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BOOKS, BANKS AND TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT PiVrp n
Vol. XXX. No. 35.
A Farm au'ome Weekly for
The Carolinas.Virg. Georgia, and Florida,
FOUNDED 188tM: T RALEIGH, nTC.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1915.
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$1 a Year : 5c. a Copy
We Need Rural Thrift as Well as Rural Credits
WE PROMISED, last week to point out this week the three things
that have made New England rich and powerful, and we are
doing so on page 11. Books and savings banks and township
governmentor in other words, Education, Thrift and Democracy
are the three foundation-stones of New England's greatness, and if
thrift isn't just as impor
tant as the other two, it's
mighty nearly so.
We need a better sys
tem of rural credits in the
South nobody believes
that more emphatically
than The Progressive
Farmer which has so of
ten pointed out the ini
quity of usury and "time
prices" but let's also
be honest with ourselves
and acknowledge that
there is great need for
rural thrift as well as
rural credits. Here are
two big facts to empha
size: 1. We must get the
saving habit 4 'It seems
to be a failing of South
erners", as Dr. Knapp
used to say, "to let mon
ey run through their fin
gers without letting any
of it stick. V And it's so.
We simply haven't got
the good, old-fashioned
much-needed New Eng
land virtue of saving and
. of being downright
ashamed of ourselves if
2. We must avoid buying "on time 9 . This has been the bane
of the South the Mother of Poverty! Now amMhen somebody says
that we need "easier, credit". We don't need anything of the kind.
We need cheaper credi f, but in the matter of buying it ought to
be harder rather than easier to get. It's because it's so easy to get
'ijf jlfP
PUBLIC LIBRARY, BOLTON TOWNSHIP, WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS .
' Every township in Massachusetts but tine has a public library," says President Butterfield. See article on page 11
we wind up the year without having saved something even if it's only
a quarter. The amount is not so important as the habit. In Massa
chusetts everybody saves. They even have school savings banks
operated in connection with the public
schools, and in three years time 1,400,000
deposits have been made in this way. The
child is taught to save along with the mul
tiplication. table and. the "Now I Lay Me
Down to Sleep," and when he. is old he
doesn't depart from it. - Massachusetts
hasn't but 3,300,000 people, including men,
women, children and infants in arms, but
2,250,000 of them have deposits in savings
banks nearly everybody old enough to
know a' quarter from a dime it seems.
There are five times as many savings banks
depositors in that one State as there are in
the twelve states of Virginia, .West
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
eorgia, Florida, Alabama, . Mississippi, .
Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Lou
!smna combined.
DONT FAIL TO READ
Bur Clover a Great Crop .
Get Some More Dairy Cows . .
Good Crops Mean Constant Attention to Soil
Fertility . . . . ...... .
How Rural Clubs Are Helping Our County . .
Land Speculators and "Rural Credits" . . .
Lynching. Is Criminal Whether the Victim Is
Guilty, or. Not.;
Meeting Southern Cattlemen's Association . .
Six-Room Farm Bungalow . .
Start the Fight for Twelve-Cent Cotton . . .
Suggestions About Farm Buildings .... .
The Cow and Cooperation .
Thrift Means Making as Well as Saving . . .
Paee
it's because our damnable crop-lien laws have made it so easy for a
man to gamble on the future hopes of himself, his wife and little
ones that we are as poor as we are. Men who swear that 8 per
cent interest is too high, go. ngnt
ahead and pay 40 to 80 per . cent in
terest in the form of "time-prices."
And the pathos of it, as one. writer
said years ago, is that these slaves of
the credit system are all the time
"within Just one year of freedom."
They are just one year behind.
May we not then appeal to every
debt-slave in the South to make just
one superhuman effort for a year to
get put? A man had better live on
cowpeas, mush, molasses and sweet
potatoes one season, get on the cash
basis once for all, and be a free man
ever after.
Let's make a fight for rural
thrift and rural credits both at the
same time!
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