Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1922-06-09
NEED A DIFFERENT SPIRIT IN DEALING WITH
FARM ILLS

written Specially For The Bulletin)
] get very tired and a little inclined to
be touchy reading the lucubrations of
congressman and editors and other big
heads over What the Farmers Want"
l look with something more than amaze
ment, with something closely approach
ing disgust on the hundred-and-one nos
trums which self-selected delegates to
farm commissions and farm councils
and farm conventions set out on their
three-card-monte tables as panaceas for
agricultural ills.
According to some. the farmers want
more representation on the federal re-
serve board.
According to others, they want the
AGRICULTURAL bloc" so-called, to take
control of congress.
According to still others, they want
a tariff which shall shut out Of the
country all Importation of foreign
grown farm products.
According to many they want more
consideration at the hands Of banks and
bankers, and the privilege of borrowing
more money at lower rates and on more
LIBERAL terms as to collateral.
And so on and so on, ad inhnitum, ad
nauseam.
AL whether belonging to the classes
specially named, seem to agree that the
thing needed in order to smooth the far
mer's rocky road is something in the
way Of government action. They call
for more and different legislation. They
want boards of investigation authorized
and laws passed and business restric-
lions relaxed for the special benefit of
farmers. Or else they want different
laws passed and additional restrictions
imposed-again for the special benefit
Of farmers. But they all unite in hold
ing that the farm situation demands a
lot Of legal tinkering and the appoint
nent of more officials.
In other words, they propose to still
the farmers complaints by feeding him
a few more bottles of specially prepar-
ed Political Pap. Always with the I'M
Outstanding that said Political Pap
shall be the sort prepared in their own
laboratories and according to their own
specifications.
You would think TO hear them talk
and spout that they have an intimate
and exact knowledge of the situation
that they know precisely what is the
matter with the patient, and have in
their pill-boxes the one and only sover-
eign and unfailing cure for every symp-
tom Also that their guide-books are
the only and infallible rules of the road.
7 am irresistibly reminded of what Lit
tie Tom saw in the island of Poluprag-
rnosyne, as described by Charles Kings
lev in his highly educational if not al
Ways strictly veracious fairy story OF
The Water Babies" I quote:
There Tom saw ploughs drawing
horses, nails driving hammers. bulls
keeping china-shops" etc. When he
got into the middle Of the town, they all
set on him at once. to show him his
way or rather to show him that he did
net know his way; for as for asking
him what way he wanted to go. no one
ever thought of that. But one pulled
him hither. and another poked him
thither, and a third cries
You mustn't go west. I tell you; It
Is destruction to go west
'"But I am not going west, as you
may see. said Tom.
And another, The east Hes here my
dear assure you this is the east
But I don't want to go east said
Tom.
We'll. then, at all events, whichever
way you are going. you are going
wrong cried they all with one voice
which was the only thing which they
ever agreed about; and all pointed al
once to all the thirty-and-two points Of
the compass, I'LL ION thought all tne
BlEn-posts in England had got together
ana fallen fighting"
Now, whether all this happened tt
Tom, the water-baby on his remarkable
journey to The-Other-End-of- Nowflert
even Mr.. Kingsley admits to be 8
matter Of some doubt. But it is what is
happening to Hank. the farmer, all over
the United States. He is being pulled
one way and hauled the other, proddec
punched and pan-handled, twisted VI
back alleys and steered into blind
bitches by the most promiscuous set 81
Mulberry Sellerses who ever proposed t.
make millions by the sale of eye-wateI
distilled from turnips.
II Is very rare that any one of these
loud-voiced friends of the farmer knows
even a little bit of what he is talking
about. I would be willing to bet some
thing that not many of them could tel
the difference. off-hand, between a clevi.
and q clove-hitch. Or between poison
Ivy and woodbine. Or how to manage
Quick-grass. Or what to do with thu
maggots in an onion-bed. Or how Il
get a decent living off a billy stony
steep-sided and thin-soiled New England
farm.