CHAPTER III
William James, the Harvard psychologist, used to say in his class-room: “I must fight the devil and his wiles, for God needs me. I may help save the day.”
In the same room, the next hour, Josiah Royce, the philosopher, would say, “I must set my heel on Satan’s neck, for God’s victorious spirit is in me.”
Whichever of these two schools of moral action one belongs to, one is bound, you see, to fight the devil and his guile; and in country life this is nojoke, for as it turns out, the devil waved a mighty wicked wand over the American farm tenant when he jockeyed him on to the land into the shoes of the departing farm owner. It was a devilish, cunning trick to decoy the owner, body and soul, into town and into the town church—away from the little country church of his fathers. It was, however, the meanest lick of Satan against the peace of the tenant to bewitch him into flitting from farm to farm and from community to community. And now the situation has come to such a pass that, unless the American church has the grace and backbone and subtlety to outgeneral the devil in his game, the devil wins; for in matters of religion, the landless man is between the devil and the deep sea.
“Churches Detour—Tenants Ahead”
It is old stuff, in a way, this cheerless story of farm tenants and religion. Pick up, as I have done, either at random or quite methodically, booklets, chapters, articles, or pamphlets dealing at first hand with the farm tenant, and the tale of his religious handicap runs drearily, hopelessly to the same sad end. For example, take this rather mild statement from a member of Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission:
“The farm owner who has moved to town and is renting his land cannot be expected to be a real, vital force in the rural church. Nor can the tenant who has a one-year lease, or whose tenure is uncertain, be expected to cultivate the Christian graces byintimate fellowship with his neighbors and associates; in other words, to take root in the community and become a part of it.”
“Why, then,” it will be asked, “try to dress up the outworn subject again?”
The plain answer, without any apology, is simply this: The farm-tenant case, as a phase of religion in eclipse, has not yet cast an image on the American mind. The American church,—and I class together all the Christian bodies in this sweeping term,—the Christian conscience of the American church has apparently reversed itself and “passed by on the other side” of this bedeviled situation. Now such an attitude, such collective behavior, is ruthless, well nigh unforgivable, and in fact incomprehensible.Words must continue to be spoken until the church ceases to detour around the tenant.
The Flood of Tenancy Unabated
And first of all, in order to see the gravity of the case as it stands, one must sense the resistless character of the sweeping flow of tenancy itself. Decade by decade the flood has risen. In 1880, 25.6 per cent. of the farms in the United States were tenant farms; in 1890, 28.4 per cent.; in 1900, 35.3 per cent.; in 1910, 37.0 per cent.; in 1920, 38.1 per cent.
If one looks a little closer at the regions where the flood is highest—almost over the dikes, so to speak—the truth strikes home a little stronger. In the east South-central States, containing Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama,Mississippi, the percentage in 1880 was 35.2; in 1890, 38.6; in 1900, 49.1; in 1910, 52.8; in 1920, 49.6. In the west south-central area, containing Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, the percentage in 1880 was 35.2; in 1890, 38.6; in 1900, 49.1; in 1910, 52.8; in 1920, 53.2. In the west north-central area, containing, as a very vital part of American agriculture, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, the percentage in 1880 was 20.5; in 1890, 24.0; in 1900, 28.6; in 1910, 30.0; in 1920, 34.1.
When the United States Census Report for 1920 came out and was scanned, it was discovered by every one that in the decade between 1910 and 1920 the flood of tenant farms had in number gone down in some States alittle, as in Alabama and Mississippi, a fact which brought a decline in the east south-central area from 52.8 per cent. in 1910 to 49.6 per cent. in 1920. But lest the friends of agriculture in America should be put under ether by this disclosure, Dr. C. L. Stewart, now professor in the University of Illinois, while a member of the United States Department of Agriculture, in a statement entitled, “The Persistent Increase of Tenant Farming,” called attention to the fact that the bare number of tenant farms is a less accurate index of the sweep and meaning of tenancy than the acreage involved and the value of that acreage:
“When measured on the basis of acreage and value, the number of rented acres per thousand and the number of dollar’s worth of rented land perthousand was not only higher (in 1910 and 1920) than that shown on the preceding basis (number of rented farms), but has been growing at much faster rates during both of the decades since 1900, especially during the decade just ended.... In the light of this analysis, the tide of tenancy is shown by the latest census to have continued with little or no abatement.”
