Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1917-01-19
That P0ttaWdttdmae Farmer
New York Time

II you are farmer with 100 acres of winter
wheat, and most OF it of poor grade, SO that you
probably will not have more than halt crop;
if it would be all right to let your crop stay IN
wheat at the present price and not plow the land
up and put it in corn but il you would lose lot
Of money in case wheat falls to 20 cents or so,
you are naturally in quandary. That is the po-
siton OF western farmer who writes to he
Omaha Bee and asks for exact information, so
that he will know what to do about it.. After
explaining his situation, which is that Of quite
sprnkling of farmers as he explains, he comes
to the point:
Now what | want to get at is this: Will the
war last another year. and is Germany going to
be beaten! 1have been constant reader OF your
paper for several years, and other papers also
have been constituting the information IRON odds
and ends that noticed in both that the Germans
would be the winners and that the allies could
not win Lately, however, a neighbor OF mine
who has returned from Rhode Island and who is
a man rely on for speaking the truth as he
honestly sees It, tells me that the Germans who
are not in the army starving. he says that
is popular opinion there. have for some weeks
been watching closely what New York paper
has been saying on the subject and don't know
what to think; hence, as reader. would like
to ask for an opinion. What is the real truth!
Will the war go on, or nots'
He adds that he does not ask merely "out
OF curiosity but that many farmers would like
to know from The Bee itself" We may be wrong,
but it is impossible not to suspect that all this
tribulaton and uncertainty is due to the neighbor
who went to Rhode Island. Everything seems
to have been going all right until this restless per-
son went rummaging for trouble around the
east. Why could he not have let well enough
alone? By reading the western papers the Pot
tawattamie county farmers--the troubled reader
halls from Pottawattame-had learned how the
war was going to end, and everybody was happy.
Wha. dict1 hogan
around the east and coming back with astound-
ing reports about what us popular opinion there,
he flung a red brand Of discord into the home
of peace and certainty.
We are disposed, too to blame somewhat the
Pottawattamie county inquirer himself. The dis
cordant voice of the explorer seems to have dis
turbed him so much that he has "for some weeks
been watching closely New York paper on the
subject" No wonder his mind is unsettled and he
doesn't know what to think" He has chosen
the wrong way to his lost peace of mind. Let him
give up the bad habit of watching closely the New
York paper; let him listen no more to vagrom
men who 60 sloshing around the effete east and
bringing back alarming reports; let him go on
reading your paper and other papers also" pub
lished out in the well-nformed west, and he will
come back to his old conclusion that the Ger
mans would be the winners and that the allies
could not win" Then will he and the sprnkling
OF farmers who have been alarmed by the de-
pressing discourse of the man who has been to
Rhode Island recover their old serenity.
We regret, by the way to note that The Bee
does nothing to restore that lost paradise. 1t
says that any one who knew how and when the
war would end would make so much money that
he would mot have to bother about whether to
plant wheat or corn. This is distressing eva
sion. We feel sure that The Bees philosophical
and Olympian neighbor, the World Herald, would
not have given this dry husk to readers hunger
ing for information.