SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LA FOLLETTE PROBE
Eggleston, Arthur
Significance of The La Follette Probe By ARTHUR EGGLESTON IN THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. THE first report of the La Follette committee on the results of its investigation in California has been...
...DESPITE the condition already created by displacement of some hundreds of thousands of farmers and farm dwellers, the...
...Changes in ownership and methods of working land are merely part of what is generally understood as the industrial revolution...
...THE first report of the La Follette committee on the results of its investigation in California has been passed over rather lightly...
...There is a much greater need for social engineering, the La Follette committee seems to indicate...
...But the tractor and mass-scale farming by modern machinery make It Improbable the "Grapes of Wrath" and the other studies of this problem will become dated in our time...
...It announced: "Additional study and consultation in Washington have convinced the committee that the California situation is not an isolated one, but only a striking symbol of a much more far-reaching problem, national In scope, involving the present and future welfare of a large proportion of out rural population in many states other than California...
...If you want to get in on the ground floor of a social revolution, though, 'it might be well to pay some attention to the first halting moves being made to understand It...
...Those changes are hitting the real American farmer and his way of living much as the industrial revolution in manufacture, transport, merchandising and all the rest of it hit the small producer of goods and services...
...The factor that was overlooked for so long is beginning to show up...
...Drought, depression and dust storm took their toll of the farmer and the farm dweller in the I930's and the result was Grapes of Wrath and all the rest of it...
...The small farmer-owner thrown off his land may smile grimly as he passes a roadside billboard extolling "the American way...
...Had there been no other factor, it ,is entirely possible that the "Grapes of Wrath" would be well on its way now to being a "dated" book...
...social revolution in agriculture has only just started, they say...
...Here is one of the grandest opportunities In history, to sit in on the deliberations of governmental bodies now concerning themselves more and more with a revolution in American agriculture, which has been held by experts to be as upsetting as the industrial revolution...
...Because the condition about which the book is written, it is now discovered, cannot be controlled by engineers and soil chemists and tree planters and dam builders...
...But instead of there being less migratory farm laborers leading an insecure and un-American existence, there are more...
...That condition is the distressing economic, social and political status of the hundreds of thousands who make, up California's seasonal and migratory farm labor population...
...In this week of exhortation to "good eitiren-ship," particular attention should be paid the La Follette committee's observation that "the problem of civil liberties In California agriculture, which has suffered 180 strikes in the last seven years, signalizes the existence of a tragic underlying condition which must be remedied if farm laborers are to attain a full enjoyment of their civil rights...
...Chiefly it seeks to analyze "the forces that are displacing farm families from the land, causing them to migrate to other states seeking employment as migratory farm laborers...
...And the story, whether told before the La Follette committee or the Temoprary National Economic committee or some other governmental body, seems to be that we haven't seen anything yet...
...His was the traditional American way of life from earliest colonial times until the impact of the industrial revolution hit agriculture...
...THE La Follette committee will add to the record It wrote in California testimony of experts on the location and character of farm labor areas other than California, what is happening to the "family farm" and other matters...
...The latter is generally assigned to the years 1870 to 1930 and of course is still going on...
...Irrigation projects, soil conservation, better land use and other similar steps would operate In the long run to overcome some of the reasons why hundreds of thousands of persons were swept from their land to become migratory laborers...
...The dust storms subside, the rains return and the market for farm products becomes good...
...That Is what they say about some of George Bernard Shaw's plays, the social disorder dealt with in some cases has become unimportant...
...The effect of mechanization so that many farms can be thrown into one and many farmers put off their land to wander was hidden in the dust clouds that ruined millions of acres...
...Instead of there being more farmer-owners and farm dwellers, there are less...
...It Is found that abundant water, revived soil and better prices for farm products do not appreciably decrease the burden of rural relief and rural rehabilitation, ' Dust storms, depression and drought move aside and the great new farm machines rumble onto the national stage...
...They might even fling to that land in depression...
Vol. 10 • May 1940 • No. 20
