Speech

Y EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY / (An address by Chester C. Davis, Member, Board of."Governors, > Poderal Reserve System, at the dedication of Long Agri— "" ^y cultural Hall, May .12, 1937, at CIemson Agricultural College, Clcmson, South Carolina) We are gathered to dedicate a new agricultural "building to tho SG^vice of South Carolina, and to tho memory of the worth and works of ^ ttan known "by most of us and loved by all who knew him. Dr, Long's j^vice hero as Director of Extension spanned half the life of Clomson °Hege - twenty-two crowded years which carried tho light from tho g^PUs of this great institution to every hillside and valley of the c "And now ho rests; his greatness and his sweetness No more shall seem at strife; And death has moulded into calm completeness Tho statue of his life." Dr. Long was an outstanding figure among those who on this made a vital', breathing force of tho vision of another great man, light of whoso life is all around us here. The impact of the jinking of Thomas C-. Clcmson has been felt all over the land, not only n the State for whose people ho established this institution 1 The event which gave to tho world tho nucleus of Clcmson Col- °So robbod it of tho man who could have influenced and enjoyed its f J^^tivo years most. Tho linos might truly have been written of him said- "'Twas his to lend a life; 'twas man's to borrow; 'Twas his to make, but not to share, the morrow." tv • Horo, then, were two men who marked their times„ Tho seed of l?03-^ usefulness lay not in tho times, but in them. Certainly not the ^oU.SJf1 3 half„ of„ tho cen^ t, ury, nor the fO i- rst thirdJ o_ -fO it-hT. e. prcsont one, +t- hVN-rvjo w ^ cchhaalll enge to men as stirring and as demanding as that which the s3°°nntt aanndd future hold out to the youth of today Diogenes or.ee remarked that the foundation of every state i °ducation°of its youth. That was over twenty-two hundred years ago, oj^ it seems understatement when wo apply it to tho complex problems Modern democracy. Enlightened public opinion resting on full in- iJ^tion stands as the only hope for tho continued successful function- al of democratic government * We are in a swiftly-changing day. The progress of tho future, ,v'ell as tho accomplishments of the pas t, rest on the shoulders of men tJJ.Women who uso the powers bostowod on thorn to create better insti- ions to moot new conditions® t Forgetting all else that distinguished them, wo think of the V/ ' tuS educators whoso names arc perpetuated here in Long Agricul- Hall of Clcmson College. But tho field of education is so Al I ^21 XERO COPY broad that I should like to mark out for a moment's consideration that n°w subdivision to which Dr. Long gave the last quarter century of his *lch life o I mean no unfavorable comparisons to bo drawn from the fact j^t I speak of agricultural extension today, rather than research through experiment stations, or resident instruction such as has dc- jolopcd in this groat institution and the half-a-hundred kindred schools •J-1 }the length and breadth of the land. But truly hero is a development vithout parallel in the recent history of educations This far-flung organization, scarcoly come of ago, radiates ^om the agricultural colleges into direct or indirect touch with the million farm homes of America. It brings to them the discoveries * the experiment stations and the physical and economic information Which better and sounder agriculture is being developed,, You will search this century in vain without finding another contribution to QUcation as important in its present and future significance as this ystora of practical teaching brought intimately into the daily lives 1 farm families« 3 Perhaps you think I speak too feelingly of the work of the °v°ted men and women wo know as the Extension Service, There is a v 03?y good reason, if I do. Five years ago the farming sections of the United States col- la £ scd in a condition of disorganization, of physical and financial < U^ solution, not equaled at any time since commercial farming was cs~ t •polished in this country. You men and women of South Carolina who ivoa in tho heart of the Cotton South through those dark days need no of mine to recall them to you, Four years ago today tho Agricultural Adjustment Act became • * It provided tho means by which tho cotton grower, the tobacco the producers of whoat and corn and hogs and all tho crops jw^kis diversified country could organize to balance their supply with voting markets; and build back their income and purchasing powor so CC11 to tho welfare of the nation^ As one who was honored by some responsibility in tho adminis- °^ion of that law during the first thrco years of organization and Ot) •j^Fation, I know what tho Extension Service of tho agricultural col- our?03 moant to tho farmers of tho land. If it had not boon for the 3stenco of that system, trained and trusted, ready to take up now and Ui j^^icd responsibilities, the work that was done under tho Agricultural ^stmont Act could not have been accomplished. v^ These are times of swift movement and change. The farmers £ ^operated under tho A.A.A.,—and their number represented nearly 0 thc six and a half million farm units in the country — those ^ho 0:i?s and wo who wore temporarily your servants in administering law believed, that the opportunity