New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-19
THE BREAD WAR COMING

To the Editor of Tho Tribune.

Sir writing OF the Farmers Union. N.
editor Of an evening paper says:
"They are rich, 70 be sure, but not a, IL,
as they want to be; hence, the Farms,,,
Union"
The innocent editorial writer would nr.v.
that tho farmers are rich By some such lo...
as this: All editorial writer's are poor, ts.,.
fore all farmers are rich.
As a real strain upon his reasoning pov.,,
/ would like TO suggest this problem. =
farmers are rich and farming IL a pros,,-
BILE industry, how does II happen tia, ~.
greedy captains Of industry TO use hs,5,
phrase) have never invested a nickel IN ~.
farming Industry Is II because, like 6,
Francis, they have dedicated their lives :,
poverty? No, FOR they have invested mllllo,,
in packing plants 10 dress meat, and ss.,
mills and bakeries 70 produce bread; tb,v
have even capitalized as thin a thing as "a.
retail business, and have great chalns a.
cigar stores 20 sell smokes % prosperoB,
clerks, and white restaurants 70 cater 70 "a.
shop girl. But never a cent into a chain a,
farms. These wise guys have their reason,
And at the risk Of leaking a secret that Will
turn the market upside down I will blow /,
off. It's because farming doesn't pay Pn
telling you something free that it has cost
others thousands of dollars 70 find out ,or
themselves.
"The farmers are rich" Take sollnt a.
Dakota. Its Godforsakcn prairies are salt
ed with the bones Of men and women frozen
TO death in shacks without coal, and Whit
with the skulls Of cattle starved in the bitter
billiards and the endless SHOWS.
Dakota is a semi-desert land Of thin soil
and arctic climate. II is unfit Tor human
habitation. The Almighty has forbidden ever
trees to grow there. Yet IL was peopled by
the disinherited Of the earth, fleeing from
an economic tyranny, even as the peasants Of
Belgium fed before the flaming sword Of Bill
Kaiser. These wretched fugityes from he
bayonets Of high rent, no jobs and hul
times we're driven into the Dakota desert,
where they dug holes in the ground Tx, he
gopher and the rattlesnake. They lifted sol
walls and called it home. They had cors
without tools, without munitions, without
capital. With their bare hands they attack.
the sterile and reluctant soil and In due sea-
son the desert brought forth bread. Their
the tyranny that they had fed from sd
yanced TO eat that bread, even as the Kaiser
levied on the last loaf In Belgium Upon
those Dakota plains was staged once more
the world-old tragedy Of wheat For sncisn,
times read the story Of Joseph and the whss,
speculation in Egypt, and for modern times,
s.The Octopus," the masterpiece Of Frank
Norris). The bread that the Dakota out
casts had brought forth in the desert vas
wrested from them by the Economic Giant
and they were spanked and sent supperls'
to bed.
Next. the thin soil played out and could be
cropped no more TO wheat. The railroads
then showed the people how TO turn to dairy
farming Again the Economic Giant reached
out and snatched the cup Of cream from
their lips. IL cost more corn 10 feed their
cattle than they could buy with the milk o.
those cattle. First they had raised bread
and gone hungry; now they gave the world
butter, but they could not butter their oT
bread.
All over the land they are at last rising u
revolt. They are leagued 70 combat N,
economic invasion as the Allies are leagusa
against greedy Prussia. They will pull ne
teeth of the Giant as the Entente wcald ul
fang Kaserism. The farmers fight
mighty war 70 end war. TO end the economic
war that has drained their blood for ages
the peasants "scourged on In the fuFioF
like cattle, or flung as a meat 70 the eanhoh'
that hunger in battle" The Economic GiSn'
is strong. He cannot be whipped IN open
battle. Only a blockade can bring him 70
terms. Hence this is TO be a war Of starF4'
ton. The farmers realize that they alone
control the food supply. and they VIII staF's
the enemy until he comes 90 such terms s.
will make future depredations impossible
See how it all works out in terms that are
at last familiar 10 the newspaper pubic.
IL is not a question OF which side =
fright" the farmers or the Giant that ha'
grown fat by robbing them a. Prussia i1''
tened on weaker nations. merely siae
that here sound the opening guns OF wa
that will shake the world. There IS to DC a
shift in the balance of power. The farmer
class is arming 10 lock in a death struss'
with the moneyed class. Neutrals and ihho
cents will suffer and starve by the millions
If you believe that such a struggle can never
come because il would be too horrible, dream
on. and others have pointed out THIS e"Dl
that has been forming for years, lu't =
Bernard Shaw and others warned bfl,S1
that the Great War was inevitable. ~"
European war jerked the bedciothes Oh ,n1
sleeping American and revealed MIN os-
only in dense layers Of ignorance. lie AA,
nothing of the great world in whieA ~
lived. Soon the farmers blockade, the "oIeeu
war;" will crash upon the same Amerl'an'
in the same ignorance Of their own count ,,
They do not know and do not care 10 A, NOV
whence their bread and butter come a. La
some morning they will wake up and hnl '''
breakfast rolls are not upon the doorstep
The Man from ArSansa'
The Bronx, Jan. Q, 1917.