HOW CARTELS STIFLE AGRICULTURE

...A postwar wonder world in which all these things can become everyday realities all over the country— and in which the industry of agriculture can be elevated to a status of importance and prosperity that it has never known in all the history of civilization— lies before us as a certainty if vested interests, headed by patent-law monopolists and cartel conspirators, are not allowed to stand in the way...

...Exact details of the way Agrol was made way with have never been fully brought to light...

...The Story Of Agrol ONE of the most revealing tell-tale cats ever to get out of the bag to call attention to the way these vested interests have operated in the past, and to indicate to what lengths they may go in the future, answered to the name of Agrol...

...Added to the already demonstrated feasibilities of utilizing farm crops to provide the raw materials required by processing and manufacturing industries, Dr...

...Reports were widely circulated to the effect that Agrol's energy would never be up to par, and it was solemnly declared that the new fuel was injurious to motors...

...But that vested interests will not stop at anything • to try to prevent the coming of such a new order of things has been plainly and repeatedly demonstrated, not only in the throttling of progress during the war emergency, but also in the pre-war period...

...And the man who was appointed to succeed him was Wheeler McMillen, editor of a Philadelphia farm paper said to be controlled by Joseph Pew, Pennsylvania's big oil man...

...The Pew Crowd Takes Over The widest possible publicity was given to all these "knocks," and just when the knocking campaign was at its height the president of the Farm Chemurgic Foundation died...

...E. Berl, of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, has perfected laboratory processes through which farm crop wastes can be converted into oil and coal, and made to produce all the gasoline we need to keep 32 million automobiles in operation, looks like the biggest non-military news of the year...

...But much evidence also can be unearthed to show that these same vested interests were doing the very same thing in pre-war days—evidence which should warn us as to what we may expect from them when industries get back to peace-time problems...

...The Department of Chemical Engineering of Iowa State College had successfully produced more than a hundred articles of everyday use from corn alone—from the stalks, husks, and grains of corn...

...And, of equal importance, widespread use of Agrol would mean that the drain on the nation's precious oil reserves, which many eminent authorities were predicting would play out in less than 50 years, would be greatly lessened...

...Turn 'em loose in any ordinary garden, and they can produce stockings, girdles, and every kind of finery for m'lady, pants, suspenders, etc...

...McMillen told me that he ordered the plant closed down because managers had misled the Foundation about production cost figures...

...Postwar prosperity possibilities suggested by the announcement—possibilities based on a stabilized, permanently prosperous agriculture—all but stagger the imagination...

...Destruction of Hitlerism may mean little to the farmers unless the patent-law monopolists and the international cartel conspirators are at the same time put out of business...

...Berl's accomplishments, the most phlegmatic imagination, the most moronic mind in the land, will now be able to visualize the possibilities that lie ahead...

...But instead of any such things being done, Agrol was discredited, maligned, slandered, neglected, and finally completely abandoned...

...Farmers Union groups, and the big, aggressive, well-managed North Kansas City Cooperative Association with cetail outlets covering a number- of states, got enthusiastically behind the new product...

...With this new market outlet, there would be assurance of steady, profitable farm prices, no matter how bumper crops might be...

...Install a chemist and a mechanic, with the proper equipment, in the barn loft, or the corn crib, of any ordinary farm and give them free rein of the wheat or corn field, or the bean or potato patch, and, presto...

...It was put on the market in the middle '30s by a plant established at Atchison, Kans., with the backing of the Farm Chemurgic Foundation...

...When the history of this so-called World War II is finally written, one of its blackest chapters will surely reveal how the patent-law monopolists and international cartel conspirators were willing to jeopardize the very success of the United Nations in order to obtain control of the new synthetic rubber industry— and to prevent the use of farm products in making badly needed rubber from alcohol...

...When it was announced that it would be sold at a price in competing range of gasoline being sold by the big oil companies, it seemed that we were really getting on with the job of solving the farm problem...

...So-called authorities were brought forward to present statistics to show that alcohol as a motor fuel could never be produced as cheaply as gasoline obtained from petroleum...

...It didn't take an overgrown imagination to visualize similar plants springing up all over the landscape, as the alcohol used for blending could be produced from about anything that would grow on a farm...

