STILL LOOTING THE FARMER'S POCKETS

...Congress will meet in December with the Senate deadlocked and with the Congressmen from the agricultural districts of the West holding a complete balance of power in the House of Representatives...

...While President Coolidge, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, was listening to the cheerful tales told him by ex-Governor Mc-Kelvio and other broken-down politicians about the ever increasing prosperity of the Western farmers and their enthusiasm for his do-nothing policy, the Department of Agriculture was publishing official statistics which showed that 1926 was one of the worst years that American farmers had ever suffered...

...If we allow G','e interest on the average investment of $16,308 and deduct this amount from the net return, we find that the average American farmer realized only $155 for his labors and those of his family...

...This movement has been going on year after year ever since the great collapse of agricultural prices in 1920...

...It is true that the discount rate has been cut by the Federal Reserve System during 1927, but this was necessary to pulmotor the over-inflated New York Stock Market and may also have had political significance...

...Taylor finds that during the five-year period immediately preceding the World War the aggregate income of—all American farmers was 20.7% of the combined income of all the people of the United States...

...I mean those representative farmers of every state to whom their friends and neighbors look for leadership and in whom they have implicit confidence...

...They are practical men who know enough to get under cover when the big wind begins to blow from the West...

...The failures of the United Grain Growers and the Grain Marketing Corporation were so disastrous as to discourage any further efforts along this line...

...With agriculture as the paramount issue, one or the other of the old parties will be forced to nominate a candidate acceptable to the farmers, or if that fails an independent candidate can lie put into the field for whom the fartne-rs can, if they will, roll up a protest vote that will compel action...

...It was accelerated by the deflation policy of the Federal Reserve Board and by the imposition of huge increases in freight rates on farm products under the terms of the Esch-Cummins Railroad Law...

...With the triumphant action of Coolidge, however, the big business terests felt more than safe, and ever since ive laughed at all the threats of the farmers' "ikesmen...

...Thus the poverty of the American farmer has helped to solve the labor problem of American industry...

...It will continue until a just balance is again established between the rewards of agri- • culture and industry...

...It is probable that the farmer's actual condition during the last year was really worse even than it was in the depressed year of 1922 when his average income was only $917...

...The decline strated with the great crash in agricultural prices in the fall of 1920...

...During the last five years, according to Dr...

...In 1926 2,155,000 persons moved from American farms to cities, towns and villages...

...In order to foster this illusion in the political field, the Federal Reserve System has made it a practice during election years to cut the discount rate during the early summer...

...Instead of taking advantage of this splendid opportunity, all but the progressive members of the Farm Bloc refused to take the initiative in using this balance of power and almost without exception were content to accept the dictates of their respective party leaders...

...It is probable that no such economic pressure was ever applied by the financial interests during any campaign as was used through the country bankers during the closing weeks of the campaign of 1924...

...Only 1,135,000 moved to the farms to take their places...

...Loss of Organization IN THE political field the farmers have accomplished even less...

...By the farm leaders I do not mean those professional representatives of farm organizations who play "peanut polities" in Washington and pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the railroads, the packers and the power trust...

...The falsity of these re-iterated promises of agricultural prosperity has repeatedly been demonstrated by the Administration's own official statistics...

...He was born on a New England farm, but had early decided that the road to power and assured political preferment lay in attaching himself to the groui> of politicians which represented the great financial interests...

...When the Farm Bloc was first formed following the spectacular crash of agricultural prices in 1920 it had great prestige, and with able aggressive leadership might have secured almost any concessions that it demanded on behalf of agriculture...

...Every since the end of the War American agriculture has been on the toboggan...

...They welcome it because it is constantly increasing the labor supply and creating a keen competition for jobs, particularly among the unskilled...

...It is easy enough to understand the difficult position in which the farmers were placed when the bankers told them that their notes would not be renewed if Coolidge was not elected...

...The actual average cash balance in 1926 was only $975...

...What have the American farmers been doing during this period to protect their own interests and secure for thernselves something like equality with industry, finance and commerce...

...He had never at any time manifested any sympathy with the Western farmers or even any ' understanding of their problems...

...This is the fundamental cause of the great migration from the farms to the cities...

...This balance of power can be used to compel early consideration not only of the McNary-Haugcn bill but of other measures which are necessary to restore the balance between agriculture and industry...

