degradation. Three of
these men can be purchased for money to vote, though they cannot be
hired for money to work. The daughters of the household are an equally
dangerous factor in the countryside. The cause of this moral peril is
the low grade of living to which the family has sunk. There is no known
state of ill-health to account for their indolence. The first duty of
the church in such a community is to regenerate such a household and to
lift the standard of ambition of its members.

Slowly the country town is coming to realize that its reputation as well
as its progress is determined by this grade of citizen. No exceptional
success on the part of one or more families and no substantial goodness
by a whole grade of the population can compensate for the lowering of
the standard of the whole town by these people. The life and death, the
reputation and the progress of the town are dependent upon the
extinguishment of these peasant conditions.

This is illustrated by the fact that where votes are for sale in a town
those purchased votes determine the election in the majority of cases.
They constitute the movable margin between the two parties; and by
shifting them one way or the other the political policy of the town is
determined. This fact illustrates the whole moral situation of the town,
for just by the same flexible margin is the moral life of the town
determined. The duty of the church therefore is with the people upon
the economic and social margin of the life of the rural community.

The farmer's moral standards are opposed to combination. He believes in
personal righteousness and family morals. He does not believe in the
moral control of the individual or the household by the economic group.
It has been impossible, therefore, to combine the farmers in the East in
any general way so as to control their markets by maintaining a high
standard of product. The only control that is dreamed of by the leaders
of the farmers is the control of the quantity of their products. They do
not think of combination which will control themselves, and so maintain
a higher quality of product in order that thus they may dominate the
market in the great city.

The present state of ethical opinion among Eastern farmers is not in
sympathy with the ethical demands of city populations. The Western fruit
growers' associations have fixed the standard for the farmers who raise
the fruit, first of all, and by means of this standard they h