Depression and Politics in the Middle West

...In some of the western North Dakota aad Montana Counties, even the Eastern mortgage holders are letting t h e taxes g o by default, and—this at least is poetically ironical—losing their land by tbe identical method by which they took i t from tbe original owners...

...Unable to pay either taxes or interest on tbe mortgages, literally tens of thousands of farmers are being foreclosed by their creditors...

...Much of thla land was obtained on free grants from the United States government less than 50 years ago...

...The farmers of Iowa, Illinois and Michigan —who considered themselves wealthy right after tbe World War because of the sudden increase in land values—would not incline sympathetic ears to the Non-partisan League doctrine back In lOia.10.3A .some" of them, of course, were simply stampeded by war hysteria and the slogans of patrioteers...

...Inflamed by the false charges in the newspapers—which of course were well subsidized by the milling combine — they broke up meetings, rotten-egged speakers and voted against well considered measures intended to give the fanner a. larger share of what he actually produced...

...I n some counties a large proportion of the land is being held by the state...

...Consequently, while North Dakota still retains its s t a t e bank and s t a t e mill and a t a te hail Insurance, the beneficial effects were localized...

...Bankers Hold Many Farms The land is being concentrated la the bands of Eastern mortgage holders, life Insurance companies...

...Arthur C. Townley, first president of the league, was honest financially and remains today a sincere radical, but ha was easily flattered, liked to be surrounded by "yes men," and was persuaded to throw the league Influence behind half a dozen very dubious promotions...

...Maay Parma Lost Not only are thousands of farmers being forced to sacrifice their live stock, while in many, many cases last season's crops a re r o t t i ng because it did not pay to harvest them, but many more thousands are being turned out of t be homes which they acquired after years of toil...

...Instead, many of these farmers mortgaged 'what they had in order to buy more land at the very peak of the Inflation...

...They have bean betrayed by their so-called leaders and are deserted by tbe office holders they elected...

...Today, tens of thousands of farmers who in 1918-1920 rated themselves as worth from $100,000 to $300,000, have lost everything they own...

...The Hoover-inspired Farm Board has used no small p a r t of i t s $500,000,000 appropriation as thinly disguised bribes...

...Originally swash-buckling radicals, who even made vague threats of revolution, they have gradually tempered their tone to s u i t the conservative atmosphere of Washington...

...I t has been estimated that at least 20,000,000 acres of land in the ten largest western agricultural states has been foreclosed since Jan...

...Its program was fundamentally constructive and well adapted to the needs of the Northwestern agricultural states...

...Yet these humble privates have never wavered in their radicalism...

...banters a n d other ,absent, landlords...

...The Small Business Man Fooled The petty business men of the small cities and villages did not have enough brains to recognize the truth...

...And don't forget that many owned from 160 to 500 acres each...

...Both are mildly progressive— when it Is to their political advantage— but they supported Hoover in 1928 and probably will play ball with the Republican Old Guard again this , election...

...This, of course, throws a heavier t a x burden on those who still retain title to their property, and grinds them Into bankruptcy that much faster...

...Most of them would welcome a new political alignment that will divide tbe radicals a a d conservatives...

...lower railroad rates and hall Insurance a t cost were necessities to avoid bankruptcy...

...I t has kept its program on the statute books, but the old idealism is sadly missing, and in the main it is officered by a group of self-seeking politicians...

...If the head of' a farmer's organization will line-up with the local Republicans, his cooperative will be given a substantial loan, often running into several million dollars, and the leader" himself may land a fat salary—at say from $10,000 to $50,000 a year...

...The smaller cities and towns of the Middle West were built oa tbe labor of the fanner, and the small business men a r e suddenly discovering they cannot prosper when tbe farmer is broke...

...The old Socialists who had organized the league, and gave it Idealism, direction and motive power, were gradually eliminated because they protested against these developments...

...The League's Destruction I t is a monumental crime that the stupid, short-sighted selfishness of the Non-partisan League leaders destroyed this splendlly conceived political movement...

