Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-01-20
OHIO FARMER
Asks Some Pertinent Questions and
Wants the Existing Inequality of
Prices on Farm and FpCtOry
Products Explained

| The last issue of the Dayton Labor
Review, one of our most valued ex-
changes, contains the following COM
rnunication from one of it's SUBJ
scribers, which in the most direct man.
| ner visualizes our present economic
and industrial situation, and should
be carefully perused:
NINETEEN TO SEVENTY
How can I buy a dollar and seventy
cents worth of goods with a dollar
and nineteen cents? If you will an
swer that question, | will venture a
guess as to how soon we will get
"better times" with factories running
at normal and city labor finding a
chance for full employment.
I'm just a country rube. Not a
country gentleman-a rube. One OF
those guys who was Grated to,
preached to, prayed to few months
gone by, when MI Hoover an all you
city folks told us that the winning OF
the war depended on food, food, food.
Well, we took the Job seriously and
produced, and we kept producing, for
weren't We told that half the world
was starving and that America must
feed the world? Of course, we got a
pretty good price for our products,
but it wasn't any higher in proportion
than the prices We had to pay for
manufactured goods and finished COM
modities. And, of course, a large
part of what We did get went back to
city industries to pay for the goods
we bought. One of these days it will
dawn on you city folks that you can't
keep city prices up to $1.7O, run corln-
! try prices down to S1.19, and expect
! the farmer to continue to buy city
goods in normal quantities.
l have been reading what some OF
Your business prophets have been
saying about returning prosperity in
this year of our Lord 1922. AS | read
/ recall the fact that they have been
wrong seven times out of ten during
the past two years. There's a big
difference between running around in
the narrow confines of single busi-
ness and understanding nationwide
ana worldwide economic conditions,
and here is the difficulty with most
If your business prophets. Two years
ago, city labor was told to produce
and produce more. You were told
that the country was suffering from
nder-production. So you went to it
md last year you were told to lay off
the job, you had produced too much.
We farmers are in the same boat.
We produced so much that it is
cheaper to burn corn than to sell it
in your cities where people go hungry.
The prices we are getting are about
10 per cent higher than the prices
we got in 1918. The prices of the
goods and equipment that we must
buy are still 70 per cent higher than
1918 prices. You evidently expect
that the farmer in some miraculous
manner can buy $40 worth of goods
with only $1.19.
Well, we can't, and when city peo-
pie fully realize that you cannot get
blood out of a turnip it will mark the
beginning of new understanding
that will benefit city and country
alike. We don't have to remind you
that the farmers constitute the largest
single market that the city has for
it's goods. And when we can't buv
there is not much smoke coming out
Cf factory stacks.
But even our great President Har-
ding is disturbed. He thinks that
something is radically wrong in our
economic life when it's worth more
to produce only 1,000,000,000 bushels
Of grain than a million and quarter
bushels. I am glad that Mr.. Harding
and his brilliant associates are dis
turbed. l hope that they will con-
tinue to be disturbed until the nation
realizes that prosperity is dependent
upon the ability of city and country
to produce and exchange their COM
modities on a basis that is mutually
profitable, making life worth living
TO those who labor.
Incidentally, in some sections it be-
gins to appear that "five democrats
might vote where only one voted be-
fore" It's terrible thing to contem-
plate! Just as we are getting ac-
customed to normalcy!