PROSPERITY WAS UNEQUITABLE--- REP. BROWNE
PROSPERITY WAS UNEQUITABLE--REP. BROWNE Wisconsin Representative In Congress Charges Supercorporations Profited Most The following article, taken from an address made by Representative Edward E....
...Has this S20.000.000.000 been lost, strayed, cr stolen...
...In 1928 the estimate of our national wealth was $360,062,000,000...
...As a member of Congress...
...All of these things have contributed to the business depression and unemployment...
...Browne has been an active supporter cf the interests of farmers and small business men and an aggressive opponent of private monopoly and special privilege.—Editor's Note...
...Incomes In Millions Taking the figures from the Income Tax bureau, we find there are 496 citizens having incomes oi a million dollars per year and over, 24 citizens having incomes of $5,000,000 per year and over, while 40.000 citizens are millionaires...
...In the last 14 years we have produced 25,229 millionaires, or over six millionaires per day for the last 14 years...
...The United States Department of Agriculture, an unquestionable authority, states that the value of farm property In 1920 was...
...he lived, his farm was increasing in value...
...Very little farm building has been going on in the last...
...and he has tried to renew the loan, and every farmer who has tried to borrow money knows that a tremendous blight has struck farming and that he can not borrow half the amount he could in pre-war times...
...The Milk Business The milk business-, for example, which used to be conducted by local distributors and creameries, is now conducted by large companies which have their headquarters in New York...
...The fanner, the country merchant, the smaller manufacturer, the business man...
...Until 1920 every farmer who had a good farm, well located, had the satisfaction of knowing that, with the growth of the locality and state wrier...
...Now the reverse Ls true, which has put a blight on the once splendid and Independent occupation...
...They offer the undisputed evidence that in 1912 the census bureau estimated our national wealth at $186,300,000,000...
...What has happened to this missing $20,000,000,000 In the shrinkage of farm property...
...also contributes materially to the annual increase of the wealth of the nation...
...The merchant and business man heretofore have not considered the farmers' problems their problems, and the farmers- have paid very little attention to the business men's problems...
...In contrast to the two and one-half million citizens who pay an income tax there are more than 116,000 000 people who did not have sufficient incomes to bring them within the income tax...
...10 years, or painting or repairing of farm buildings...
...That the men and women who did more than anything else to produce this wealth have been denied a fair and equitable share in that which they have produced...
...If the forces opposed to these monopolies expect to be successful, they must present a united front and bring the government back to the people...
...This farm property is mortgaged tor s!2,500.000,-000 and the Interest which these farmers are paying amounts to over $750.-000.000 annually...
...dairying, and all of the branches of agriculture, have done more than any other class to produce our great wealth The laborer who converts the raw materials into the finished product,, thereby enhancing the value of the same, sometimes many hunriretllold...
...It is estimated that 75 per cent of the fluid milk business Is conducted by New York companies...
...nation and are entitled to fair and reasonable remuneration for their labor, and I do not undcr-cstimate in any way or minimize their Importance, but they arc not producers of wealth and are not at the present time so acutely affected by conditions as the producers of wealth...
...According to these figures the increase in wealth In the United States in 16 years has amounted to $173,762,000,000, an increase in 16 years of almost as much as the 136 years preceding...
...It is a fact, which can not be controverted, that agriculture is the basic industry in the United States...
...BY EDWARD E. BROWNE Those who speak with authority and who read the first page headlines in our metropolitan papers have continually claimed in the past 10 years that the United States was enjoying the greatest era of prosperity in its .history...
...Not Fairly Distributed I maintain that the so-called prosperity was not an equitable prosperity...
...that this industry in magnitude surpasses the combined wealth of all our railroad systems, our automobile industry, our steel industry, our coal mines, iron mines, gold and silver mines: and that the major portion of the nation's astounding increase in wealth has come from agriculture...
...The initiative of the country will become an army of branch managers, and the welfare of the local community will be entirely intrusted to absentee capital...
...The farmer buys only the new machinery absolutely necessary...
...The voter has It in his hands to break the power of private monopoly...
...Another cause has been the lack of confidence on the part of the small manufacturer and business man, who believe it is not safe to expand their businesses in view of the large combinations and monopolies which are usurping all lines of business and eliminating smaller industries and who are destroying the possibilities of the Individual to do business...
...a shrinkage of over $20,000,000,000 In five years...
...BROWNE Wisconsin Representative In Congress Charges Supercorporations Profited Most The following article, taken from an address made by Representative Edward E. Browne of Wisconsin in the House of Representatives shortly before the close of the last congress, reveals how agriculture and small business arc being made to suffer as a result of the growth of private monopolies and the growing cencentration of wealth...
...He can do this at the ballot box by uniting upon this one issue and not being diverted1 and divided on smaller issues which are magnified and brcught to the front by these very interests to camcuflage the real issues and divide the force cf the opposition...
...and the banker are all more or less menaced by these supercorporations...
...Every farmer whose mortgage ha.s become due...
...If all these various interests do not unite in a common cause to prevent these supercorporations from controlling business, it means that all business, including farming, will be in the absolute control of the large combinations of wealth, and the same conditions which prevail in many European countries will prevail here...
...in round numbern, $79,000,000,000, and that In 1925 the same property had fallen In value to $.9,000,000,000...
...The Borden company and Southern Dairies practically control milk, cheese, and butter prices...
...The men who have tilled and cultivated the soil, who have been engaged in the animal Indus-try...
...The farmers and their families, constituting almost one-third of our population, are not making a living wage and have not been able to purchase as formerly...
...One of the principle causes of unemployment is the farm depression which has been going on for the last 10 years, several million farmers going to the cities...
...The people engaged In other employments and professions are necessary and important to the economic life of the...
...Rnd the profits leave the local community and are distributed in New York...
...that this stupendous increase of wealth has not been equitably distributed, and that the present financial crisis is the result...
...We have not a surplus of dairy products in the United States, and therefore the producer, if well organized, should control the price of his products and could if It was not for these supercorporations which control the price of his products...
Vol. 1 • August 1930 • No. 37