stretched ahead of us to achieve ? f°undation of our beginnings, through closc-knit cooperation, U]?ing equality for agriculture in tho economic life of the nation. XERO i copy : . . More than two and a half years aftor the Act went into offeet, uring which it wa3 operating with the force of law, the high court of land, in an astounding decision, struck the foundations from beneath ao program, A majority of the court held that agricultural production , 3 ^ local matter in which States, but not the Federal Government, might 0 concerned. There is no time to review that decision hero. Perhaps, °wover, you will grant mo leave to digress for a little comment. In my present work with tho Board of Governors of the Federal Ro . System I have become acutely aware that, while ^Government spend- in a depression to kocp the wheels of industry turning is a vital a h °^ rrIod-orn government', it is equally important to be able to call ^ aalt and commence retiring the public debt when business has regained 3 own momentum. With that in mind, I should like to remind not this i^Jonco alone, but tho great host of American business and financial th^er>3 cilGorGd- most when the Supremo Court ruled against tho A.A.A. farr'1 program was one emergency enterprise designed to be self- - to pay its way as it wont along, without drain on the 1 itod States Treasury. I cannot review in this brief talk the recent history of ',tt-1°na' 1"^arm legislation. In any event, I should have hesitated to it, because the distinguished Chairman of tho Senate Committee "^iculture, your own Senator Ellison D. Smith of South Carolina, ^Pocted to bo hero today—the dean cf the Senators of tho majority toi» ~n Washington, whom you have honored with the longest continuous , \Qvory accorded a Senator from your State. It was Senator Smith vh Son 0 brunt; °r battle in guiding through tho Senate the r^Q £ Conservation Act which was enacted within little more than a noS the Supremo Court ruling. Tho farmers of the country are ^operating under that law. Tho personal assistance and courtesy agi>- Senator Smith has accorded me during tho years of our service to ^ ^culture add to my pleasure in speaking hero in his state today. •3ott-i Questions considered in the A.A.A. case have not boon In tJlG majority opinion tho Court abandoned tho philosophy Co®? which earlier problems had been met, and which had made of our Y/q. S^tution a vital guide for a growing nation. The majority opinion s ^o ?? °-nto-bollum opinion. Tho philosophy pervades it which moved the t nt Buchanan.' on February 24, 1859, to voto th'o act establishing vot nci"Grant agricultural colleges, because, as ho then wrote in his in ? m°3saSO: ''Congress docs not havo tho power to appropriate money 1 iv Treasury for tho purpose of educating tho people of tho rcspect- G Wftatos. Should Congress exercise such a power, this would bo to Co^t" down the barriers which have been so carefully constructed in tho °tltution to separate Federal from State authority." 8tn4. Inevitably the contrast springs into my mind between that ^ ^ o a t, that philosophy, and an utterance on the same subject by tho tho 1° S^ve his" name to this groat college - Thomas Clemson, not only / 1oundor of this institution but one of tho fathers of tho present Y Oqxi m of agricultural and scientific education through Land Grant C ;;GSes. He worked for the passage of tho Land Grant College Act, 0n ' a movement to establish such a collcgc, he wrote: J 2§?) !co - 4- "The only hope wo havo for tho advancomont of agriculture is through the sciences and yet there is not one singlo institution on this continent where a proper scientific education can bo obtained. Those who wish to cultivate science are compelled to resort to institutions maintain- ed by the monarchied governments of Europe.• • "If I were called upon to say how money would bo ox- ponded with the greatest possible security for usefulness, I would point with confidence to such an institution as the act proposes.. t "Such a project to moot tho wants of tho people and tho ago will require large outlays, but once established under a proper organization, it will be tho pride and ornament of" tho State; it will turn out annually persons well and oroporly educated and capable of superintending and directing any art without possible chanco of failure,- poor land will be- invigorated, the recuperative energies of exhausted soils restored - and wealth and prosperity will prevail where desolation, want and wretchedness now obtain." There you have the issue — there tho contrast. On one hand £G man who wraps himself in draperies of tho dead and says, "You can't? 0 ether, the man who says, "We will" and leads tho way. On ono the man who bcliovos anything is evil that threatens to disturb /JG status quo. On the other, the man who socs that tho adaptation of 0 institutions to moot changing pressures is tho only way to prevent ^Plosion. It is in the nature of man to consider the present order fe and enduring. Even trained observers are disposed to see pcr- ^ion in things' as they are, Edward Gibbon was writing the third v rpUtao of his "Rise and Fall of tho Roman Empire" in 1780, when tho v/orc smouldering that within tho dccado flamed forth in tho ?ttch Revolution*. Gibbon know Franco as woll as any of his contcmpor- av Vot find him writing of Europe at that time as ono great » hose