The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1915-12-03
FARMERS FACING A css
How Farmers Are Being Robbed
Under Present Conditions.

the Packers given a more brutal
exhibition of power than some
weeks ago, when, within AZ hours
they pounded down the price of
hogs over S1.OO per hundred.
That present hog prices are cas-
lily $500 per hundred lower than
conditions warrant there is not
the slightest question. The far
mers of Missouri annually mar
ket approximately 1000. 900 hogs
and at an average weight of 200
pounds per hog this means a loss
to the farmers of the state of
something like 10000, OO0-and
this in view of the fact that we
are in the midst of the greatest
export demand for American
meats we have known in many
years. During the eight months
following the outbreak of the
European war we exported near
ly 500, 900, 900 worth more A.
merican meat products than we
did during the eight months pre-
.ceding it-and yet, despite this
fact, thousands of Corn Belt far
mers lost money in their feed
ing operations last winter while
for the coming winter the pros
pect is even darker.
I doubt whether one farmer in
a hundred realizes the serious
ness of the present deplorable
state of affairs or its true signif-
%icance for the future. Here We
are in the midst of the greatest
trade balances in the history Of
the Nation-so huge in fact that
New York rather than London
promises to become the future
financial center of the World
Many of our steel plants, auto.
mobile manufacturers and Other
suppliers of war munitions are
literally rolling in new founc
wealth and as a result the wilc
speculation in war stocks in Wal
Street during the last severa
months has kept hundred o.
clerks working day and night
Mind you, | don't say that this il
true Of industrial enterprise.
generally but it is true of thos,
which are dealing in war sup
plies-and yet, large as the for
eign orders have been for guns
ammunition, automobiles, autc
trucks and other war staples, i
is the meat products, wheat, cot
ton, and horses of the American
farmer which are responsible fol
the lions share of the enormou.
trade balances which are with
out precedent in our history
and yet, Notwithstanding thi
fact, the farmer is in the mids
of positively ruinous marke
conditions. In other words, S
helpless is the farmer to prc
tect himself against the indus
trial vampires who set an al
bitrary price on what he prC
duces that while others are real
ing untold millions of profit OF
, OF the European situation, tn
: farmer is being compelled |
, furnish the things which ker
E body and soul together for IL
= poor devils in the foreign trencl
1 es at a tremendous loss-whi
: the big meat Packers, determi,
ed to make the most of their O
h portunity, are h~ammering pric.
y with more brutal abandon tn,
4 ever before in their history.
Il In the meantime, the co
e sumer, equally helpless at Il
d other end of the line, pass t
n same old price-and hence
IS the one hand we have a hi,
S, cost of living while upon t
d other we have a state of affai
or which is driving thousands
bright country boys and gil
as to the already overcrowded c
it les, increasing farm mortgal
III and tenants and spreading
lg erywhere a condition Of Agric
I'd tural despair which is fast t;
ing the heart out Of farm