...F a rm tenantry baa been Increasing in the Middle West a t a rapid r a t e ever since the postwar deflation of 1930, and the Hoover depression was tbe last s t r aw that broke the camel's back...

...Consequently, both have been rewarded with committee chairmanships by the Republican machine —and both have close personal relatives on the payrolls...

...There baa been much the same tragic betrayal in Minnesota...

...This year several of the leaders have journeyed to New York and Washington, made their deals with the Democratic political machines, aad a t this writing seem prepared to deliver the s t a t e to Franklin D. Roosevelt...

...Others became drunk with power and tried t o go far faster than the rank and file of the membership was prepared to follow...

...These wealthy farmers (they probably would BE CALLED kulaks in Russia) attributed their "SUCCESS" to their own shrewdness and FEW of them realized that the rise in the price of land had come about through causes over which they had no control—nor that it could be deflated as swiftly as lt had been inflated...

...With the proper kind of organization, thousands of them could be brought back to the Socialist party—which they never left spiritually...

...There are counties In Iowa—probably the richest agricultural region of its size in the whole world —where practically every farm is mortgaged for two, three and even four times as much as it would bring a t going land prices...

...In Oklahoma many of them are refusing to pay taxes at all a n d the same is true of North Dakota and Montana...

...As a result moat of the so-called "leaders" remain strangely inactive and their newspaper organs display a surprising mildness, considering t h e widespread suffering of their followers...

...The Farmer-Labor office holders, however, are a sorry lot in the main...

...Also, an enormous acreage In tbe aggregate Is reverting to tbe s t a t e because no one can be found—at present prices of agricultural products—who ia willing to pay tbe taxes...

...They fought the farmers, and now the same parasitical interests that exploited the agricultural producers are putting the independent business men into bankruptcy...

...Consequently, ta many sections, tbe live stock h a s either been turned loose to forage aa best they oaa on the depleted ranges, or, in soma cases, humanely slaughtered aad put out of their misery...

...state mills and elevators to cut down the dishonest toll which the Minneapolis milling combine was collecting on the millions of bushels of grain produced annually in North Dakota...

...But the purely political purposes of i t s original founders— practically all of whom were veteran Socialists—were diverted Into a dozen different side lines by the flock of campfollowers...

...I t was a native-American movement and had a vigor that seemed indigenous to the soil from which it sprang...

...Recent reports show t h a t the Red Cross early ta January waa feeding mars than 110,000 persons tat Montana, North aad South Dakota, Washington and Nebraska, aad many thousand more were getting help from t b e Fanners' Union aad other organisations, Fanners abw tack feed for their live stock —and present prices for hogs, sheep s a d beef cattle will not pay the railroad freight t o terminal markets...

...Tens of thousands of league farmers voted for Roosevelt In the recent Democratic primary...

...but others had substantial bank accounts and owned land that was appraised at $100 to $500 an acre...

...In one west era North Dakota county there has not enough been raised in'taxes to pay the salaries of the county seat office holders and, sehools are being shut down all over the wheat belt because the districts cannot collect sufficient money to give teachers their salaries...

...Leaders of tbe various farm organisations, in t h e main, have displayed the same lamentable weakness in tbe present crisis...

...All of these crashed Into bankniptcy during the 1920 deflation, and these failures cost the league saenthprsbip a a t least $2,000,000...

...Other leaders became ambitious for political honors—and once they had entered the partisan arena they proved as tricky aa the old line politicians...

...Reports of actual destitution among the farmers are general througliout the wheat belt from Oklahoma to North Dakota...

...Today many business men are beginning to realize that they were gulled Into serving as shock troops for the profiteers...

...Tbe farmers of the Northwest today are ready for radical doctrines...

...A little group in Minneapolis andffSt, Paul—all of whom originally ware Socialists have kept the faith, preserved their political integrity aad faaaed the fires of propaganda through a few weekly papers, using what influence they could within the Farmer-Labor party...