...The crisis came when the Administration rejected the Norris-Sinclair bill which had been favorably reported by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, and without public hearings substituted for it the Kellogg bill which proposed merely to plunge the farmers further into debt...

...While the railroads, the banks, the industrial corporations and the owners of city real estate have been piling up incomes so enormous that they have had to conceal the accumulations by the constant issue of stock dividends, the farmers' share of the national income has been cut in half...

...At that time prices of manufactured goods were lower than they are today and the average farmer still had in the bank some of the money which he had saved during the relatively prosperous years of the war...

...This was particularly true after the congressional elections of 1922 when the Republican majority created by the Harding landslide was reduced t<J a point where the Farm Bloc held in its hand an absolute balance of power in both the House and Senate...

...What is necessary now is an understanding between the farm leaders and their real friends and spokesmen in Congress upon a program which will be fought for to the bitter end not only during the coming session of Congress but throughout the campaign of 1928...

...It may not be possible to put it through either this session of Congress or the next but it will at least constitute a challenge that will make the powers-that-be sit up and take notice...

...Other glaring cases of fraud and mismanagement have held back the development of the co-operative movement in the United States and raised a serious question whether even a partial solution for the ills of agriculture can be found along this line except after many years of slow and painstaking development...

...Their forefathers, who won their freedom at the risk of their lives, would have withstood this pressure and suffered the consequences...

...By the "real friends of the farmers in Congress" I do not mean those politicians who are ready at all times to proclaim their undying affection for the horny-handed son of toil but are always missing when the real fighting begins...

...Davis, t attorney for J. P. Morgan & Company, course, had no appeal to the farmers...

...Taylor, the average share of agriculture in the national income has been only 10.3...

...Since that time the Farm Bloc has lost its prestige and its threats have ceased to terrify ever...

...They should have known, however, by practical experience that this was a gigantic bluff, that bankers can exist only by lending money and receiving interest, and that the .carrying out of this threat would have pulled down the whole financial and industrial structure around the heads of those who sought to apply it...

...the most timid of the Administration's leaders...

...Cheaper Corporate I-abor THE industrial magnates of the East, of course, have no objection to this great jni-gration from the farms to the cities...

...As a protege of Murray Crane he had risen step by step in the political machinery of Massachusetts until chance finally made him President of the United States...

...Still Have a Chance DURING the coming year the American farmers will have another opportunity to demonstrate that they are not going to be completely ruined without an effective protest...

...By BASIL MANLY (Director, People's Legislative Service) BOUT thirty years ago William Allen White, the greatest editor that the Sunflower State has ever produced, gave the poverty-stricken ^farmers of Kansas his famous advice, "Raise more corn and less hell...

...He not only knew what constituted justice for the farmer but had demonstrated through almost half a century that he was willing to fight to secure justice and equity for all those who toiled...

...Almost without exception, however, the successful co-operatives have been developed for the handling of more or less specialized products like tobacco, cheese and citrus fruits, while the co-operatives created to handle the great agricultural staples have in large measure been colossal failures...

...That this action on the part of the Federal Reserve System has been deliberate and for political purposes is indicated by the fact that the New York discount rate was severely cut in the presidential year of 1924 and again in 1926, but was not cut either during the summer of 1923 or 1925...

...It was not necessary for La Follette to be elected to secure justice for agriculture...

...The farmers had tht-ir choice between Coolidge, Davis and La Follette...

...Thus they lost their greatest opportunity...

...But the present generation, softened by modern conditions and misled by false propaganda, surrendered to these threats and obediently voted for Coolidge and Dawes...

...These official statistics showed that the average net return to American farmers in 1926 was only $1,133 as compared with $1,297 in 1925 and $1,205 in 1924...

...Is it any wonder that the masters of big business have not shown any enthusiasm in favor of plans for restoring the balance between industry and agriculture and thus cutting off their labor supply...

...This does not necessarily insure the final adoption of these measures because President Coolidge will still have his veto power and unquestionably will not hesitate to apply it...

...This encourages speculation-on the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the New York Cotton Exchange, and thus creates a fictitious activity which cheers the farmer up and makes him feel that everything is going to be all right...

...Nevertheless, by the aggressive use of this balance of power the condition of agriculture can be made the paramount issue in the campaign of 1928...

