The Bingham County news. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1918-1930, 1921-09-02
VESTS DEMANDS
HAVE BEEN MET
BILL REGULATING GRAIN Elk
CHANGES is PASSED AFTER
TWENTY YEARS WAIT
Many Measures OF Direct Benefit To
Western Farmers Enacted Into
Laws During Year; Farmer
Seems To Be Factor

Washington = Under normal con-
ditions, the session of congress just ad-
journed would be called 1.-The Farmers
Congress- If the farmer legislation
had been o~vershadowed by taxation
and the tariff, it would be realized that
more measures demanded by the farm
erS and presumed to be in their inter
ests have been passed since April than
in probably any other five months of
congress in history.
The passage of the bill regulating
grain exchanges in an answer to a de-
mand the west has been making for
twenty years-a demand which in the
beginning was regarded as grotesquely
radical. On the same day that Presi-
dent Harding signed the bill for the
regulating of grain exchanges he sign
ed also the bill regulating the packers.
This, too, is the answer to All agitation
that began a generation ago.
If these two bills alone had been
passed during Roosevelt's time, when
the agitation for them was compara-
lively new and loudly insistent, they
would have been regarded as m
thing epoch-making. 1t is true that
neither the grain exchange regulation
bill nor the packer control bill is in
the extreme form originally demanded
by their proponents. Nevertheless,
they are strong. bills, and from now on,
in erect, the secretary of agriculture
has the power TO Scrutinize the bust
ness operations of grain brokers and
packers, to review their actions, and
to regulate them subject to appeal to
a commission.
This extension Of government regu-
latiOn to grain exchanges and the
packing houses is analogous to the es-
adjustment. a generation ago, of the
interstate n commission to
regulate the railroads. If the interests
of the country were not 50 intent on
the German treaty and on taxation and
the tariff, this striking expansion Of
the governments regulatory power
would get an attention in proportion to
it's significance. Incidentally, it is a
marked extension of government n
business at a time when an administra-
ton slogan is LESS government in
business
On the same day that these two reg
u~latory measures were signed by the
president, congress passed the bill
which provides that government credit
and government money shall be used,
through the agency Of the War Fin
ance corporation, to aid bankers and
others carrying agricultural commodit-
les, and to facilitate new loans on
those commodities, as we'll as to ex-
tend old loans. Here, too, the bill as
passed is short of the original demand
of the farmers, which was that the
government should loan money direct
to the farmers on their grain, stock
and other commodities.
Between the thing the farmers de-
manded and the thing that congress
has given them, the only obstacle is the
difficulty of setting up a mechanism
to reach individual farmers in time to
do them any present good. The bill as
passed fOreshadOws the next step,
which will be a government mecilan-
ism for the facilitating of credit to in
dividual farmers on their crops.
Aside from these three measures,
two other important ones passed by
the present congress in the interest of
the farmer are the bill adding $35,OOO,'
600 of government money to the farm
loan banks and the emergency tariff,
passed at the beginning Of the session,
in the interest of the farmer.
These measures reflect the fact that
the farmer is the strongest factor in
the present congress and is likely to
continue to be so during the remain-
der of the Harding administration.