The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1918-02-17
By W. V. BYARS.

prices Tor bread ana 1000 IN genera
developed yesterday in testimony
gwen before the Senate Committee
on Agriculture by Mr.. John A.
Simpson, president of the Farmers
Union of Oklahoma. If you are in
the habit of eating and paying for
your food, Mr.. Simpson ought to in
terest you.
The conclusion of the whole mat
ter is that "to stimulate produc-
tion," compulsory prices must be
high prices-to begin with. Then
they must 60 higher.
Mr.. Simpson insisted that to raise
more wheat to feed the army and
win the war, we must go fright out
in the arid and semi-arid' regions OF
the West, commonly known in west
ern Kansas and western Oklahoma
as "the short-grass country" The
cost of production in this arid and
semi-arid region must be made the
standard, or else the farmers there
could not afford to produce. They
might get along" on $3.50 bushel
for wheat, but $2.75 would be "a
whole lot safer" In answer to
questions, which he did not recog-
nize as sarcastic, the witness said
that from So to 81 bushel would
cause enthusiasm. The women
would let the dust settle in the par
lors while they went into the fields
to help raise wheat which, at from
SO to 81 bushel, would raise their
mortgages.
Now let me tell you fellows
something you ought to know" said
the witness, forgetting he was adj
dressing United States Senators.
at is my patriotic duty to tell you
that anybody that has been robbed
as the wheat farmers have is not in
the best frame of mind. It's time
you were getting back the wheat
farmers love. You need it."
Nothing is likely to go farther
toward the bottom Of the compulsory
control Of food prices than this
earnestness.
Wheat might be raised In the
Sahara desert on a cost plus"
basis. There is no land in the West
so desert and so dry that somebody
WV AANNAo " hdNO Allo lONb iOl lllt
Government restored will not I'M
dertake to be encouraged to win
the war" on It. II is logic that
when prices are made compulsory
they must be adjusted to overcome
the greatest difficulties or they will
not be high enough for those who
need such Government help most
Hence city people must pay all the
desert land farmer needs to "stimu-
late increased production"-and
patriotism.
There are hundreds of thousands
OF acres now being farmPd in the
arid and semi-arid West, where the
land is so bad, the rainfall so slight,
the difficulties Of production SO
great, that il food prices are to be
made compulsory TO reach the suf-
fering farmers on these lands. it
would be cheaper to buy them out
and board them with their families
at hotels during the war than to
impose on some ninety million people
the compulsory prices for food these
sufferers" demand as patriotic TO
win the war" There is nothing
more serious than the deadly earn
estness with which they make this
demand, where an opening is given
for it by the proposal now made to
add fifty cents lDemoCraticl or
seventy-five cents IRepublican) a
bushel to the compulsory price of
wheat for their benefit.
The railroad control bill has as yet
created no division in the Senate
radical enough to Obstruct its
passage. AS Senators Cummins and
Robinson went on record yesterday
they represented differences only on
the issue of compensation tor more
properly remit for the roads while
under Government control
Senator CumminS objected TO the
presidential standard" or three
wear average rate of compensation
as introducing into railway opera
ton the same abominable system of
profitcerinG," which he said now dis
, figures" the activities of other in
terests in their dealings with tie
Government. He indicated Il pur-
pose of centering his opposition on
the great mOney-making systems
north of the Ohio and east of the
Mississippi, as profitccring under the
bill at the expense of what have