Omaha daily bee., 1921-04-27
What the Farmers Are After
Memorial Presented to the President
By Union Delegates
washington Dispatch to New York Times.)

| While the solution Of the railroad situation i
waiting on action to be taken by the fedora
labor board at Chicago and the proposed senat,
| investigation, pressure is being brought to bea
| on the president and other government officials
| to hasten agreements for reduction of rates ant
wages so that agriculture and industry may b,
! stimulated.
A delegation representing the Nationa
| Farmers Union and other agricultural organiza
tons which have been in conference here called
at the White House and presented memoria
to President Harding asking that immediate re-
lief be given. The memorial was presented by
A. c. Davis, secretary of the union. In part, il
read:
with your permission we appeal to you to
invoke the great powers OF your exalted office
in an effort to correct the industrial evils from
which the whole country is suffering. Though
agriculture is the chief victim of defation aargey
artificial and preciptated. we believe, without
due consideration of its probable disastrous con-
sequences our plea is not alone for the farmers
The entire nation is industrialy sick and needs
all the care and all the attention that thoughtful
and honorable men in all honorable callinss
can give it.
Therefore, we have asked you, as the ma
TONS president, as the executive head of the
greatest republic the world has ever known, to
assume a vigorous and determined leadership in
the work Of bringing out of chaotic condition
an industry which must be restored to some
NAL conditions are to prevail in the workshops
and factories of our land
with frozen credits, with almost prohbitive
freight rates and with costs Of distribution so
enormous, it is impossible for the farmer to mar
ket his products without incurrng loss. The
consequence is that while millions of tons of
food rot in the field or are held in the barns or
in other places of storage, scores of our children
in the cities are unable to obtain food sufficient
to noursh their little bodies.
"The farmers are overwhelmed with debt.
They are unable to buy necessary fertilizer They
can not obtain needed credit and there are in
hundreds of thousands of cases no markets open
to them. This condition they had no part in
bringing about. Like the starving child OF the
undernourished mother in the city, they are the
innocent victims of a misused economic system,
manipulated, we fear, by shortsighted and self
ish interests
"Some citizens, who have not felt the sting
Of adversely, are insisting that things are all
right and they will correct themselves. They
are living in the enjoyment of great wealth and
are wondering why anybody should complain
They know OF nothing that should be reformed
think should be scaled down. But we speak not
alone for agriculture, but for the vast mass of
the toilers and producers of our land when. we
say that things economical and industrial are
in bad way.
IN your magnificent address to congress you
must come down. In this statement YOU cor
reetly interpret the sentiment, at least of agri-
culture. The freight rates constitute crushing
burden on the farmer We maintain that the
rise in freight rates to heights hitherto un-
dreamed of at time when their products were
being marketed at figures far below the ten-year
average price is crushing the life out of the in-
dustry and if continued will retard the develop
ment of that cooperative spirit among the great
industries OF the nation which must be fostered'
in order to bring about in an orderly manner
the reconstruction of our disordered national life.
1--WE ask you, MIR President, to bring these
fragments together. Call a conference of the
heads of finance, the heads of the coal industry,
the oil industry, the railway industry and the
heads of labor, especially the railway labor
boards. Let these gentlemen, in harmony with
agriculture and under your leadership. work out
a solution of this problem. Bring the poles Of
human thought together and focus the eyes Of
all upon the, one great goal Of enlightened re-
construction"
Senator Capper who with other senator's and
representatives, accompanied the delegation,
urged the president to call such conference.