...It seems almost beyond belief that an intelligent people would not quickly embrace such blessings— would not immediately develop this new motor fuel industry to the greatest possible extent...

...Even if the taxpayers had had to subsidize Agrol to the extent of a few cents a gallon to enable it to compete with the old established motor fuels, the benefits would have been worth many times the costs...

...The late Dr...

...Soon after McMillen became head of the Farm Chemurgic Foundation the Atchison, Kans., Agrol plant was closed down—and there was no dotting of the landscape with similar plants...

...But some of the things that were done are matters of record...

...they can produce most of the essential parts of an automobile, synthetic rubber tires for it to run on, and ail the oil and high grade fuel needed to keep it running efficiently...

...C. C. Furnas says the rest of society has imposed upon our food producers for 50 centuries, a new order is surely in the making—a new order in which farm and factory will become integral parts of each other, with processing plants located throughout the crop-producing areas, and with both farmers and factory workers assured steady and continuing profitable employment through the very simple procedure of allowing the increased productive capacity of each group to insure an enlarged consumptive capacity in the other group...

...Using surplus farm crdps to produce, motor -fuel and all the rubber we might need for all purposes had already been proved sound, practical industrial undertakings...

...Gillette, Truman, Bone, and Kilgore, and in a manner that leaves no doubt about the determination of these cartel conspirators to prevent any amalgamation of industry and agriculture that might bring permanent prosperity to the farmers and greater economic security to industrial workers...

...for men-folks, toys of all kinds for the kiddies, and "specs," canes, false teeth, and almost all the other makeshifts with which the grandfolks make declining years more endurable...

...For more than a decade farm crops have been so successfully converted into synthetic materials that -little stretching of the imagination has been needed to visualize a new agro-industrial order which would enable the masses of the people in all walks of life to enjoy a large measure of participation in all the economic blessings which science and invention and the power-age stood ready to distribute...

...No longer would there need to be hard times for any one in the farming areas...

...What happened to Agrol in peacetime, and what has happened to the program for making synthetic rubber from alcohol obtained from farm crops since the war cut off our natural rubber supplies, can leave little doubt about what the industry of agriculture is up against, or about the lengths to which monopolized industry will go to try to maintain control over trade and commerce...

...Unless vested interests, led by the patent-law monopolists and cartel conspirators, can continue to keep - agriculture on the mere subsistence level which Dr...

...Wonders that were not even dreamed of half a century back are now becoming such simple, everyday occurrences that no one can remain ignorant cf the great era which is before us...

...George Washington Carver had demonstrated that more things could be made from a peanut than a tattoo artist could list on the trunk of a Jumbo ..elephant...

...The purchaser bought it as a speculation in junk, but when alcohol (from any source) became an all-essential war item, the new owner got a contract from the Government, and immediately began running the1 plant night and day—but not for the making of motor fuel from farm crops...

...Berl's announcement makes it seem inconceivable that we will not, just as soon as peace comes, turn all our energy and ingenuity to the building up and perfecting of a new industrial order under which virtually all forms of industry will be amalgamated with agriculture...

...Agrol's arrival seemed to make it assured that new industries would spring to life in all farming sections...

...Such plants would give employment to new labor, would lure more tax-paying citizens into the less thickly populated areas—new citizens to build, buy and occupy homes, to increase real estate values, to help support schools, churches, civic organizations...

...Wonders Become Simple Before Doctor Berl's announcement, such oppor- tunities were already crying to high heaven for utilization...

...Agrol was a motor fuel made by blending alcohol distilled from farm crops with natural gasoline...

...The way some of the big oil companies that were connected with the German I. G. Farben cartel organization prevented quick development of a synthetic rubber industry based on the use of alcohol obtained from farm crops has been revealed by committees of the United States Senate that were headed by Sens...

...It seems preposterous that this would not be done in view of the fact that everybody, including the big monopolizing oil companies themselves, would, in the long run, be greatly benefited...

...SURELY, with the wide publicity that has been given to Dr...

...Some $500,000 had been spent to establish the plant, but, just before the United States got into the war, it was sold under the hammer in a Federal Court bankruptcy proceeding for $75,000...