farmers of North
Dakota which swept the State in the last election. Every branch of the
government was captured by the farmers, whose platform declared for the
untaxing of all kinds of farm-improvements and an increase in the tax rate
on unimproved land as a means of developing the State and ending the
idle-land speculation which prevails.

If such a policy as this were adopted for the nation as a whole; if the
idle land now held out of use were opened up to settlement; if the
government were to provide ready-made farms to be paid for upon easy terms,
and if, along with this, facilities for marketing, for terminals, for
slaughter-houses, and for agencies for bringing the produce of the farms to
the markets were provided, not only would agriculture be given a fillip
which it badly needs but the congestion of our cities and the immigration
problem would be open to easy solution. Then for many generations to come
land would be available in abundance. For America could support many times
its present population if the resources of the country were opened up to
use. Germany with 67,000,000 people could be placed inside of Texas. And
Texas is but one of forty-eight States. Under such a policy the government
could direct immigration to places of profitable settlement; it could
relieve the congestion of the cities and Americanize the immigrant under
conditions similar to those which prevailed from the first landing in New
England down to the enclosure of the continent in the closing days of the
last century. For the immigration problem is and always has been an
economic problem. And back of all other conditions of national well-being
is the proper relation of the people to the land.

A NEW RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR[9]

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR.

[Footnote 9: Address at the National Industrial Conference, Washington, D.
C., Oct. 16, 1919. By permission.]

The experience through which our country has passed in the months of war,
exhibiting as it has the willingness of all Americans without distinction
of race, creed, or class to sacrifice personal ends for a great ideal and
to work together in a spirit of brotherhood and cooeperation, has been a
revelation to our own people, and a cause for congratulations to us all.
Now that the stimulus of the war is over the question which confronts our
nation is how can these high levels of unselfish devotion to the common
good be maintained and extended to the civic li