Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1921-02-10
WHAT CAUSED The
PRESENT SLUMP
A. +. LEVER, OF FEDERAL FARM
LOAN BOARD, UNDERTAKES
TO ANSWER

reu6Tdi reserve paper Win d nine
months or twelve months period OF
maturity would greatly assist the
farmer and overcome to a great ex-
tent the predicament the toilers Of
the soil find themselves in at the
present time, according to A. +. Lew
err, member of the Federal Farm
loan board, who addressed the mar
keting conference at Madison, Wis,
Monday. The gentleman was one of
the speakers at Des Moines recently
whom George Foley, of this city,
heard and declared he had pretty
level understanding of conditions.
"The question uppermost in the
minds of the farmers is what hap
pened to bring about the present
situation" said Mr.. Lever. What
has occurred to justify slump in
prices of farm products ranging
from fifty to one hundred per
cent within a period of IL months?
Certainly there are no less
mouths to be fed now. The yield for
1920 was not unusually large!
THE starving children of Armenia
need your wheat and corn and live
stock, but they have nothing with
which to pay for it. The domestic
consumer of farm products is on
buyers strike. He is refusing to buy
at the exorbitant prices demanded by
some retailers, except as he must buy
to meet immediate needs.
''The domestic manufacturer, the
wholesaler and the jobber, because
of the uncertainty of the price of the
raw material and the demand for fin
ished product, are, as it were, dan
cling the hesitation, and they, too, are
in the market only to fill immediate
demands.
The underlying cause has been
that a farmer has been taught to
walk the furrow and produce and
per capita he is the best producer in
the world. We have taught him to
become an expert with his hands and
have left him as child in the use of
his head in the management of his
affairs, other than production.
For the great staple crops like
wheat, corn, cotton, wool and live
stock. there is no existing machinery
for the orderly marketing OF farm
products. Agriculture is both under
capitalized and is without any ade-
quate system of credits adapted to
It's peculiar needs.
There Is a terrific strain upon the
finances of the country at the crop
moving season Also an inefficient
and expensive system of transporta-
ton. There is, on uneconomic and
unwise strain upon the buying and
absorptive powers of the purchasers
Of farm products. Under this system
we are asking the buyers of farm
products to meet their needs for
period of twelve months in a period
from four to five months, with the
inevitable result to the seller of
these products.
"The remedies which suggest
themselves to me are: The elimin-
alton of all unnecessary factors in
the present system of distribution.
The organization OF community sales
agencies. The Standardization of
farm products in grades and classes.
The warehousing Of sufficient guam
titles of products TO set up an even
flow of such products into the mar
kets of the world as the immediate
demands of the world call for them.
The devising of such credit machin-
cry as will enable the farmer to mar
ket his products in a sane and or
derby way. 81
1.-THE banker thinks in the psy-
chology of a quick-maturing paper.
The turnover of the capital invest
ment of the farmer is once in 1856
days. A paper, therefore, with ma
turity Of only sixty or ninety days,
certainly, in times of financial stress,
when money is hard to get, is of lit
IN i'm AIr
his credit problem, we must provide
| him with a paper which has a ma
turity period equal to the turnover
period of his investment, and paper
of less time than nine or twelve
months maturity, better fifteen
months, can not be of the greatest
value 20 him.
ITO my mind, a system can be de-