Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1916-11-02
FARMER REAPS GAIN
BY E|GHT.HOUR LAW
Prevented Tying Up of Crops
Valued at S6,OOO,OO0,OOO.
BY FRANK G. ODELL
Editor Nebraska Farm Magazine.

The New York Sun quotes James
Wilson, of Iowa. former Secretary of
Agriculture, as saying that the farmers
were hit hardest by the Adamson
Eight-hour Law, which stopped the
threatened general railroad strike.
According to The Sun, Mr.. Wilson
said:
THE farmer has no eight-hOur day.
Should that number of hours become
general in all occupations, including
the farm. the prices of food would
rise still higher than those current"
The logic of the venerable ex-Sec-
rotary is bad. The farmer is not wor-
rying about the high price of food.
He raises his own food. He grows
food for sale. That's his business.
If, as the ex-Secretary says,-the
eight-hOur day will increase the cost
of fOOd,-the farmer has everything
to gain.
And Uncle Jim" has overlooked the
fact that the farmers of the United
States had not less than $6OOO,000,O0O
worth of products practically ready
to send to market when the strike
crisis was imminent at the first of
September. The threatened strike
would have paraIyzed the farmers
market and stopped the wage of the
worker in every industry.
Incalculable losses running into
hundreds of millions. were averted
when the strike was prevented.
Woodrow Wilson did it.
llama jim" was Secretary of Agri-
culture through four Republican Adj
ministratiOns-siXteen years. These
were sixteen years of monOpOlistic
control of the farmers market. Dur
ing this period, these great combina-
tons, which have stood between the
producer and the consumer, reached
the zenith of their power Greed and
eXtortiOn ran riot.
During this period, the farmers Of
the country complained continually of
capitalistic eXtortion. They held con-
ventiOnS throughout the great grain
and live stock belt to voice their pro-
test. They sent deputations of able
men to Washington. They sent their
appeals for Justice to the Secretary of
Agriculture and waited at the door
of the White House during the admin
iStratiOns of Mckinley, Roosevelt and
Taft. They asked for bread and re-
ceived stones of Indifference They
demanded justice and received plati-
tudes about prosperity" content
ment," and making two blades of
grass grow where one grew before"
Then came another WilsOn-WOod-
row Wilson. Things began to change.
David f. Houston was made Secretary
of Agriculture. For the first time in
the history of the Government. the
business problems of the farmer re-
ment. The Office of Markets and
the Bureau Of Rural Organization were
created to help him break the strangle-
hold of entrenched monopoly. The
epOch-making Rural Credits Law was
passed by Woodrow Wilson and a
DcllOcIdllc COuSIcSS. Inc power OI
the usurer and extOrtiOner was broken
when that Act was signed.
The farmer has q good memory. He
does not forget his lifelong battle
with entrenched privilege-OrganiZed
and grown purse-proud during forty
years of Republican Indifference and
misrule. He will not forget that it was
WOODROW WILSON, the Peoples
President, who saved his market from
ruin on Sept. 2, 1916. The special
pleadings of Republican defenders Of
special privilege and monopoly will
find the farmers ready on Nov. Z.