In sober truth, this flood-tide of tenancy is no mere passing phenomenon in the adolescent experience of America, but is a settled characteristic now being wrought into the texture of American life. As a social and economic force, tenancy is here to stay. Statesmen may well build their dikes higher against it; but American religious leaders—the makers of ecclesiastical policy—must from now ongravely take farm tenancy into their reckoning, or assume spiritual responsibility for its continued religionless character.
Locating the Devil’s Quarry
Let us draw a bit closer to these tenant folks and look them in the eyes. There they are, in round numbers two and a half millions of tenant operators; or, perhaps, better reckoned for our purpose as twelve millions of people, counting all persons in the tenant families both old and young. But, as almost everybody knows, there are a few vast differences among tenants, and we must sift a little and sort out the group that the devil is laying his finger on and claiming as his own.
A tenant who is a son or daughter of the landlord, or otherwise related tothe landlord by blood or marriage, is without question not only a privileged person and his family a privileged family among tenants, but, what is more to the point, living on family lands as he most generally does, the “related tenant” is so often an owner in prospect with a deed “in escrow” as the law would put it, that while nominally a tenant, he is an owner in thin disguise, and virtually has in the community the status of an owner. The census does not declare what percentage of the twelve millions of tenant folk belongs to this favored class; but whatever the percentage is, it is obviously decreasing with the decreasing percentage of owner-operating families. Representative studies made by the United States Department of Agriculture indicate that 23 per cent. ofthe tenant population belongs at present to this group. If we accept this estimate, then, in 1920, there were 2,760,000 persons in the families of “related tenants.”
To protect my story against the will to exaggerate the landless element, let us call the total number of “related tenants” three millions; and then let us deduct this whole group from the twelve millions of tenant folks. This leaves nine millions of tenants unprivileged by birth or marriage in respect to land.
Lest any one should feel, furthermore, that I am trying to make, under cover, a case of the colored tenant,—whose situation is confessedly special and should not, for obvious reasons, be confused with that of white tenants,—let us sift and sort again and take outthree and a half millions of colored tenant folk, old and young. The residuum is five and a half millions of white tenants. This is the group that has swelled in numbers during the past four decades. This is the group that is all the time spreading over more and more acres, all the time creeping on to more and more valuable land. This group of landless men, women, and children (I do not mean to say that this is the only landless group of white farm people, for the agricultural-labor class makes another story), occupying more and more the strategic positions in agriculture and country life, contains the devil’s quarry.
Tenants On the Go
We must add one more particularly distressing feature to our general picture.In December and January in the South, or in March in the North, there is a great stir among these tenants, for moving-time has come. During the year between December 1, 1921, and December 1, 1922, according to a statement put out by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, entitled, “Farm Occupancy, Ownership, and Tenancy, 1922,” “nearly 663,000 shifts on farms exchanging tenants” occurred of which “nearly 250,000 tenants were indicated to have either discontinued farming for some other occupation or moved out of their communities.”
In this exodus, poverty tags along, poverty carrying in her apron all the witch’s ills—hard luck, dimmed lights of the mind, illness, inferiority written in behavior, stolid despair, indifferenceto improvement, insensibility to refinements. In the South, poverty hangs on to the coat-tails of the “Cropper”—him of the lowest estate of the tenant. In 1920, according to the United States Census Report, there were 227,378 white croppers, more than one million white cropper folk.
Behold a host, comparable with the host of Israel on the way to Canaan. The roads are filled with teams, with jags of household belongings, with led or driven cattle, horses and mules, with loads of women and children. A small nation is folding its tents and moving on ere its tents have fairly got pitched. White tenants alone,—and mind you, out of the group of five and a half millions of landless people,—an army of 1,375,000 souls; and of these, more than a half a million going across theborder of the community into a strange land for another short sojourn. This is the picture you will see every year—over a quarter of all tenants moving, and ten per cent. of all tenants moving into strange associations among strange people.