...Henry C. Taylor of Northwestern University, as reported in the Chicago Tribune...

...Loss of Opportunity MILLIONS of the farmers knew this and voted for La Follette on election day...

...The nearest he had come to an understanding of the farmers' problems was when he pulled on a pair of overalls over his white shirt and stiff collar and permitted himself to be photographed in the act of pitching a few forks full of hay on the old Vermont farm...

...In his first presidential message, after the death of Harding, he told the farmers plainly that they must raise themselves by their own boot-straps and need expect no aid or comfort from him...

...If the American farmers knew anything they should have known that La Follette was their champion, as skillful in administralion as he was fearless and untiring in legislative contests...

...The farmer's share is therefore less than one-half of what it was before the World War...

...A brief constructive program along these lines will command the support of the farmers and forward-looking people of all parties at least as far East as Pennsylvania...

...The time has now come to turn a new page and write on it for the benefit of all American farmers the exact reverse of White's famous slogan and tell them in plain language to "Raise more hell and less corn...

...He knew that the American farmer needed not only a means of disposing of his surplus products but also transportation at reasonable rates either by rail or water, long time credit on conditions as favorable as those enjoyed by commerce and industry, and above all protection from the monopolies which exploited him both in the purchase of his grain and livestock and in the sale to him of their manufactured products...

...It is no light matter for any man with a family to face such coercive threats...

...When the financial interests of the East become convinced that the farmers are out to "raise more hell and less corn" it will not take them long to decide that the time has come to grant that measure of justice which has been so long denied...

...These American-born farmers and farmers' sons are taking the places which used to be filled by incoming hordes of European immigrants whom the American manufacturers have begun to fear as a breeding ground for Communism and Anarchism, although they welcome their cheap labor...

...At no time had he manifested any concern for the farmers, but he had on the ccntrary continually expressed and displayed the greatest concern for the welfare of the big business corporations...

...o]idKe's Boot-strap Policy THKN came 1924...

...In other words, before the War the farmers received only one-fifth of the national income although at that time they constituted about 45% of the population...

...Nobody expected that he would when he was nominated...

...They should have had no difficulty in making their decision and letting the nati< > know that they would not tolerate further d> regard of the agricultural situation...

...In the economic field they have made large strides in the development of co-operative marketing...

...But the great mass of American farmers allowed themselves either to be misled by the poison propaganda circulated by the farmers' own enemies and exploiters or were coerced by*" the threats of the bankers that if Coolidge was 7iot elected their loans would not be renewed...

...If he had polled ten million votes and carried a dozen Western states where the tide was running strongly in his favor until the bankers applied their pressure, the reactionary interests of the Kast would have seen the handwriting on the wall and would have consented to the passage any legislation that was necessary to pacify c insurgent farmers...

...Need Fundamental Program SUCH a conference should not limit itself to the passage of pious resolutions in favor of the McNary-Haugen bill, but should deal aggressively with such fundamental problems of concern to agriculture as the development of the Western waterways, including the Great Lakcs-to-the-Atlantic route, railroad valuation as a basis for rate-making, development of efficient co-operative marketing, reconstruction of the Federal Farm Loan System, and passage of the Norris amendment to the Constitution so that Senators and Representatives may take their seats in Congress before they forget what they were elected for...

...In his own State of Wisconsin, he had made the farmers prosperous by securing for them large reductions in freight rates, protection from loan sharks, development of scientific farming, relief from excessive taxation and promotion of co-operative methods of marketing their products...

...They should have had no doubts about Coolidge...

...Thus the net loss to the farms was over a million persons without taking account of the balance between birlhs and deaths...

...Promises Are Broken EVERY year the farmers have been told that "Prosperity was just around the corner" and that if they would work hard, vote the regular Republican ticket and worship Calvin Coolidge they would soon have money jingling in their pockets...

...La Follette, on the other hand, was born on a Western farm and by practical experience as well as through constant investigation knew the problems of agriculture and realized more clearly perhaps than any other man in public life that they could not be solved by any single measure...

...Income Cut in Half EVEN more light is thrown on the farmers' condition by some investigations which Lave just been completed by Dr...

...Instead of following the leadership of Senator Norris at that time the Farm Bloc collapsed and swallowed the Kellogg bill almost without protest...