The New York herald., 1921-06-20
Farmer-Labor Cooperation.

Farmer-Labor Cooperation.
The solid farmers of America, the
producing farmers of America, the
great mass of American farm owners,
have nothing to do and would not
dream of having anything to do with
the so-called National Council of
Farmers which is attached to the tail
of the American Federation Of Labor
kite. These labor union politician
farmers" are for the most part a
shadow organization to serve the ac-
celeration purposes of SAM GoMpERs's
federation.
Nevertheless the trumpeted pro-
gramme of GoNIPERs's smoke screen
agricultural organization with CON-
PERs's real labor organization is worth
second look because of the prin-
ciples as well as the facts at issue.
Cooperation is word the meaning
Of which is stretched or distorted a
thousand times for every one time
it is used to convey the idea of mu
tual helpfulness. Broadly speaking,
there is much that is sound in the
idea Of hitching up general producers
for economic teamwork for the good
Of all workers.
But cooperation between the farmer
and the industrial worker would
have to be of the true stripe. Their
purposes are so often at variance
that 1t would require even more than
the usual measure of mutual self-con-
troll to keep the attempted coopera-
tion from driving the two groups
further apart than ever.
/ Only by uniting on common basis
of fundamental justice, the Gompers
farm council says, can real freedom
for all workers. industrial, agri-
cultural, organized and unorga-
nized, be achieved. Here is ker-
mel of truth which will prove of
value In the development of coopera-
tion among farmers and industrial
workers, and this newspaper believes
and hopes that cooperation of that
kind, along beneficial lines, can be
developed.
Emphasis must be put on the ne
cessity for including all workers, and
not simply certain groups, in the pro-
gramme of cooperation, because in
the past the influence of trade union
ism has been employed to promote
the welfare of one section of work
ers at the expense of another sec.
ton. This has had to be so when
the great bulk of all production goes
to labor in wages, and il one group
OF wage earners gets more than its
share some other groups must get
less than theirs.
\ This Is likewise true of farm or
ganizations whose ideals have been
framed without regard to their reac
tion on other than agriculture. The
unorganized worker has been left en-
; tirely out Of consideration.
!, 1t is the lack of enlightened CO
|, operation among rural and urban
workers which causes the demand for
high prices and special tariffs for soil
products intended to protect the
; farmer but which keep up the cost
of food to the city worker.
High wages and high tariffs on in
dustrial products, calculated to help
the city worker hold up prices of in
, dustrial products that are needed by
the farmers.
High wages paid to railroad work
ess, combined with high prices for
fuel and supplies made so by high
wages in the mines and in the city
, factories, increase railroad rates and
tax both the farmer and the city
worker.
The need for a common clearing
: house or organization through which
, one useless expedient for forcing up
wages and prices could be cancelled
against another Is apparent. This
does not mean that the ideal form OF
organization for urban and rural
workers would be one vast union.
One vast union cannot thresh ont
the needs Of individual groups. One
single union could act only in tho
most general way. and It could act
intelligently and Justly only If Il
we're thoroughly representative oi
all workers and all interests in in
dustry and agriculture. For a repre-
sentation like that it would have tc
= be as large and as powerful as the
= Government itself unless decisions
were to be taken with no thought OF
enforcing them. But no nation can
have two governments.
When the agricultural and indus
trial workers get down to real coop
GRAFTON they will find out that there