The Kenna record. (Kenna, Roosevelt County, N.M.) 190?-1924, 1916-11-03
FARMER REAPS GAIN
BY EIGHT-H0UR LAW
Prevented Tying Up Of Crops
Valued at $6,Oo1,Co9,o00.
BY FRANK G. OGELL
Editor Nebraska Farm Magazine.

The New York Sun quotes james
Wilson, of Iowa, former Secretary Of
Agriculture, as saying that the farmers
we're hit hardest hy the AdamsOn
Elght-houf law, which stopped the
threatened general railroad strike.
According to THE sun sir Wilson
said.
"The farmer has no eighl-hour day.
Should that number of hours become
general in all occupations including
the farn the prices OF food would
rise still higher then those current
The logic of tha venerable ex-Sec-
rotary is bad. The farmer is not wor-
rying about the high price Of food.
He raises his own food lie grows
food for sale. That's his business
If, as the ex-Secrctary 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 $6,000,000,000
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 paralyzed 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.
"Tama jim" was Secretary of Agri-
culture through four Republican Ad-
minstrations-sixt 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 ahd
extortioh ran riot,
During this period, The farmers Of
tile 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 Populations 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
istations 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 iii
the history OF the Government, the
business problems of the farmer re-
celved the attentions of his Govern
ment. The Office of Markets and
the Bureau of Rural Organization were
created to help him break the strange
hold of entrenched monopoly. The
epoch-making Rural Credits Law was
passed by Woodrow Wilson and IL
| Democratic Congress. The power of
the usurer and eXtOrtlOner was broken
when that Act was signed.
The farmer has a good memory. He
does not forget his lifelong battle
with entrenched lege-Organized
and grown purse-proud during forty
years of Republican indifference aud
misrule. He viii not forget that it was
WOODROW WILSON, the Peoples
President, who saved his market from
ruin on Sept. ., 1916. The special
pleadings of Republican defenders of
special privilege and monopoly will
find the farmers ready on Nov. Z.