Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1921-04-15

| zen, no matter In what business ne
may be engaged should do what he
can to help the farmers through this
period OF depression, not for the
sake of helping the farmer alone,
but for the sake Of helping himself.
We can not hope to reach normal
conditions until we arrive on a price
level which will be fair to all our
people and all products. Farm pro-
ducts must come up in price and
other products come down until the
normal relation between them has
been restored. This talk of bringing
prices, whether farm prices or other
prices, back to the pre-war normal is
morally wrong and economically inn
possible. We incurred a heavy ma
tional debt on the inflated prices. If
we could force all prices back to the
pre-war normal-which we can not
it would be equivalent to just
about doubling that debt. We can
pay off our debts much easier if we
maintain a price level more nearly
the level at which the debts were in
Cured. OF course, the excessively
high prices which prevailed during
the war can not continue, but if we
should try to bring about a level, say
| 10 per cent above the prewar nor
NAL, everybody would be better Off
We will get through this period
The nation is not going bankrupt
The farmers are not going bankrupt
Neither are they going to lie down
on their job. Gradually farm prices
will be brought into fair relation
with other prices and we will go
ahead hitting on all cylinders But
| there is another thing in the long
run-a more important phase of our
agricultural problem which we have
been slow in considering. Let me
sketch briefly the development of
our agriculture.
The farmers of the United States
during the past 70 years have, on
the average, produced and sold
grains and live stock at less than the
cost of production if we take into
consideration all the factors which
properly enter into production costs.
| What l mean is that if the farmer
would practice a sound system OF
| business economy, charging fair
! interest on the capital invested, both
! = 4 = 1 Po, ont
a fair wage for the actual labor ex-
pended on the farm against his re-
ceipts from the marketing of his
crops it will be found that he has
not received for them enough to
cover his actual costs. We will omit
the value of the fertility of his
soil which is, in effect, a portion of
his capital and which he has market
ed in his crops but which we will
simply throw in for good measure,
although this must be replaced il
crop production is to be maintained.
] know that when statement of
this kind is made many people ques-
| ton it. They think Of individual
/ farmers whom t'ecy have known and
WHO have become very well to do,
! but 7 am speaking of the average
/ farmer, the farmers as a mass, and
the statement | have just made is an
/ absolutely truthful statement which
/ has been abundantly corroborated by
scientific investigation.
The farmers have been able and
than the actual cost of production
because, first, they have been will
ing to accept the value of the farm
as home, as place to raise their
/ children, as d part OF the substantial
+ reward for their work; and, second,
because as our population has in
! creased there has been a steady in
crease in the value of the farm land.
In times past, therefore, the young
/ farmer who could get enough ahead
to make a very small payment on
piece of land-enOugh to give him
/ fOothold-and who had a lot of hard
work in him, and who had good
wife as most of them have, has been
able, by living very economically. de-
nying himself and his wife the lux
uries and many of the comforts of
life, to hang on, paying out on the
farm and finally to see it growing in
TO a valuable piece of property.
During all this period we have
been a great surplus food producing
nation. We have grown more food
than our own people could consume.
AS result We have had to compete
with the farmers of the world in the
great consuming markets and take
prices fixed by that competition. An
other result of this great surplus OF