SHALL FARMERS BE FREEMEN OR PEASANTS?
Oneal, James
SHALL FARMERS BE FREEMEN OR PEASANTS? How Rural Workers Lost Economic Independence and How to Recover It By James Oneal The grievance.of the farmer is easily understood. After centuries...
...Back ' of this mechanism is a great interiocki lng trust control of finance, commerce and Industry...
...4) The farmer should not be required to take all the risks of drouth, hail, storm and flood...
...We now have no new system in the sense that we have outgrown the capitalist system...
...Something similar to this baa happened since the end of the World War...
...Hence, with its pincers of wealth-suppression and pricefixing, private monopoly possesses practically absolute powers of confiscation...
...These risks should be shared by the whole population of the as-, tion by Federal insurance at cost to the farmers...
...The old parties are fat, corrupt, and owned by the masters of capital and finance...
...Where fixed prices are not imposed by super-corporations, they are attained by common agreements, understandings and even by common habits...
...Towns became cities and a great population of industrial workers appeared...
...Not all its history in detail...
...Kow how are we to understand the main elements of the agricultural problem...
...They were bakers, canners, tailors and hatters...
...Even if be knows the local banker, the latter is an insignificant phase of the nation-wide financial system...
...Corporate Price-Fixing j Despite the large and growing numj ber of trusts, it would be too sweeping a | statement to claim that all lines of commodities are controlled by these supercorporation...
...This has brought us face to face with a really new and most threatening kind of unemployment problem...
...The Logical Fruit Of Capitalist Monopoly The Concentration of Economic Power Verifying Predictions of Eminent Socialist Writers By Murray E. King NEW and very startling condition confronts America...
...The law of supply and demand las been set aside by the new organized will of the owning class...
...But paying bagger wages would fend to wipe out profits by increasing expenses...
...The Socialist Party alone represents this collective program, it is representative of the claims and the welfare of the useful workers in rural and urban industry...
...He had few worries and life , had its joys...
...It is highly improbable that as long as the present system possesses its present unity and power there will be any more general financial panics...
...They choose, rather...
...The farmer-manufacturer age was the cocoon of the present age...
...for May, 1927, show that persons engaged in agriculture prior to the World War received 20.5 per cent of the r*s"°"*' income but from the year 19tS they had received only 10.5 per cent ef the national income...
...This increased productivity of the workers has been followed by a greatly increased exploitation of the workers...
...better soil analysis, improved fertiliz- ' ers,-extermination of insect parasites, deeper plowing, better adaptation of crops to the soil, and the use of a variety of farm machinery...
...Every necessity of life seemed to be ! piled right up at our door...
...What makes the plight of the farm- ' er all the more hideous a tragedy is ! the fact that his productive yield per i acre has vastly increased in the past one hundred years...
...Side by side with unusual and rising prosperity among the rich there, exists widespread and increasing poverty and unemployment among the poor...
...Not by studying the life of the man who engaged in the famous debates with Douglas or the man as *' President...
...Socialist education sni SociaUst organisation such ss the worts hasnever seen before...
...Practically all the former industries of the farmer have been fished-out of the farm and have made enormous fortunes for idle investing owners...
...In the cocoon stage when he needed credit he generally obtained it from a neighbor whom he knew...
...This is due to...
...We have the capitalist system in a new phrase...
...It waa privilege, vast privilege.'' Having seen what happened to the wage workers we turn to the farmers...
...Three Out of Ten Dollars AH of which was evidence that the masters of finance and capitalist enterprises were the rulers at Washington...
...1 Not only is this financial monopoly guaranteed against future money panics by Its stupendous resources, unity and centralised control, but it is now built within the greater structure of* Jaw and government, thanks to the Federal Reserve banking system, and is a part of the law and government , and exercises governmental powers and immunities...
...Lincoln in debate and Lincoln as President are certainly of t vital importance, but to know the man it is also necessary to know something of his childhood and youth...
...During this same period the prosperity of the business class, particularly the big business class, was the greatest In American history...
...Here again be is at the mercy of the new masters...
...The facts sod conditions have developed that sopprj the groundwork for a rensirtsnce of Socialist thought...
