Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1913-05-01
COMMISSION SETS
SAIL FOR EUROPE
TO STUDY CREDITS
Hope to Devise Plan to Provid 9
Cheaper Money for Financing
Farmers and Legitimate
Industry.

New York April 2s.-A further jolt
is to be given the high cost of living
II the delegation of 100 Americans
which sailed from here for Naples to-
day succeeds in it's endeavor to devise
a separate banking system Tor Amer
lean farmers. The official name of the
delegation is the American commits
sion on agricultural cooperation. The
investigation is to be made Under the
auspices of the southern commercial
congress. Its aim is to place cheap
money at the disposal of American
farmers in order to increase agricul-
tural production and to lower the cost
of producing food
Secretary of Agriculture Houston
represented the administration at the
farewell given to the commission. Pres
ident Wilson takes a keen interest in
1.-THE undertaking and addressed the del
egates personally before they left
Washington.
Report to Congress.
The commission is headed by seven
federal commissioners bearing the Gre
dentials of President Wilson and Sec
rotary of State Bryan. They will make
report to congress upon the prac-
ticability of establishing farmers CO.
operative banks and a mortgage bank
system in the United States, copied
after the agricultural credit systems OF
European countries. Besides the fed
eral commissioners there are delegates
representing about three -fourths of the
states of the union who will make q
report to a committee OF nine gov
ernors appointed at the last confer
ne tho avo1,lfivaC N this
way official recommendations will be
placed before congress and the state
Legislatures urging consideration of
the credit requirements of the farmers,
both as means of assisting the farm
ers and Of relieving the consumers of
the country from the burden of the
high cost of living.
Help Legitimate Trade.
The work of the commission is close
ly connected with the efforts of the
banking and commercial interests to
secure currency reform The principal
claim of those seeking currency re-
form is that under the present bank
Ing system which permits banks to re-
deposit their funds with other banks
who in turn deposit them in Chicago or
New York, the tendency is to collect
the surplus of the nations funds in
the big speculative centers where they
stimulate stock gambling. The cur
rency reformers want permission ex-
tended the banks to lend more freely
and with better returns to those en-
gagged in legitimate commerce and
manufacturing work. The American
commission on agricultural co-opera-
ton similarly wants a supplementary
banking system built up which will be
controlled by the farmers and which
will divert a large portion of the saw
ings OF rural communities to the de-
velopment of the farms. 1t is claimed
that in Germany such system has
been able to supply as high as 80 per
cent of all the money required by the
German farmers for their operating ex-
penses from such deposits. Similar
systems are in operation in nearly
every country of Europe 1t is to study
the operation of these systems that the
commission is visiting those countries.
Mortgage Banking System.
The second attempt of the commits
sion will be to secure the establish
ment of a, mortgage banking system in
the United States. Such a system in
Germany has brought over $2,OO0,-
100000 to the German land owners for
the development and Improvement of
their land. In France the mortgage
bonds of the credit foncier, which are
only the farmers mortgages under a
different form, sell at lower interest
rates than even first class Industrial
bonds. 1t is declared that il mort
gage banking system could be estab-
lished in the United States billions of
dollars Of additional money could be Sc
cured for the farmers at much lower
rates and on better terms and that
with the great development In Amer
lean farms which this money would
make possible, the. problem of good
production in the United States, which
is rapidly becoming worse, would be
solved for ever.
Personnel Of Committee.
The federal commissioners appointed
by the president are Senator Duncan u.
Fletcher, lawyer farmer, and president
OF the southern commercial congress;
chairman of the Senate committee on
agriculture; Representative Moss, of
Indiana, who was farmer before he
entered congress, and is now chairman
of the House committee on expenditures
in the department of agriculture; Col.
Harvie Jordan, former president of the
farmers union; Kenyon L. Butterf1eld,
a member OF President Roosevelt $
country life commission, and president
of Amherst college: John Lee Coulter,
the governments expert on agricultural
statistics, and DR.. Clarence J. Owens.
managing director of the southern
commercial congress.
The state delegates include farmers,
bankers, lawyers and economists. Vim
cent Astor was appointed delegate
from New York by Governor Sulzer and
the prime minister of Saskatchewan
heads delegation of Canadians rep
resenting four provinces of the domin-
ion The commission returns from Eu-
rope in August and will then prepare
its report to congress and the states.
l3asss.s5
CULT LEADER SEE is