The Holly chieftain., 1920-08-26
Cost Of Raising Wheat Is
Greatly Increased
NO SURPLUS WHEAT
m YoREI0M MARKETS
Matter Of Financing Farmers So
They can Hold for Better Prices
4 Earnestly Considered and Ways
and Means Sought.
By l. D. Graham

Dy L. ~. UIdll6u
OF all the charges and counter
charges which fly so thick these
days of mental and moral collie,
there is none SO cruel in effect or
SO untrue in fact as the widely flung
charge that the farmer is profiteer-
ing and thus creating, as well as
maintaining the high cost Of living.
Wheat raising is the dominant
industry of Kansas. This crop ex-
ceeds in value the total yearly
product OF her packing houses; is
larger than the annual revenue
from all her mineral production, in
Guiding petroleum, gas, coal, cement,
and all other mineral products, is
81 per cent. of all her crop prOduc
ton, and is, therefore, representa-
tive of the agricultural activities
of the state.
The facts regarding the cost and
profits of wheat in Kansas would
be fairly representative of the cost
and profits of the agriculture of
the state, and these facts have
been determined by Secretary j.
c. Mohler of the state Board of
Agriculture, thru q most thoro and
exhaustive investigation. From
these facts it is proved that the
cost of producing wheat in 1919,
when the. state harvested the lar
gest acreage in her history, was
43 cents per acre greater than the
returns.
These facts present grave as
pect of the condition which now
confronts the people of this ma
tiOn and prOpOunds the difficult
problem of how to maintain the
farmer on his farm.
If ever human being was con-
frOnted with a serious dilema which
he must tackle, that being is the
farmer. He can either grasp the
one horn and reduce the acreage to
such an area as can be handled by
his own immediate family, or he
can grasp the other, and abandon
the farm. There is no alternative.
But the public faces an even
greater dilema. The problems
which face the farmer are of
vastly greater import to the pub
lie than they are, to the farmer
himself. The farmer can always
have enough to eat, but, unless
conditions change, the public may
not. The public can grasp the one
horn of its greater dilema and
bring about q tolerable condition
for the farmer, or 1t can grasp the
other horn and go hungry.
1t is not enough that the farmer,
with his heavy investment aggregat-
ing the largest amount of any bust.
ness in America, and his special
training, to say nothing of his Ia
Dor, should be able only to exc out
q bare existence. He must have q
ital and labor invested and on a
par with that derived from other
business activity.
The farmer is 100 per cent. Amer
ican and not serf. Moreover, he
is cultured American with col
lege training, in large part, and is
entitled to all of the amenities of
life in America. He cannot be ex-
pected to continue to combat the
present adversities of his calling
from patriotic or altruistic mo-
tive alone. There must be some
profit as well.
The famrer is not asking favors
of anybody. He is demanding q
square deal, which he is not getting
yet
Heretofore the farmer has lacked
in cooperative effort. Now he is
organizing for mutual protection
as never before. He realizes that
the situation is up to him and he
is going to succeed, but not as an
I. w. W., or thru any revolution
airy fraternity of that ilk. He has
tried organized effort in desultory
sort of way in past years, but he
knows that he did not then go far
enough. He realizes that he is the
one who cannot fix the selling price
of his products and his efforts to
correct this have been more or less
abOrtive because such efforts were
not universal, or even general,
among farmers, and because these
efforts were confined to the selling
It has been difficult, in past
years, for the farmer to obtain
united action among themselves
because, from the very nature of
their business, each farmer Is the
competitor of every other farmer.
In q hazy sort of way, the farmers
have realized that they constitute
the largest body of men engaged
\ in any one industry, and that by
united action they could WELD an
irrestible power, but the idea has
I never been embodied in concrete
( form until now, when 1t Is begin
ming to be. They will now tackle the