n to the
same platform, Conservation at once rose above party, and will be the
accepted policy of all future Administrations. It has already secured
almost Pan-American endorsement at its birthplace in Washington. The
fathers of Conservation are now looking forward to a still larger sphere
of influence for their offspring at an International Conference which it
is hoped to assemble at the Hague.

But it must be admitted that no such reception was accorded to Mr.
Roosevelt's other policy, to which our attention must now be turned. The
reasons for the comparative lack of interest in the problem of Rural
Life are many and complex, but two of them may be noted in passing.
Conservation calls for legislative and administrative action, and this
always sets up a ferment in the political mind. The Rural Life idea, on
the other hand, though it will demand some governmental assistance, must
rely mainly upon voluntary effort. The methods necessary for its
development, and their probable results, are also less obvious, and thus
less easily appreciated by the public. Whatever the reason, while
Conservation has rushed into the forefront of public interest and has
won the status and dignity of a policy, the sister idea is still
struggling for a platform, and its advocates must be content to see
their efforts towards a higher and a better country life regarded as a
movement.

This estimate of the relative positions of these two ideas in the public
mind will, I think, be borne out when we contrast the quiet initiation
of the movement with the dramatic debut of the policy. For all the
officialism with which it was launched, President Roosevelt's Country
Life Commission might as well have been appointed by some wealthy
philanthropist who would, at least, have paid its members' travelling
expenses,[1] and private initiation might also have spared us the
ridicule which greeted the alleged proposal to "uplift" a body of
citizens who were told that they were already adorning the heights of
American civilisation. The names of the men who volunteered for this
unpaid service should have been a sufficient guarantee that theirs was
no fool's errand.[2]

How real was the problem the commissioners were investigating was
abundantly proved to those who were present when they got into touch
with working farmers and their wives, and discussed freely and
informally the conditions, human and material, to which the problem of
Rural Life relates. I shall