...and older, richer commonwealths like Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota, where the farmers do not depend upon a single crop but diversify their acreage, also are suffering terribly from the depression which showed its first effects in the drastic reduction of prices of agricultural products...

...Spokesmen of t h e farmers' movement at the time declared that s t a t e banks to reduce extortionate Interest rates...

...Frailer bod Nye The same Is true of Frazler and Nye from North Dakota...

...All they lack is leaders—leaders who p u t principle above selfish advantage—and IF the present office holders CONTINUE to compromise, Jt may t h a t a real crisis will produce some real men...

...Yes, these salaries actually have been paid...

...He has built up a personal machine by playing both eads against the inlddls—<but be seems anxious to have bis old affiliations forgotten a a d never t a k e s advantage of tba unparalleled opportunities which tba Senate offers as a forum and sounding board...

...In the larger cltiea of the East, the fanner ia generally supposed to be an independent fellow who always has shelter and enough to eat, a t least, regardless of whether times are good or bad...

...Today they a r e disgusted with both old parties, and even more disgusted with the trimming tactics of their leaders...

...Today, tn many Northwestern states, thousands of farmers would be facing starvation If It were not for charity...

...Fifteen years ago when the Non-partisan League s t a r t e d in N o r t h Dakota with a program of state ownership of banks, flour mills, grain elevators, bail Insurance and other reform messurea, the business men branded them as "Socialists," "Bolsheviks" and "free lovers" and opposed the farmers' efforts by every sort of unfair legal and political trickery —and sometimes by violence...

...Yet, the rank and file have been educated In radical propaganda, understand economics and, if honestly and unselfishly led, could be easily persuaded to vote for such a candidate as Norman Thomas, or to solidly support third party ticket...

...In a single generation approxl mately one-half of the agricultural producers of the Middle West have been reduced from Independent bome-6wnera to the status of ten a n t s and the relentless process that i leads inevitably to a condition comparable to peasantry is continuing...

...They talk bravely on the floor of the Senkte now and then, but n o one who is familiar with their record would bet much money that they would risk their lucrative committee chairmanships by bolting the regular ticket even If their fellow Senator, Norris, should become a candidate...

...The Need for New Leadership By Eric Smart Not since tlie early W s , when acute price deflation in the newly settled prairie states resulted in t h e rise of t h e Populist party with its then radical program of social reforms, have conditions been so desperate as they are today in the fanning regions of the Middle West...

...1, 1031, and approxl mately 50,000 farmers have been compelled to abandon their homes...

...Authentic statistics from North Dakota show that more than 60 per cent of the farmers have lost their farms since 1020 and many more are simply remaining on tbe land at the sufferance of their •ICDITORS...

...Since they nave participated in this petty swag it la not strange that they seldom make vociferous protests against the wholesale stealing that la going on all around them—or fight very vigorously for measures t o advance the common good...

...The Need for Leadership Before the World War the Socialist party had a proportionately larger vote In Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota than It did ia New York City, twelve thousand North Dakota farmers cast their ballots for Gene Debs and these same red card Socialists always formed the fighting phalanx of the Non-partisan League in the days when i t really stood for something...

...Deals with Roosevelt The Non-partisan League still, has a skeleton machine in North Dakota and elects a number of s t a t e officers and about half the members of t h e Legislature...

...I t appealed to labor aa well as to farmers, If the organization were Intact today lt would sweep the whole Middle West like a prairie fire—and might well HOLD the balance of power In the nation...

...Chain stores, chain banks, chain garages, chain phar macies, and even chain newspapers are Invading the Middle Weat in ever increasing numbers and the business men a r e making the same "socialistic" arguments that the farmers made fifteen years before, In many communities business is on a barter basis...

...Henrlk Shipatead, who was put in the United States Senate by Non-partisan League farmers, votes right on most occasions, but otherwise contributes nothing at all to t b e radical movement...

...He could, if be would, do much toward advancing soundly radical doctrines la these United States, but his wife has social ambitions and he never risks offending his fellow Senators...