...The trusts prefer a smaller product on ; a low wage market, because this tunj forms more closely to the basic monopoly I purpose of keeping goods comparatively scarce in order to keep prices up...
...Both farmers and city workers can carry a national election and both have carried national elections...
...But this host of the unemployed fluctuated in conformity with the fluctuations of business...
...This glaring contradiction between the condition or the rich and poor is immensely significant...
...Dodd writes that the farmer ¦ "went home to his fields in 1865...
...and widespread poverty and unemployment on the other side also hecome fixed and permanent institutions...
...If the monopoly wishes to go a step beyond this and extort exorbitant prices it has but to suppress wealth production to the extent of producing artificial scarcity...
...We must now become masters of production in the nation, sgsia nnltfng farmer and worker in a higher unity for the relief and rnisimlps tion of both...
...I Farm Independence Passes Although this was a laborious life, the "farmer-manufacturer was independent...
...Jfauuran bin snag nat ha aa ZgM Baal mm, hut tan* MiliatsnJi ^?yj^*yJ^UsaThey are today tenderly am sod 3tariffs- Direct Federal sfal agrtonlture is Important sad necessary * farmers are to avoid hopeless distress...
...There was a northern debt of ' fdPy90Or6OOyOOft* 4sV UssBue^ ©Vsusa^ussusOusua1 ¦'sT bends, payable In gold and ha payer money as wett...
...It has also enabled the rising monopoly system to produce constantly more wealth with constantly' fewer workers, giving rise to the most constant and extensive increase in unemployment that this country has seen...
...Many of the sons of farmers followed...
...Profits and dividends to these owners rose steadily until they be came greater annually than during the ype&k period of the World War, and the greatest in the history of this country...
...The financial monopoly, the essence and binding of all monopolies, is responsible for' this new condition...
...The old parties are hopeless...
...We had no distinct farming class confined to raising farm products and workers in city industries providing finished articles: for the farmers...
...The trusts are primarily machines of extortion and get their profits normally from low wages and limited markets...
...This transformation has occurred in most other industries...
...It Is essentially a pricefixtng mechanism...
...I But other things happened to the | farmers...
...We see unemployment growing steadily despite the prosperity ef the owners of finance and industry...
...It looked unfair...
...He has J not received the increase...
...In the South Atlantic States it is 44.5 per cent in the East South Central States 50.3 per cent and fn the West South Central States 59.2 per cent...
...Big business has at last erected a superstructure that cannot be shaken by ordinary condition of hard times or panics among the poor—a superstructure that can extract unusual profits while millions of producers abandon the soil and j other millions of producers tramp the I street vainly seeking work...
...Everything that scientific Socialism predicted by the Sid of scientific formulas is being fulfilled under the American monopoly system hi a most .striking manner...
...How account for this ? It i:s as plain as it is tragic...
...They can also carry a national election for themselves by sopporuhg their own party and program...
...Vo pay low wages and *m,mm*mtat*m<*> m purohaatai i power of low wages...
...July 24, 1927, relates what happened to both 'sections of the labor army...
...They have carried elections for Democrats and Republicans since the end of the Civil War, The result is obvious...
...the tariff j protected industry in its demand ! for high prices...
...Grinding grain passed to extensive mills owned by corporations...
...Making dyes soon followed, j Tanning leather and making shoes also drifted to factories la the cities...
...It has gone to the vampires who exploit both rural and urban labor...
...In its stead is the farmer heaped with j worries, bankrupt or facing bankruptcy, at the mercy of great economic forces and political parties that lhave wrought his ruin...
...Panics and Prosperity i Something distinctly new has developed since the World War...
...The worn- I en spun and wove the garments worn by all...
...Agriculture and industry were united in the same family...
...It is estimated that this debt in 1925 on farm lands and buildings is eight billion dollars or more, representing from 38.8 per cent to 42 per cent of their value...
...James B. Weaver, Populist candidate for President in 1892, tells of this farmer-manufacturing system in his boyhood days (1843-1844) in Iowa...
...The first distinct effect of private monopoly as an organized system is' this new immunity of the rich from the, panics and bard times of the poor...
...The price paid for this is recorded in the tragedy of farm life and the life of millions of city workers...
...The price of wheat fell from $2-50 a barrel in 1865 to 60 cents in 1868...
