ABSTRACT
But no specific rural social problem exists as yet in America, indeed no such problem has existed since the abolition of slavery and the solution of the question of settling and disposing of the immense area which was in the hands of the Union. The present difficult social problems of the South, in the rural districts also, are essentially ethnic and not economic. 0Qe cannot establish a theory of rural community as a characteristic social formation on the basis of questions concerning irrigation, railroad tariff, homestead laws, et cetera, however important these matters may be. This may change ~n the future. But if anything is characteristic of the rural conditions of the great wheat-producing states of America, it is-.to speak in general terms-the absolute economic individualism of the farmer, the quality of the farmer as a mere businessman.
