The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-02-11
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY e. HOUSE
tFrom Philadelphia Public Ledger.l
Side Talks on Great Issues-The Poor
Farmer.

Farmer.
AS one who formerly wrested an in
consequential living from the soil. we
feel entirely competent to discuss the
woes of the poor farmer and assume
the liberty of so doing.
We expect to be skinned alive for
doing it, but somebody ought to say
it, and since those to whom the farmer
naturally looks for authorization and
guidance are all working the other
side of the street, the column offers
itself as the sacrificial neck and bends
to the block.
As a preliminary, We formulate
these propositions:
The carefully built-up propaganda
to the effect that the farmer trembles
on the verge of bankruptcy and is
face to face with want and woe is fic-
| ton.
The farmers have their troubles,
but so has everybody else.
The tears that are being shed for
the farmer, in Washington and else
where, are glycerin tears.
They are exuded by gentlemen who
have glycerin TO sell.
The remedies proposed are dope"
They have no medicinal value whatso-
ever and are designed to lull the poor
farmer to sleep for the next two or
three years.
From the standpoint of those who
are engeged in writing it, the prescrip-
ton has two values. One is that of
| lullinS-the farmer to rest. The other
is that of tying the farmer vote ir-
reVocably to the attending physicians.
All of the physicians want to stay
in Washington; some of them want to
run for president.
For the purposes of this screed.
farmers may be divided into two
classes: Those who cluhg to conserva-
| tive methods and those who plunged
at the top of the market.
The latter class is pretty well wiped
| out. 1t is in condition precisely SINH
| lar to the stock gambler who plunges
at the top of the market.
No act of legislation can restore the
paper profits of this class or satisfy
| its creditors. And there is no reason
for an attempt to do so by legislative
enactment.
| When the owner of a grocery store,
a coal yard, an industrial plant or a
| haberdashery fails in business con-
gross is not asked or expected to pass
| legislation designed to recoup his
| losses.
The conservative farmer is suffering
from two ailments. Deflation-the re-
| wiped out his paper profits. Deflation
always begins at the root of production
it hits the farmer first.
His overhead still is too high. He
has not been able to reduce the cost
| of production to a point at which it
meets the prices at which he sells his
stuff.
In other words, while the wages of
| his help and the costs of his machin-
cry, tools, clothing and food are drop
| ping, they have not reached the pre-
war level. His own products have
sagged back to about where they were
A good deal of the livestock which
the farmer bought at the top notch OF
boom prices is now being marketed
at the 1914 level.
The $1o0-an-acre land which he
purchased for $500 an acre during the
real estate drunken on which he
placed a valuation of $500 at that time
isn't paying interest on $500 and it
never will.
We go so far as to say that no act
of congress can change any of these
things.
The land drunk in which the
farmer engaged around 1918 and 1913
is responsible for much of his trouble.
The most serious drunk in which a
community or a nation may engage is
the emotional drunk. But the land
drunk is more serious and more to be
dreaded than the one induced by in
toxicating liquor.
AS a general farming proposition,
there is very little land IN TINS country
which will bring satisfactory returns
on an investment of more than $3.50 an
acre. There may be, here and there,
a little $500 land. but it is very scarce
A good deal of the land dedicated
to general farming purposes won't
yield adequate returns on valuation
of 500 an acre. There is an immense
acreage regularly farmed which would
be dear at $50 an acre.
The intensive farmer who devotes
himself to crop specialties is the only
man who can show a return on land
valued at $500 or more. And his
acreage must. on necessity, be small
The country went on land
drunk.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of
farm lands changed hands at from
$3.50 to $500 an acre. Some of it sold
for $500.
Most of those who purchased dur
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