New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-03-30
Product!


To the Editor Of The Tribune.
Sir: AS the son Of farmer, tie
grandson Of farmers and the brother
Of farmers-Iowa farmers, all-and an
editor merely from choice and acci-
dent, / am forced to agree with much
that Mr.. Coddington, Of Smithland,
Iowa, is quoted in The Tribune Of
March 81 as saying.
There is no obligation resting on
the farmer to work twelve and sixteen
hours a day-as l have done through
out the busy season in my own
younger days-that the automobile
worker, the shoemaker, the plumber
and window cleaner, the city garbage
man and others may have cheap food
and plenty of it. The farmers indus
try is an essential one. But the world
would move along some way if the
average eight-hour day man at a
dollar or two an hour, who is agitating
for a four-hour day and 81 an hour,
were to be permitted to remain idle.
To a certain extent the automobile
industry is an essential one, out
probably 90 per cent Of workers could
be put to farm production without
any real damage to the country. OF
course, in that case Mr. Codding.on
and his neighbors would not be able
hard working farmers that they are
to ride to town in their high-pow-
cred something that |,
after twenty years of city occupation,
cannot afford.
When, however, Mr. Coddington tells
of the losses he has sustained, another
question arises. We all know--no one
better than l, for obvious reasons
that many Of the farmers Of the
Middle West have not been working
on the job much in the past couple OF
years. They have been specializing in
land, which has jumped from $40 to
$400 or more an acre in the course OF
the past twenty years--and here
again, speak with deep personal feel
ing, for myself might now be riding
in an expensive car and kicking about
the high cost of living had been
little wiser in my generation.
Doubtless, it is upon this $500 an
acre land that Mr.. Coddington bases
his assumption that he is losing
money. But is there any excuse ior
this $400 an acre land? What has he
done to entitle him to the $500 an
acre which his land may have adj
vanced in the last two years-for the
1000 per cent increase in twenty
years. Because speculation has brought
land to towering heights and made the
original owners rich beyond the
dreams of US editors, if not beyond
the dreams of avarice, must the word
be taxed to pay dividends on that
land?
If the farmer increases production
it will not be because he is urged 70
do so, but because he finds it profitable
to do so or because it is necessary 10
do so in order to live. The sooner
workers in other lines come to the
conclusion that their salvation IS III
creased production-not in decreasing
the days work from 900 to 4S0 bricks
at four times the former wage-1he
sooner will the world get out OF the
doldrums. Labor of all kinds is nov
demanding twice what it produces, anu
while there seems to be general as
position to meet this demand, the
practice cannot be kept up linden
nltely.
AS an unprejudiced Observer II
seems to me that the answer to tns
whole question is bound to be founo
in financial panic such as the wor.s
has never known--a panic which VIII
destroy most of the gains that iaoo'
has won and which, apparently, It
unable to appreciate.
When that tine comes I am Willing
and l hope, able-to return to tn
soil from which l came to do m. bit
something which a large part ct -
called "labor" is evidently totally 10
capable Of doing. A. NJ. ADAMS
Brooklyn, March 81. 1920.