The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-09-15
Beets, Politics and Progress
BY Byrd | rego
Chapter XXI.

future. AS conditions are arising
that call for more expensive opera
lions than ever before they are apt
to think these things are impossible.
This thing of paying the present high
price for machinery and for hired
help discourages good many people
and they feel like quitting the farm.
A few years ago if we spent few
hundred dollars a miie for grading
the roads we thought that 1t was
pretty expensive. Now we spend
several thousand dollars mile grad
ing the road and Immediately find
that it has to be topcoated at another
heavy expense. Then we find that
the top-coat wears out in few years
and we conclude that the solution
to the matter is that we shall put on
the topcoat of some kind of asphalt,
making it clean hard paving at a
cost of somewhere from $4,000 to
100000 mile. A farmer used to
spend two or three hundred dollars
for a team of horses and harness;
now he spends two or three thousand
dollars for truck We used to be
very glad to get $500 ton for alf-
alta and in recent years it has gone
up to several times that much and
now in the face of other high prices
it is being quoted at $500 or 5000 a
ton. We used to wish that We could
get $500 a ton for sugar beets and
now we talk about $40 and still insist
that it is less profitable. to raise them
now at $40 than it used to be at IS,
which is true. The whole situation
is so radically changed that men feel
like throwing up their hands and
quitting.
History Repeats Itself
Thirty-two years ago an old
gentleman, j. w. Jones, then the
editor of the Blackfoot News, told
me that at the close of the Civil war
he went back to his old home where
his father had operated plantation
and determined that he would settle
down and operate that plantation.
He was appalled, at the high cost OF
living and at the demands of the
negroes for wages. AS he went over
the whole situation describing every
thing to me and how the planters all
felt about it, of the way they threw
up their hands at the impossible sit
uation, remember now that 1t is
just about the same problem that
confronts the farmers of the Snake
river valley today He did not think
he could make a success of farming,
and accepted an offer of $500 a.
month for a position of professor OF
languages in a college. During the
years when he held that pleasant po-
sition merely making living, the
other fellows who were bucking the
game of operating plantations under
conditions that were very much dis
turbed, mastered their problems and
became independently rich. He told
me he had always regretted that he
did not take off his coat and face
the bad situation that existed and
either make big success or 60 abb
solutely broke in the undertaking.
On many occasions I have published
matter in my paper in which tried
to point out the things that thought
would come to pass in the future in
agriculture. On different occasions
I have published special editions of
the paper in which ! tried to bring
the proof of the things that will
make a great future. A year and a
half ago l published special good
roads edition in which tried to
picture the future as it should work
out in this valley in road questions.
But when we 60 to painting futures,
one mans picture may be as correct
as another, and there Is no way OF
absolutely measuring those things.
So have had to take the reproach OF
being called pipe-dreamer and a
hot-air artist as well as to be called
a booster, for what have written
on those things. Thirty years ago
I regarded the black sand of the
channel of Snake river as a valuable
asset that would some day be de-
veloped and made use of. I have |
seen so many mining operations fail
in trying to recover those treasures |
that / have dismissed the matter and
have no patience with any one who
says he is mining in the black sands
of Snake river. think metimes
we get very valuable lessons by re-
viewing something outside of our
own line of work. / have noticed
that the greatest opportunities seem
to come to every industry when they
are in the midst of a great crisis.
like to 60 out and review other mems
operations to get an inspiration to
take back and more correctly Judge
what may happen in those things
that concern me and my neighbors.
In the summer of 1903 visited two
different localities and studied in
dustry that madeaa deep impression
on me and I want to tell you some
thing about It. II you are a beet
raiser in this valley the one industry
has been under your observation ever
since, and ! have. written and, pub
lished a great deal about It. It has
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