...We have no new system in the sense that we have outgrown the most recent phase of capitalism—private monopoly...
...The local market has become a world market and transport by team has been succeeded by great railroads and ocean freighters...
...Agriculture united i farmers and industrial producers in the same persons...
...This has resulted in the most rapid accumulation and greatconcentration of wealth in the history of the country...
...The government compelled them to pay gold, gold then, and \ long after 1865, at a premium of 26 per cent...
...The monopoly system is so firmly in the saddle that the psychology, spirit and method of monopoly runs through every group of owners and traders...
...Today credit and finance is a vast web centering in the great financial institutions of the nation...
...So the industries passed out of the old cocoon into the cities and became profitable to those who owned them...
...It literally possesses the power to starve the producers and consumers into whatever terms it chooses...
...According to a report compiled by Ethelbcrt Stewart, an authoritative economist and head of the division of labor statistics of the U. S. Department of Labor, there was a constant displacement of workers in industry from 19-0 to 1928 resulting in a total disemployment of 8,331.000 wage earners...
...Many have lost the fruits of the labor of a lifetime, including their farms, equipment, homes and savings...
...Bat it also controls the condition* that surround all productive work in industry and on the farm, all individual business and production, all small business...
...From it fly the many insects which had been nursed to maturity in the cocoon...
...The making of starch, perfumes, medicines and other articles followed the same course...
...Capital and finance control what are esesntie.I to the freedom of the city worker...
...This is brought about by the deliberate curtailment of output by closing down and dismantling part of the plants and reducing the working forces on others...
...The women were dyers as well...
...High wages, on the i other hand, would necessitate a larger | product to satisfy the enlarged market...
...We have the private monopoly system in a new phase—the phase where monopoly begins to function as an organised system and produces its first distinct effects...
...Benjamin C. March, Managing Director of the Farmers' Council, said in 1927 that "the farmer cannot survive aa an Individualist in a system where in order to survive, he must be a collectivist...
...The dye pot provided for the colors of the garments...
...Professor William E. Dodd of Chicago University in the New York Times Magazine...
...This is true...
...It is for the thinking farmer sad city worker answer with their ballots...
...The descendants of his sons and daughters who labor in the great industries face the same masters...
...When the warranted...
...During the same period about 4,000,000 town and cily folk have sought to eslndustrial centers' by migrating to the farms...
...Soon after the cocoon burst, many women and children of the farm passed into the city factories...
...It is easy to state the grievance...
...Two things are agreed to by practically all working farmers...
...dition reveals the birth of practically j a new system in America...
...The widely prevalent notion that the monopolists can be induced to pay higher wages because it will create a bigger market for their goods is a delusion...
...Deep i snows were a challenge to fun, coon I hunting a luxury, shooting wild tur¦ keys and prairie chickens and netting | quail almost a daily occurrence...
...It is now wholly able to banish panics to those unfortunates who exist outside of its realm and its favors...
...The owners by virtue of their increased monopoly powers have been able to take a relatively much larger share of this increased product...
...The farmer had gone home to pay himself for fighting...
...A new chasm in which great wealth and power on the one side becomes fixed, institutionalized, permanent...
...They are financed by great capitalists and bankers who are opposed to a program for the recovery of industries for the welfare of farmers and workers...
...Even petty retailers and professional practitioners arc organized and are able in conformity with the great interests be•hind the system to establish and maintain standard prices at profitable levels...
...Gamblers in the grain and cotton markets, commission men, brokers and middlemen, line the route along which the products of the farmer flow...
...Both have suffered and are suffering from the 'same, causes...
...Rising prosperity for the rich side by side with increasing poverty and unemployment for the poor were new in America, but the existence of poverty and .wealth side by side were not Until recent years, however, the condition of the rich and poor bore wme relation to each other...
...Hence, monopoly is not only a price-fixing device, bat it Is also a wealth-suppressing device...
...Observe that the awl, hammer, last and needle of the shoemakers have been transformed into great machines...
...Today the simple instruments have become complicated machinery concentrated in the hands of great industrial corporations...
...Power to Confiscate The most direct threat to private profits is more wealth than the market can absorb...
...All stockings and mittens were-manufactured at home, spun from yarn on the large and small spinning wheels...
