◆ SpookStack

. ‘ 7 8 ° ) 7 at present are first tne diff. .ulty in training superviv cy pe._bnnel fast enough and second the high cost of supervision. At the beginning supervisory costs will be exceedingly high especially in those countries where there are neither agricultural banks nor an agricultural extension service. This is not a cheap program except in comparison with all the others. But I do say that per dollar invested, a program of supervised loans will greatly increase agricultural productivity, raise living stan- dards, increase world trade and furnish a base for industrialization in those areas of the world which need it most. This is America's answer to the collective farm of the Communists. It is a program which has been tried out and which will work. It promotes the maximum of informed individual initiative but hooks it to capital and modern technical knowledge. There are many more details which I do not have time to go into which have been discovered by the old Farm Security Administration and the Rockefeller group in South America. Suffice it to say that time is of the essence in countries like India and Egypt. If we do not reach the small farmers of such areas fast with loans supervised by adequately trained personnel we can expect Communism or an exaggerated Nationalism to make enormous inroads, We lost China because we did not understand this problem and we are in danger of losing much of the rest of the world. . The world will not indefinitely remain half slave and half free. By slavery I mean enslavement to poverty, misery, disease, ignorance and illiteracy. The Communists propose to lead the crowded peoples out of their present slavery into a new one which while it would teach them to read, write and industrialize would deliver them body and soul into an all-permeating totalitarianism, the very essence of which is envy, hate and the denial of everything spiritual. Nevertheless millions of the hungry people of the world in their darkness think they see a great light in Russian Communism. Their hatred of the Colonial Powers of Western Europe combined with their misery rooted in an inefficient agriculture has made them very susceptible to Communist propaganda. Communists are as expert in detecting misery as a bacteria are at seeking out the spots ready for decay. Unfortunately we Americans have suddenly become the greatest power in the world without adequate training in the accompanying responsibilities. We have not tried very hard to understand the customs, languages, histories, religions or agricultural techniques of other people. While some of our Missionaries and State Department people have done efficient work, most Americans living abroad seem to have no desire really to understand the problems of the people among whom they live. Some of our Universities have made a start toward preparing our young people to live in other lands but in the main America has been indifferent to the problem of intelligently exercising her power abroad. Americans who live in countries with much misery and low productivity are usually representatives of large corporations. Most of them associate as much as possible with other Americans or with other Western Europeans. Few of them become acquainted with the problems of the 80 per cent of the people who live on small, poor farms. Insofar as they associate with the natives it is largely with the very wealthy who have learned to speak English or some other European language. In this connection I think of the methods used by the Germans and Japanese among the small farm families of the Andean plateau during the Thirties. Our recent enemies learned how the Andean Indians lived, what they bought, what they sold. They specialized om selling small farm tools and household equipment to these families with an annual income of perhaps $100 a year. It was small business but amounted in the aggregate to nearly $0 million annually. It was largely beneath our notice because as a rule we prefer to sell to the people in the larger cities. And so the Germans and Japanese succeeded where we never even tried. Today outside of limited circles we are mach hated in Latin America. Some Americans and English unfortunately take attitudes which arouse intense nationalistic resentments. No doubt the local Communists acting on orders from Moscow have indirectly been responsible for much of this nationalistic, anti-Anglo-Saxon feeling.