: the city has become the grave of his morality. Now with the Mormons it is quite different. The farm and the factory are often side by side, and most young Mormons are some- what acquainted with both. Even the young farmers are brought up and live in town. While the young farmer of Ohio or Nebraska may be obliged to forego the blessings of a circulating library or muddy roads, the lecture course, or tramp through weary miles of Mormon youth may find these aids to culture, only a few short well-paved blocks from the paternal mansion. The youths and maidens of the best settled portions of Indiana or Illinois are often obliged to go miles to school; and if they wish to taste the fruit that grows on the higher branches of the tree of knowledge, they must do it at great expense. Here in Utah the path of education is so easy that almost anyone may enjoy its blessings. If we go down to the shore of one of our lakes we shall find that in the solitary bays where the pieces of rock, broken from the adjoining cliffs have rolled down into the water, they are angular and uneven. But away out on the bar where the winds blow and the waves toss and roll in their wild unrest, there the pebbles are smooth and polished. So too it is with human charac- ter. In the grand old woods of Michigan, on the wide prairies of Illinois or even in the thronged factories of New York City where the young workman never learns to manufacture a complete arti- a machine which only does a cle, but only learns to manipulate small and interdependent part of manufacture; and where the young distinctions that he never feels man is so surrounded with class how can he, diamond though he be, the real blessings of freedom; but remain an uncouth member of society. On the other hand, mingle with the highest the youth who has been accustomed to dignitaries of his nativetown on terms of equality, where the contact with rough points of his character have been worn off by best opportunities for others, in him we find the possessor of the mental and moral perfection. is the Another advantage which Mormon civilization possesses their communities. The unique and excellent organization of extent the unit or ward or precinct may be considered to some 860 IMPROVEMENT ERA. standard of Mormon reckoning. Each ward or precinct when fully organized possesses all the institutions and advantages of a complete community. Not only is it supplied with its own Sabbath services, Sabbath and day schools, Mutual Improvement (literary) societies for men and women, lyceums or lecture halls, etc.; but likewise with a system of jurisprudence capable of settling differ- ences within the limits of its jurisdiction, and with societies for the relief of suffering. The more important towns of Provo and Logan may be considered each as a cluster of these wards or pre- cincts. Even Salt Lake City, though possessing a comparatively large non-Mormon population, yet the city may really be looked upon as a cluster of twenty-five distinct Mormon communities. It is easy to see how beneficial this system of organization is for the education of the young, the work of the Church and jurisdiction in civil matters. The Mormon people well understand that the problems of government increase with population. The talent necessary to administer the affairs of a village or ward containing one thousand inhabitants can generally be found without much difficulty, and very few Mormon precincts exceed that number. The government of a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants without a system of sub-organizations would be found to be much more difficult, while a city of one million or five million inhabitants would demand expert knowledge, ability and character of the very highest order which cannot always be found. Great cities under such circum- stances are a menace to themselves — a menace to the nation.