Evening star., 1920-02-02
CRASH SEEN COMING
|FPR0DUCT|OND0ES #
NOT SOON INCREASE
After Smash, Then Labor
Will Go Back to Farms,
Says Prof. AtkeSon.
by DAVID LAWRENCE.

Says Prof. AtkeSOn.
by DAVID LAWRENCE.
An economic crash is coming as an
inevitable result of the high cost of
, living, increased demand for more
wages and fewer hours of abor, scarcity
of farm labor and diminished produc-
ton of foodstuffs. City folks need to
be more concerned than farmers.
There is no unrest" among the agri-
cultural citiZenry of the United States
as the word was used in analyZing the
10000 answers given last week to the
questionnaire of the Post Office De-
partment, but there is widespread dis
satisfaction and growing distress over
the vicious circle in which the eco-
nomics of these reconstruction days are
travelling.
Unrest has been applied so often to
the discomfort of bolshevists and
would-be deStrOyerS of organized gov
ernment that the word is resented by
the spokesman of farm organizations
who insist that dissatisfaction with
more accurate phrase, and that il
unrest" comes it will be in the city
as consequence of rural causes.
Prof. AtkesOn's View.
Thus does Prof. T. c. Atkeson, Wash
ington representative of the National
Grange. and recently a member of Presi-
dent Wilson's first industrial peace con-
ference. analyZe the present clash of
city and rural interests. and his expla-
nation is all The more interesting be-
cause he believes Congress can present
no cure. and because he does not blame
the city workman for refusing to sell
his services for less than he thinks he
can get.
He reveals incidentally a big fact,
namely. that the United States has not
assimilated its returned Army and that
hardly l per cent of the boys who used
to work on the farms before the war
have gone back to the country How
serious that is can readily be imagined
when it is realized that fully half of
the membership of the American exped-
tionary forces, to say nothing of the
men who wen, to camps in America.
came from the farms.
City People Misled.
"The QUESTIONABLE of the Post Office
Department" said Prof. Atkeson. who
for nineteen years was dean of the
Agriculture College of West Virginia,
shows plainly how city people have
been mlslead as to country conditions.
l dislike the word unrest The
farmers are simply distressed at their
growing inability to cultivate the
land. They cannot do what they want
to do. The labor market is rapidly
making it impossible for them to feed
the country. Somebody is going to
go hungry Unrest may come as a
consequence in the city.
The inability to obtain farm la
Dor is the most serious thing Before
the war the farmer trained his chill
dren and hired help in the country
Now with the attractive wages in the
city, the farmer boys who were in the
Army do not want to come back to
the country, and l don't blame them or
in ifNy
if higher wages are obtainable there"
Farm Labor Scarce.
But city people must realize that as
farm labor gets scarce the country
must begin offering higher wages and
thus costs of production must rise
Add to that the great cost of distri-
button and you see why the cost of
living is going up. Why, reckoned
relatively, food is the cheapest thing
of all. Our city friends ought to re-
alize that there are about 1000. 200
farmers selling individually. They
cannot be profiteers. They are help
less because they have to take what
is offered them They have no organ
ization to fix prices and there are no
signs of one. They deal individually.
Now I know that nobody ever sold
what he had to sell, either skill or
labor or commodities. for less than
he thought he could get. We all do
it. We should recognize it as a fun
damental fact. Well. the normal
source of farm labor-namely, the sons
of farmers-is almost gone. The farm
er boys who went into the Army got
a taste of the world and city life. They
have rubbed up against city COM
panions and are lured by high wages
and what appears to them a more at
tractive life.
One Per Cent Back on Farms.
Il am told that out of $4,000 ques-
tionnaires sent out in connection with
the demobilization of troops about l
per cent appear to have gone back to
the farms
Also farm hborers don't want to
stay in the country if the city offers
them better opportunities Normally
a farm laborer gets for his days work
the equivalent of bushel of wheat.
The other day / had some carpenter
work done at my house in the city and
what l paid for ten hours work would
have bought a barrel of flour or four
and a half bushels of wheat. A man
is "A fool for staying in the country if
he can get that much more in the city
But some day those high-wage fell
lows are going to wake up and find
that there isn't enough food to &C
around at any price. It's something
7 like conditions after the civil war
when we paid IS keg for cut nails
for about four years. and then sud-
denly the price dropped to about 90
cents a keg. We had been selling
wheat at SO bushel and then came
down to 60 cents Il busheL. And GER
tain people got hurt in the crash.
Harder Work Everywhere Needed.
There is little use of talking about
the high cost of living when you con-
slider the high cost of city labor. The
cost of distribution moreover is all
out of proportion to the cost of food
/ production. What we need is increa sed
production everywhere-in the city
as well as the farm. Instead of aei.
tating for shorter hours and more paw
il would be much better if everybody Y
in the cities and factories worked
harder for the present high scale OF
wages"
In the same connection Judge o. c;
Smith of Nebraska. president of tn.
National Farmers Congress. told his
3 colleagues at their gathering here
/ that the actual condition of winte,
! wheat today showed only 81 per cent
/ and a falling off of about 33 per cent
: in production. The leaders of the farm
! organizations-and they all have ma.
/ tional headquarters here-insist also
| that people are crowding every bit ot
| housing space in the city, while in the
I outlying districts and suburbs there
| are plenty of vacant houses
! AS for the talk about profiteeri
! among farmers. the leaders pointed &c
( the statement just issued by the De-
partment of Agriculture, which SAYS
The average net income of 1924
, farms in the richest portions of Iowa