Norwich bulletin., 1919-10-10
WHITTIER ARE WE TRENDNG-FoR SERVICE
 OR ROBBERY?

Written Specially for The Bulletin. How much can I GET?" asks the man whose belly ik his biggest devel- opment.
 How maeh can GIvE.s asks the man who thinks his heart a nob3er organ than his duod denuFn.
 Between these two types we all gravitate; some downwardS towards the first; some upwards towards tho latter.
 Which class are we in. or which are we tending towards-you and I?
 The first includes hogs and hyenas and profiteers and professional -'prole- tarians" and grating contractors and pilfering worknen and walking dele gates and bargain hunters and hoard : CTS (whether of money marbles. of sugar coal or cordwooG and most of the adherents and all the admirers of "big business" falsely so called.
 Also it includes altogether too many farmers, more's the pity. l came away from little bunch ef my fellow farmers the other day. sad- dened to the heart. They had been talking about various farm ma tiers and the conversation gradually wore around to the subject of prices. With out a single exception. every one in the group was asking how much he could get for this, that or the other crop. Not one sought to find out what the stuff was really worth. Not one had any information as to what a. crop had actually cost. Not one had at tempted to figure out what would be a fair profit. Each one was frankly so- licitous to know how much he could get. rather than what he ought to have.
 Now I'm not going here into any dis cussion of economies The subject is too big and too complicated. Nor am going to set forth at length any the ories about markets My own convic- ton is that when the market price of any commodity fixes itself in accord ance with the interacting workings of supply and demand. the market price is about right; while, when it Is arbi- tinkered with by price manipulators, it is generally all wrong. But let that go for the present. What saddened me in that conversation was not it's economic side. but it's human side.
 It was only a small group-half a dozen men. One was an American of Yorkshire ancestry; one American of Scottish birth; two Americans of Irish parentage; one an American of Teutonic descent: and one an Ameri- can with at least seven New England generations behind him. All were Americans, citizens and voters. It may be that some of them were. at heart. out Of sympathy with the talk I hope
 
 it.
 The keynote of 1t all was that a man must alwoys look out for Number One first and let the devil take the hind taking all he could get. provided he didn't actually steal it. That if a buyer didn't know the fair price. it was perfectly proper to stick him for all he could be made to pay Etc, etc.
 And the justification was-"Every- body's doin' it; why shouldn't I."
 I can't believe. I don't believe. I won't believe that this chance group was really representative of the great mass of farmers As English sparrows and potato bugs and stinking squash bugs gather in punches, each unde- sirable horde by itself. so I keep ar guing to myself that these few birds of feather had f1ocked together by some mutual attraction. and that they really represented only themselves a pitiful minority. Just as the maiodo- rous stink bugs on a squash leaf rep- resent only themselves and never the honey bees and lady bugs and hum ming birds and other species of use or beauty.
 But assuming that hopeful view. it yet remains a fact that even a half dozen farmers of this sort are just six too many.
 I know, no one better. how hard ana unrernunerative in point of money is the farmers life. There are men working on state contract within mile Of me who get more money for eight hours easy work than the aver age farmer of my town gets for four teen hours harder work
 And ! also know farmers-men who were not in this store piazza group to which I have referred but were hard at work on their farms doing things While the half dozen were just talking farmers who would not swap their paid and day-long labor for any job at any price with any contractors gang.
 Why?
 Well, for one reason. because they pfeIer 70 De their own masters, inde- pendent of whistles and bosses
 For another reason, because they have an instinctive repugnance against taking or having anything they haven't actually earned They don't want to be given that which they haven't, in in some way. paid for. They retain an