The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1922-01-20
Some Aspects of the
Farmers Problems
By BERNARD M. BARUCH
(Reprnted from Monthly
(Reprinted from Atlantic Monthly
BY BERNARD M. BARUCH

efficiency Is due in large measure Il
big business, to united business, to in
tegrated business. The farmers nov
seek the benefits of such largeness, un
ion and Indignation.
The American farmer Is a modern Of
| the moderns In the use of labor saving
machinery, and he has made vast
| strides in recent years In scientific
! tllage and efficient farm management
but as a business in contact with other
businesses agriculture Is zone horse
shay" in competition with high power
automobiles. The American farmer is
the greatest and most intractable of
individualists. While industrial pro
duction and all phases of the huge com
mercial mechanism and its myriad ac-
cessories have articulated and co-ordi-
mated themselves all the way from nat
ural raw materials to retail sales, the
business of agriculture has gone on In
much the one man fashion of the back
woods of the first part of the nine
'annth century. when. the farmer was
self sufficient and did not depend upon,
or care very much what the great
world was doing The result Is that
the agricultural group is almost as
much at a disadvantage in dealing with
other economic groups as the jay farm
er Of the funny pages in the hands of
sleek urban confidence men, who sell
him acreage in Central Park or the
Chicago city hall The leaders Of the
farmers thoroughly understand this,
and they are intelligently striving to
integrate their industry so that it will
be on an equal footing with other bust
nesses.
AS an example of migration, take
the steel industry, in which the model
Is the United States Steel Corporation,
with its iron mines, its coal mines, its
lake and rail transportation, its ocean
vessels, its by-product coke ovens, its
blast furnaces, its open hearth and
Bessemer furnaces, its rolling mills, its
tube mills and other manufacturing
processes that are carried to the high
est degree of finished production com
patible with the large trade 1t has
built up. All this is generally conced-
ed to be to the advantage Of the con-
sumner. Nor does the steel corporation
inconslderately dump its products on
the market. On the contrary, it so
acts that 1t Is frequently a stablizing
influence, as is often the case with 9th
er large organizations 1t Is master of
its distribution as we'll as of its pro-
ductiOn. If prices are not satisfactory
the products are held back or produc-
ton Is reduced or suspended. 1t Is not
compelled to send years work to the
market at one time and take whatever
1t can get under such circumstances.
1t has one selling policy and its own
export department. Neither are the |
grades and qualities of steel determin-
ed at the caprice Of the buyer, nor does
the latter hold the scales. In this sin
gle Indignation Of the steel corporation |
steel production of America. The rest |
Is mostly in the hands of a few large |
In ordinary times the |
steel corporation, by example, stabilizes
all steel prices. If this is permissible
Git is even desirable, because stable
and fair prices are essential to solid
and continued prosperity why would |
It be wrong for the farmers to utilize
central agencies that would have SINH
ar effects on agricultural products? |
like that Is what they are
aiming at.
Some farmers favored by regional
and contiguity, such as the
Observation-Disclosures of California, al
'nadv have found a way legally to !