The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1917-11-02
AGRICULTURISTS SHOULD
HAVE ENCOURAGEMENT

on lower Selling OASIS uEL6dL TIC
very object desired? What induce
ment is there to increase acreage
when the growers are kept in an I'M
certainty as to prices-even more is
told that prices will be regulated aft
err the goods get into the hands of
the wholesaler. In an editorial this
week Marshall v. Hartranft of the
Fruit World comes nearer expressing
the views of the large California dis
tributers of fruits and vegetables
than any other printed view. This
editorial has been broadly and gen.
orally commended as not only logical
but particularly fitting present condi-
TONS The article will be read with
interest by growers in all parts of the
country. 1t follows:
"If bread goes to 25c. a loaf it will
bring American cities so near the
point of starvation that they will au
| tomatically release the horde of non
essential labor that still clings to our
over populated centers and it will
| flow to the assistance of agriculture.
We think government energies are
being applied in the wrong direction
and the American people will go clear
through to chaos and back before we
get fairly started on this war if the
government does not stop it's attempt
| to make food prices tumble. We are
raising wages in the cities to compen-
safe for the advanced cost of living
and in doing it are attracting labor
| from the farms. Raising yourself by
your boot straps is scientific when
compared with the economic farce of
trying to compensate for declining
food supplies by raising wages to city
labor, which is divorced from the
land. The way to stimulate food pro-
| duction is to advance the wages Of
farm labor. The way to advance the
wages of farm labor is to raise the
| threat of price control on foodstuffs,
until the non essential labor elements
of the population centers are first
starved out of their useless avoca-
tions and simultaneously attracted to
the field of agricultural industry. We
are shipping trainloads of brood sows
and mich cows to the slaughter house
because of the lack of labor and we
are right now creating famine in
butter fat and meat for 1918 and 1919
| which no amount of bond issues or
fiat money can then remedy.
Government retardation of food
| prices is an opiate the after effects
of which will be dire famine. The
power of price control given to the
| food administrator hangs as the
sword of Damocles over all agricul-
tural industry. There is timidity
where there should be confidence. The
threat of price control alone does the
harm. Raisin growers caught in the
pinch have recently paid $40 day to
| get their product to the bins. Pros
pective grain planters stand between
labor famine on one side and govern
ment price restriction on the other.
Supervision of storage and trade
combinations are justifable in de-
gree; but price retardation on agricul-
tural products is walking backward
proposition and is an outgrowth of
the false PHILOSOPHERS on wages and
Dor unions of the country. Those
false theories will not stand the test
of war times. Dean Hunt of Berk-
eley meant America must attract or
drive one-fourth of her urban popu-
lation back to agricultural pursuits,
either as laborers or farm proprie-
tors. If we are unable to bring this
about the time will arrive when the
| German or the japanese government
will be ordained of God and coming
| events to show US how The non
essential labor and wasted man power
in our cities consists of about one
third the bank employees, half the
dentists, half the lawyers, half the
printers, two-thirds of the preachers,
and 81 per cent of the real estate
men, and so forth. Twenty-Five cent
bread will give them Whit of new
mown, hay, and if that does not, then
let bread go to doc the loaf.
IF the administration does not
dare attempt the process of starving
out the liberated conditions of Amer
lean cities it has but the one alterna-
tive of importing Asiatic labor for
the western farms. Coolie labor is
another economic opiate but along
side of the vicious theory of raising
city wage scales to compensate for
declining foodstuffs it has the advant-
age of solving this problem even
though it plant the seed of some diff
ficuIties for the next generation to
| handle. Produce News
The Hoover administration has un-
dertaken widespread program and
daubtless there are flaws in it. The
Star believes in the infallibility of
the law of supply and demand, at the
same time, it thinks that extortion is
a crime and it is as much the duty
of the government to try to repress
extortion as any other crime. One of
| Mr.. Hoover's ideas is to awaken the
j public conscience, so the people will