Some policy to bring contentment to small holders and rural workers must
be formulated and acted upon. Agriculture is of more importance to the
nation than industry. Our task is to truly democratize civilization and
its agencies; to spread in widest commonalty culture, comfort,
intelligence, and happiness, and to give to the average man those things
which in an earlier age were the privileges of a few. The country is
the fountain of the life and health of a race. And this organization of
the country people into co-operative communities will educate them and
make them citizens in the true sense of the word, that is, people
continually conscious of their identity of interest with those about
them.

It is by this conscious sense of solidarity of interest, which only the
organized co-operative community can engender in modern times, that the
higher achievements of humanity become possible. Religion has created
this spirit at times--witness the majestic cathedrals the Middle Ages
raised to manifest their faith. Political organization engendered the
passion of citizenship in the Greek States, and the Parthenon and a host
of lordly buildings crowned the hills and uplifted and filled with pride
the heart of the citizen. Our big countries, our big empires, and
republics, for all their military strength and science, and the wealth
which science has made it possible for man to win, do not create
citizenship because of the loose organization of society; because
individualism is rampant, and men, failing to understand the intricacies
of the vast and complex life of their country, fall back on private life
and private ambitions, and leave the honor of their country and the
making of laws and the application of the national revenues to a class
of professional politicians, in their turn in servitude to the interests
which supply party funds, and so we find corruption in high places and