inhabitants have attained almost the same level of police- W to"? ancl cultivation. Tho balance of power," ho wrote, "will continue w ^uctuatc, and the prosperity of our own or tho neighboring kingdoms alternately oxaltccl and depressed; but these partial events can- °ssontially injure our general state of happiness, the system of t and laws, and manners which so advantageously distinguish, above h ^ost of mankind, the Europeans and their Colonicscr W, Surely tho man is an optimist who believes our problems are >wlo<l, or can bo settled without continued action by people through government, perhaps along unprecedented lines,, Surely the man thn t0t lessons of history who boliovcs all will be woll if wo ox lC3 United States can only turn the clock back to tho fovcrish late ^tios. l There are problems to solve, and they arc not easy. Without Qn tho field of agriculture, arc wo not concerned to see that naitions that brought on the collapse of 1932 are not repeated? XERO COPY i ~5 vo wo not ready to attack tho fundamental causes that havo brought on dispossession of land by fornor owners, and a terrible waste of "°il^resourccs thomselvos? A half century ago only one out of four ^orican farmors rented tho land he tilled. Today more than two out ° five aro tenants, and tho percentage is rising, g A year ago, in April, I was driving through Denmark with tho Rotary of the Danish Council of Agriculture. Ho pointed to a group cq gildings rising in a field to our loft, and said, ?!I invite you to "back in 1938, to attend the exposition celebrating tho one hundred fiftieth annivorsry of the abolition of tenancy in Denmark*" This was and remains a remarkable and admirable accomplishment bai problem which tho Danes had to moot, with their homogeneous, pav^1?00^ farm population, was far simpler than that of this country, °icularly in the Southern, cotton-growing states * IInn oouurr ccoouunnttrryy tthhee ffiirrss*t principle of sccuro land ownership J ^°PGndablo and adequate incomo To establish men as owners on the a vvnaif rt.h^oyy nnooww ffaarrmm aass tteennaannttss wwiillll accomplish nothing of permanent Ug unless there is a profitable return upon the farming operation* t^.. . Tho problem of farm tenancy is a challenge to the constructive in of this generation,, Sixty-five percent of all farmers engaged cotf of cotton farm land owned by somoono else. Yet tho the states; illustrate clearly the point I cm trying to make — that n adoquato returns for farming must be solved before ^sfactory solution to the tenancy question is found, Eleven states produce practically all of our cotton. Those states contain 45 »4 percent of all the farmers in tho United Cs* Yet those farmers, nearly half of all, received in 1935 only cr> ?^cont, or little more than one-fourth, of tho gross income from 0 and livestock in this country. fe^ Or put it another way. The average gross return for each in the cotton states was less than half the average for the farm' c°rvh tilc on'tirc country including southern farmers. Hero is a ccn- il ?ation of population engaged in farming for a poor return, with tl sw|° or no opportunity for profitable occupation vet developed to its income. So long as that condition prevails, living ard-s will bo unsatisfactory no matter how the terms of land tenuro shuffiod. opp The South is maing great strides in the development of now tunitios for employment from its rich potential resources. The W . ^8 of the Cotton Belt, along with farmers of the West and the arc organized, with tho help cf tho Federal Government, in a war 3t practices that waste their soil. What is being accomplished Uiw^s, -s do all enduring endeavors of a democracy, upon intelligent landing among tho massos of tho pooplc. That understanding upon information and education, brought to the pooplo in *W to use. In that work tho agricultural colleges, with their oxperi- stations and extension sorvicc, havo mado a notable, perhaps an °-llelod contribution. XERO — - i.'n COPY f^ f—-*! -6- c^ Expcrionco of the last few years has shewn that this stimu^- v?, on r.iass thinking makes great coordinated national effort possi— Di°* Recent observations havo hade no wish that some comparablo Qd.ucational force existed in the field of banking, rionoy and credit. It is clear to mo that we arc in a period of far-reaching ^angc and evolution in our money and credit policies,and in the agon- ^J-os that aro concerned with them® What is done will affect vitally nan, woman and child of the nation. The farmer down to the last -^Gcroppcr fs. family has in part his future in the stake, Our ex- ^^ionccs of the early 'twenties, and again in the early 'thirties, arc ^ f r e sh in our minds. Yot it has seemed to me that in this field is almost a total lack of the general information which is csscn- al to clear and unprejudiced thinking,, ^ Much of our thinking about money goes back to the day when c onc £°rn or another, usually with fixed value in gold or ou 9 consti'buted the medium of exchange. Today about 95 percent of r business is settled by bank chocks„ The banker who extends credit nonoy by an entry on his books or on the books of another bank— y that can build a house, pay for making a crop, or run a business 0r f -b It pays the wagosof labor, or buys raw material for a ac Similarly, when banks restrict credit or when banks fail, they Co as contraction of