Outcasts From the Church
In their recent study, “The Town and Country Church,” Dr. H. N. Morse and Dr. de S. Brunner, of the Institute of Social and Religious Research, have this convincing word to say about the church and the farm tenant:
“The church in the country areas is not, generally speaking, the church of the landless man. In a study of all the churches in 179 counties, located in 44 States, the situation, which we believe is reliably representative of conditionsin the United States as a whole, is this: The percentage of farm owners who are members of churches in the South is 59.5, while of tenants who are members the percentage is 33.5; in the Southwest, of owners, 26.2, while of tenants, 9.2; in the Northwest, of owners, 16.4, while of tenants, 7.4; in the Middle West, of owners, 47.9, while of tenants, 20.3; in the Prairie, of owners, 55.6, while of tenants, 15.8.”
These two authorities on the farmer’s church, draw from their study of the high and low tenancy areas in 175 counties this further conclusion: “The larger the proportion of farm tenants in an area, the more conspicuously unreached by the church is the landless man.” Here are their figures, see for yourself:
“In counties where tenancy runsfrom 0 to 10 per cent., the percentage of farm owners who are church members is 13.7, while the percentage of tenants who are church members is 12.4; where tenancy runs from 11 to 25 per cent., the percentage of owners as church members is 26.8, while of tenants, 19.8; where tenancy runs from 26 to 50 per cent., the percentage of owners is 48.2, while of tenants, 23.6; where tenancy runs over 50 per cent., the percentage of owners who are church members is 63.6, while the percentage of tenants who are church members is 23.9.”
When we look into this statement, it is plain that in the low tenancy areas the “related tenants” on “family lands” bulk large, and they rank, as we know, with owners themselves; but when we get into the high tenancy areas, westrike the core of tenants unrelated to the landlord. Here is the mass of our 5,500,000 landless tenant folk, and here is where the church has weakened and fallen down. Five millions of these white landless tenants are in the high tenancy areas. And applying this church study to our problem, while the church reaches 55 per cent. of the owners in these areas it reaches only 24 per cent. of the tenants. That is, 1,200,000 of these landless tenants only are inside the circle of direct religious influence, and 3,800,000 are outside. If these 5,000,000 persons had been owners of land, or inheritors of land in waiting, the church would have reached 2,750,000 of them instead of 1,200,000; in other words here are 1,550,000 tenant people who are outcasts from the church simply becausethey are landless folk. And these outcasts—these religionless pariahs—are on the increase from year to year as tenancy increases its hold upon the nation.
One Hundred Per Cent. Material for Religion
It surely will not be misunderstood if a layman should call to mind that the genius of Christianity is its perennial Gospel—just good news—to the poor, the broken in life’s struggle. If a fitter multitude than these tenants for the good tidings of the Christ can be found on the face of the earth, I would like to learn of them. The ordinary life of these outcasts, these wanderers from spot to spot seeking the sun that refuses to shine, has precisely all of those breakdowns which the Christianreligion promises to repair—poverty, invalidism, death, sin. It seems to me that these pariahs are just naturally made to order for the kind of religion that the American church has to offer; but as I see it, and I have looked this thing in the face from angle after angle, they haven’t got a ghost of a show at it the way the church system of the country at present works out. Speaking straight from the shoulder, the devil wins, unless—And where is the person who will rise and name the great “unless” that can fix this church system up and set the heel of the church on Satan’s neck?
The history of the church, running back through the centuries, is, as I read it, dotted with awakenings, with the rise of a thought, of a hope-dream, with the rise of a man who out of thevery fog and blackness of popular waywardness, wantonness, unbelief, depravity, has stood up and successfully denied that human life must be all to the strong and that the poor must live unillumined. This has been the type of man who has lit the torch of love and solicitude and faith in the world that has lighted the race generation after generation. Is this not the time in the life of the American church and this the occasion in America for such a man to arise and call a halt upon the detour of the church around the farm tenant?