The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1922-12-28
IEGIsLATION AT WASHINGTON

Farmers are gong TO mold tnelr
congressional representatives to strict
accountability" said Gray Silver,
Washington representative of the Am
erican Farm Bureau Federation, be-
fore the annual meeting of the AM
ericau Farm Bureau federation here
last week while re-counting the num-
erous measures which have been pass
cd at the request of the farmers
through the Federation. Mr.. Silver
told the farmers how many of the
measures. which have been passed
since the Agricultural Bloc was form
ed in the Washington office Of the
Federation, had been before Congress
for five, ten or fifteen years.
Before the Agricultural Bloc was
formed, for many years M a single
agricultural measure had been passed.
1t Is very frequently the custom for
two men in the House or three men
in the Senate to determine whether a
bill was even to be heard on the floor,
! continued Mr.. Silver. THE coopera-
tive marketing bill. one of the earliest
to be passed by the Bloc, saved the
farmers eighty times the membership
dues of the American Farm Bureau
federation in 1921. The passage of the
act regulating furture trading on the
grain exchanges has saved the farm
ers from the repetition of the manipu-
( lation of the spread in prices through
manipulating between here and abroad
which took place during the period
between the time when the grain con-
troll bill was declared to be %unconsti-
t~utional and when Ii was ~reenacted
During tiiis time the market was SO
manipulated that there was an in
crease in the spread in grain prices
between this country and abroad OF
| fifty-six cents per bushel.
"An adequate credit system Is Just
as necessary for proper cooperative
marketing as is an adequate ware
house system" continued Mr.. Silver.
I'VE now have two kinds of credit
! short and long, and what is lacking
is an intermediate credit running from
six months to three years. When we
have adequate credit and sufficient
warehouse facilities, combined with
proper functioning marketing organf-
cations, the farmers will be In a posi-
ton to market their twelve-months'
supply of food as the consumptive de-
mands require. They will have the
opportunity to say upon what basis
the commodities will move out OF the
warehouses and also the price for
which ii will sell. Me must get a fair
exchange but we are not asking the
Government to fv prices.
1.-THE purchasing power OF farm pro-
ducts, | believe. Is now as low as 1t
has ever been and agriculture must
be lifted out of it's present position In
reference to other industries. City
dwellers do not appreciate that the
produce sold of of the farms is what
builds the cities. II is the difference
, between what the farmer gets for his
product and what the consumer pays
that builds cities. The farmer Is now
getting only about one-third OF the
consumers dollar. When cooperative
marketing is built up as it should be,
the proportion of the consumers dol
lar going to the producer will be much
greater. 1890
Mr.. Silver pointed out that the leg
islation which has been passed has
been In the interest OF all people. The
last census showed that So per cent Of
our population was on the FARMS"
stated Mr. Silver "and when you con-
slider the urban population found in
towns Of 1850 Inhabitants, nor than