our bank currency, of our money, just as truly is !louSh the government collected bank notes and destroyed them. This tL^y credit control must bo oxorcisod by a public body representing ^ intorosts of tho whole nation, a v. The power to create and destroy money is a gigantic power and responsibility. N thread of common policy runs through tho 0 no? possess this power. Nearly two-thirds of them in number are bombers of the Federal Roscrvo System, although 86 percent of the Vol 1.5 onG 0:r clocking accounts is carried by System banks. The more than j3 ' 00 banks aro chartered, supervised or examined by at least 51 0 ^ato and distinct authorities«, c^q.,. The laws and rules under which tho vital functions of money, 3 n and banking are conducted arc written by tho Congress and the 0V legislatures. In the long run, Congresses arc responsive to in opinion. Yot how can public opinion exert constructive forcc ^ ^iolcl where there Is so little general information and thought? Shun What is tho function of gold in the future monetary system? of i wo again pin our faith to gold or some other metal or combination t ^als as a sort of automatic regulator of our money system? Or is ho mc^ Wo*la going to novo still farther in the direction of what is callcd then 0(1 n°noy -- that is, managed by human agencies rather than by 3t ^otically automatic gold or some othor disembodied mechanism? What 0 ^Wiivj U U l.li.U:i.U t/iA/UJ. u ao uv.uixuuj.^ w w v^-iw man, and on as reasonable terms, as to tho largo urban borrow- ; Have we taken adoquato stops to avoid future waves of bank fail- 3 and financial liquidation? What is the inter-relationship of our XERO i C On V ! - 7- ah anc1- othor investors with the public debt? Should the government the almost universal practice of issuing interest-bearing bonds bQ??.1^ borrows on credit, and turn to the issuance of non-interest aring notes in their stead? £ I could add to those questions indefinitely and so could any 0 if 1 woulci not attempt to answer them to your satisfaction oven that- V/CI,° no to mJ time and your patience. I assure you in h 1:110 questions aro not unimportant or remote. Every one of them is the foreground or background of public consideration today. y , The main economic problem of our generation is to devise a S c^o ? wllGr°in the flow of money will be steady and uninterrupted, in- only in proportion to our ability to produce more goods 0 of Perhaps more than any other class, suffer from the alternation ?0Cis anci cl-rouSilts in the money flow. They owe it to themselves, * to play an a-ctivo role in devising a system of levees and 08 •o ^Voirs in our financial mechanism, so that the flow of money will F ^0ciuo.tc, and no more than adequate, to match the flow of goods at a Ca tw°nably stable price level® I am hopeful that more and more atton-' i be paid, to this range of problems in our agricultural col- Gp g^Q ?• It is not enough that wo should increase our efficiency in do^^J^o and making things. There must also be a market and a steady •ana for the things wo are capablo of producing* t^. There is need for someone to write a primer explaining these °Ug 2rs* There is need for agencies to disseminate it. It is danger- ou^J0. ov°nsimplify the factors of the problem, but at least they b 0 to bo oxprossed so that wo can understand thorn. V/hat fi * v/ish sonioono would do in the field of money and credit do 5 aGricultural colleges and extension service arc beginning to SW"? domain of agricultural economics. But my thought today is dl^; to stato some of the questions, not to answer them. I have a'dy strayed too far from the occasion* f^Q^ , For no particular reason except that I have wandered away ^inc1 essential topic, and now must return, there comos to my inscription that stands over the gate of a very old English "Give fools their gold, and knaves their power, Let fortunes bubble rise and fall; Who sows a fiold, or tonds a flower, Or plants a tree, is more than all," And now in conclusion, to the youth assembled hero, to the 171 °n South Carolina, just one word of encouragement and chal- ^Ut ' v/iH not go from this campus into a fixed and settled world, a swi£tly~changing scene which needs your leadership and will W ^ d go w"10 ^now him, and you who did not, sense the i°ft by the passing of that rich life which gave tho now agri- h hall its name. Though ho worked hard and accomplished greatly, 0 ^Oat ^ins""0 to toll you that the tasks loft unfinished are Qx> than those that were put behind e XERO COPY i - 8- ^ In South Africa, at tho closo of his crowded life, Cecil ^odcs, the greatest Englishman of his generation, suixiod up in his ^ast words tho fooling of those who hand tho baton to thoso who nust arry on. Turning his face away fron tho faithful friends who were Oesido hin, ho said: "So little dono - so r.iuch tc,do :T 0 Thoso words throw down tho challenge to you who have the •So and tho training to take it up*

Chester C. Davis (1937, May 11). Speech. Speeches, Federal Reserve. https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19370512_davis

@misc{wtfs_speech_19370512_davis,
  author = {Chester C. Davis},
  title = {Speech},
  year = {1937},
  month = {May},
  howpublished = {Speeches, Federal Reserve},
  url = {https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19370512_davis},
  note = {Retrieved via When the Fed Speaks corpus}
}