...But until the World War general ruination among farmers and general unemployment among wage earners were connected with periods of stagnation and reduced profits among the business elements...
...From it issued the many industries of today...
...Hence, wealth suppression is part of its process of price-fixing...
...The new labor class of the cities ! came under the rule of the masters ', of industry...
...If we will but refresh our memorhs a little we will recall that this is exaeuj what Karl Marx foresaw...
...They made the candles and the soap...
...As a class, farmers do not have sufficient votes to realize this program...
...and his family raised foodstuffs they also manufactured articles in the home...
...Once upon a time, when American life was comparatively simple and basically agricultural there was ansha thing »8 periods of somewhat BSfwJ Prosperity and period* of somesuch a thing as class interdependence hi national prosperity...
...Making clothing, the textile industry, was among the first to be taken out of the home...
...Poverty and Prosperity - These conditions combined with the increasing productivity of the wage worker and farmer explain the anomalous condition described at the beginning' of this article—increasing poverty sad unemployment among the workers in the midst of unexampled and increasing prosperity among the rich owners...
...He was his own . miller, butcher, packer, carpenter and • blacksmith...
...A great pricefixing mechanism of owners and traders, has arisen which tends more and more toward automatic operation...
...This con...
...The farmers back on their farms must pay the i cost of their own fighting in the Civil War, three billions of dollars a then unprecedented sum...
...2) Idle bands heal for f-'asttaa tag the values duo uSeSmm] population and aevctopsneat ef civilisation, thus giving farmers access to such moneponsei areas...
...Great wealth, now, is able not only to Increasingly prosper in the midst of increasing poverty and unemployment, but it prospers hxreaslngb/ ant of fecreatins poverty and unemployment, as we shalj see later in these articles Formerly we had financial panic: that occurred at regular periods...
...Great masters of capital absolutely control the transport of his products...
...Since osssnUuni began < .there has ahaasa beanmsna nnnnsnsandL...
...Both should act together to accomplish their release from economic bondage and political helplessness...
...That age with its independence, its romance, its Joys, fat gone forever...
...Figures show the extent of wealth suppression by the new monopoly power...
...The fanners themselves are not all agreed on the "bow" and the "why...
...Farmer-manufacturers oaee were masters of production in the household...
...As a blacksmith be once made his simple instruments or obtained the aid of the village blacksmith...
...Farmers and city workers are voters...
...Most of them have voted for the candidates of the leading parties since the Civil War...
...Fruit of the Revolution The full effects of the industrial revolution which took the simple industries out of the household and transferred them to capitalist enterprise were not apparent till after the ¦¦ Civil War...
...but some of the outstanding features of other days...
...They made the carpets, the starch, yeast, perfumes, medicines, crackers, cheese...
...They know that they have been plundered and they know that a big majority of the members of both parties in Congress have done nothing to avert the disaster that has overwhelmed the farmers...
...All this was over a hundred years j ago...
...We have gradually grown away from this primitive condition...
...What Is Needed Immediately A few of the important measures that should be immediately enacted are the following: (DJgw Jill at the MeXaty...
...Farmers manufactured and manufacturers farmed...
...Farmer and wage worker both suffered...
...The centralization of wealth and power was the most rapid in American history...
...The spinning wheel and loom were essentials of the household...
...As long as organized monopoly is in the saddle we will suffer from the high cost uf living...
...It declined about 2,000,000 between 1920 and 1925, an average of 400,000 per year fleeing from the hopeless prospects of agriculture...
...Making ! hats became a corporation enterprise...
...Smith and Hoover represent no vital difference in views...
...We may answer this ques• tion by asking another one...
...Naturally, the farm population is decreasing...
...Such a mechanism became necessary as a matter of self-preservation among the owners and traders as soon as the supercorporations or trusts began to wield a preponderng power hi price-fixing...
...Permanent prosperity has been segregated to the rich and chronic hard times to the poor...
...The wife and children manufactured the clothing...
...Consider the occupations of the farmer in those days...
...So the old farmer householdindustry gave birth not only to the new industries but provided large numbers of the human stock for the factory owners...
...Only the Ben-paying dregs have been left to the farm...
...Had a conquering army raided the countryside the farmers would not have suffered more than they have for seven or eight years...
