The Green Forest tribune., 1911-05-05
KEEPING UP WITH THE TIMES
Reason for Low Price of Farm Prod ucts Is Lack of Organization
 Among Agriculturists.

The United States of America, in age is an infant, in strength full grown. From thirteen struggling col on1es, we have become nation. The strip along the Atlantic has enlarged until our country is washed by the waves of the Pacific, and over those waves we are looking after the islands of the sea.
 Factories turn on ceaselessly their thousands of cog-wheels and spindles. Cities have sprung up as if by magic. Long lines of railroads wind through valley and over mountain. The motor car is abroad, and with the improve nent of our public roads, distance will be practically dispensed with. It looks as if the future life will be lived on wheels. People will no longer be separated by distance, but by condi- tion. The vast areas over which roamed the hunter the trapper, and the savage is giving life to a more complex civilization, and an age of in- dustry has survived the art of war.
 The question arises, has the farm VI hCpG pdCO WlLH JhO lllONSIh Ol mankind? Are his burdens frightened by invention? Is he better housed and better fed? Land is the basis of all life, and those who till the soil should enjoy the fruits of their labor. Undisputed facts open to observation should be faced with candor. Will the average man in town exchange ,f&I. L.. try? The answer is no, writes Frank A. Collins in the Groesbeck (Texas) Journal. On the contrary, people are leaving the farms and f1ocking to the already congested conditions of the cities. What is the trouble? It is financial. The hope that by some means the desires of life may be sat isfied with less exertion. The pay the farmer gets for his products is toe small for the amount of capital tn- vested and the labor performed. The reason of this Is the farmer has worked without organization, and fol lowed the noise of the politician. In derstood, and the meaning is that there shall be a moneyed aristocracy, which shall be separated from the common herd, just as the Bourbons of France stand above the peasants. The government realizing that the condi- tions on the farms should be improved, appointed commission for that pur- pose. If the government would see that just and equitable laws are passed, abolishing discrimination in favor of manufacturers and specula- tors, and give the farmer chance to get pay for his products in proportion to the investment, the sacrifice and 1 the labor he uses, there would be no necessity for a commission to improve the country homes. With money the farmer will do it himself.
 But artificial laws, and schemes to enrich the few at the expense of the many, are like artificial heat and must burn out when the means by which they are kept in force shall be sup planted by natural order. In the long run nature asserts itself, and the oppressed rises above the oppressor
 The increase in consumption Is greater by more than ten to one than production. The land is the basis of all production. Cities are growing all most beyond the means of calculation. These vast centers of population have to be fed and clothed or perish. The time will shortly come when the finan- ciers of these centers must see that unless they change their tactics, the entire population of cities will be at the mercy of the country Then will come the scheme to get control of the land, and if they succeed we shall finally become nation of renters, similar to Ireland. Each day that rolls around it is getting harder to get land and own a home. In less time than 50 years, 100 acres of land in Lime stone county, Texas, will represent a GOO, 900 the scramble for land will be- come the problem of the age. It Is possible that some benefactor of the race, not engaged in politics, will mod fly and adjust the question of taxa tion advocated by present economists, and by such means protect the people from the encroachments of the money power, and make it so that a man may own home.
 The man today who wants to serve his country cannot do better than own home, remain upon 1t, and stand for the interests of the agricultural class.