...Mother wove on the old loom the jeans and other cloth necessary for the family to wear and then cut and made our clothes* Each fall father bought sides of upper and sole leather and from these made our boots and shoes...
...The total indebtedness of farmers in 1924-1925 was estimated by the U. S. Department of Agriculture at $12,500,000,000...
...They were happy days i with the children all at home...
...Dismal as this showing is, it does not tell the whole story...
...Before the trust can fix prices it has to keep down production to the market demand...
...The tool passed out of the control of the household worker, became a great machine, and is the property of the capitalist, not the worker...
...The percentage of farms operated by tenants for the United States as a whole increased from 25.6 per cent, in 1880 to 38.6 per cent in 1925...
...Some of the skilled workmen by organization and struggle have averted disaster- .Others in the mining, textile and other industries reap a wretched existence...
...To understand its present problems it is necessary to know something of its past history...
...In the old cocoon stage the farmer produced for a local market which he reached with his team...
...It has been made into a specialized industry in great plants owned by investing capitalists...
...The city worker is almost as dependent as the farmer...
...Henceforth, consumers will pay whatever organized monopoly chooses to make them pay...
...3 oh* uu J1JSIB .Hi' f. <^*"^nFTrwex There has always been the man on~the street to hold down the wage of the man In the factory...
...It reveals a 1 new break and chasm between the rich and poor that has practically destroyed whatever previous class interdependence that existed...
...How the Farm Developed The same thing is true of agriculture...
...This new mechanism of monopoly primarily controls price-fixing...
...Yet, who can doubt but that a condition of effective monopoly now controls all commodities...
...They ! wished to pay the debts in green' backs, debts owed to a small nnm! her of men who had done little I fighting...
...After crops were laid by in summer, through the fall and winter, father worked at his trade, buUt houses, made furniture, cut hoop poles, made staves, and busied himself with an al! most endless variety of handicraft for ! which he was noted...
...The rich owners of finance, commerce and industry constantly obtained a larger produce with fewer workers...
...Now we have unemployment presenting a new and disquieting aspect under the monopoly system and because monopoly has begun to be effective...
...All these are factors in the farm problem, but ail of them taken together still leave much to be considered...
...In the-first place, in the early days of the republic, farmers were the great majority...
...He is helpless...
...We are confronted with every svMsnw that untniptsjuimi at hud under conditions of monopoly, wealth suppression, market limitation and srsaakei Price and wage-fixing, has lite sun a chronic sad incurable condition sneer the present system...
...Serfdom or Freedom...
...Such a surplus of wealth clogs the market and brings down the price of goods, wiping out the profits of the owners of the goods...
...In hard times, only, did it swell to large 'and alarming proportions...
...We see it sssasss asset alarming pro?--.-,—— portions at the very time that Ug Badness puspullj reaches the highest Point In the history of this country...
...Henceforth agi riculture faced new problems and the j farmers have slowly drifted to the (status of peasants...
...The few occupations left him ,sWnot.pay and cannot pay...
...During these same eight years there has occurred the most constant and extensive increase ' in unemployment among the wage earners in the history of this country...
...Since 1920 approximately 8,000,000 persons have been uprooted from the farms by intolerable conditions ol livelihood and have migrated to the towns and cities to become wage earners...
...others give part of the blame to the railroads or the gamblers in farm products...
...In the winter he transformed the hides into shoes...
...It goes beyond this and wields » most dreadful and sinister power— the power to suppress wealth production and create artificial poverty in the interest of private profits...
...others to poor marketing facilities...
...i as a war rdsBaomenon, ibeJ&l*a*j«tfl!r*m tun now become a monopoly phenomenon...
...Ho was a tanner of hides...
...Tills prosperity of the rich and super rich mounted steadily with decreasing employment and agricultural ruin...
...S) The Federal Government most cooperate with farmer organisations and marketing sgeneiss . to eliminate the uncertain in- - . come of the farmer and redne; tag the number of middlemen who levy tribute on the fanners' products...
...These masters with , their banking aids also became masters of the farmers...
...One by one each occupation has been drawn out of the old household industry...
...Slaughtering animals and preparing meat also became a giant industry...
...it now protected I the holders of the debt in a similar | demand for high prices, high prices for bonds that had been bought for 60 or 70 cents in the dollar...
...How ' have we come to .know Abraham Lincoln...
...kept the tariff bars so high that the goods of European mills could not get to the tolling fanners of the West and South, while vast fleets turned hordes of poor European workers into New England and the . Middle States and literally changed the face of the country—a revolution, nobody observing it...
...But the farmer is not alone in facing these powerful masters...
...He must recover control of production, credit, marketing, machinery, supplies and transportation...
...Poverty and unemployment among the producers is the logical fruit of the monopoly system and the basis of its prosperity...
...And times were greatest among the farmers when industry and business were most inactive Periods of unusual unemployment accompanied periods of low business profits and bankruptcy...
...Every farmer knows what a cocoon is, that silky casing which covers' the larvae of many insects...
...The mortgage debt of the farmers is staggering...
...While the farmer...
...What is to be done...
...The United States...
...The government ___granted the protection and dent agents to Europe to urge immigration, immigration that mounted to half a million a year in a little while...
...In the five years preceding 1925 the total value of farm property declined about 20 billion dollars and 30 per cent of the farmer's net cash income goes to satisfy interest...
...Many have wondered why the cost of living remains so nigh ten years after the World...
...Either we most win power In the states and at Washington or sink to the level of serfs...
...Baking and canning became city industries...
...Nor was this all...
...He tilled the soil, raised grains, fruits and vegetables and live stocks...
...Transportation, credit, markets, machinery and supplies are controlled by the great corporate masters of industry and finance...
...This work in the home was called "household industry...
...Such understanding will help Immensely -in grasping the whole problem, past and present, and aid in ¦—planning for the future...
...This knowledge is the beginning of wisdom...
...Personal Indebtedness adds more than three billions more...
...National ownership of the basic industries, of transportation, of banking are the leading items of the collective program mentioned by Mr...
...The farmers are j left with the rags and bones of industry...
...The owners might extend the market by paying bigger wages and thus increase the purchasing power of the people...
...They paid for their supplies in greenbacks at high prices, because the government : compelled them to do so...
...Firm tenantry is on the increase...
...This astounding Increase in the annual amount of wealth is produced by the average farmer and average wage worker as a result of inventions and the development of organized mass production...
...That would take a hook, or a number of books...
...Marsh...
...It is not so easy to tell how and why this happened...
...The cocoon bursts and disappears...
...Neither do the city workers, yet it is the corporate masters of industry, of marketing, credit and transportation who are enriched by the labor of the farmer and city worker...
...Former bridges between the rich and poor have broken down...
...Capitalism has always based its power to extort private profit upon what has been described by economists as a reserve army of unempioyed...
...Weaver depicts this life I in the following passage: "Before the 1 open fireplace there was merry vhati ter, song, and a thrilling touch of music, father leading with his dear, !old flute...
...At the Mercy of Exploiters To sum up...
...In prosperous times it was so small as not to present a pressing problem...
...They received greenbacks for their wheat, at low rates...
...In other words, they keep the people poor and partially unemployed in order to apply i their pincers and extract maximum private profits...
...still others to overproduction of farm products...
...Henry C Taylor and Jacob Permian in the "Journal of Land and Public Utility Economies...
...It is time for a new deal, a new * * political revolution...
...It was created for the purpose of controlling unrestrained competition in wealth production...
...these bonds, or mere than M per cant, of them, asstmiu to rMlsisI phut and Naur York and Beaten, tern, the control of the nation's cmrcapttattst "asked, protection against every sort of competition in order that they might nay high wages and then sent to Europe for hundreds of thousands of workers to keep wages down...
...Everyi thing was natural, and modern coni ventipnalitiea were unknown...
...This is the general average and some regions" show a higher percentage...
...In 1927 H. R. Tolley, agricultural economist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, reported that Ithe volume of production per farm asnl^ttnrt^rrsm^^'to^W* ""had dnnldrd Yet the share ef the farmer has declined...
...Some ascribe it to our money system...
...After centuries of progress in agriculture millions of farmers are facing acute distress...
...An Enlarged Market But the old household manufacture was not only stripped of its leading industries...
Vol. 7 • September 1928 • No. 41
