Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1922-06-21
STICKING IN PINS

Tick-tick-clatter, clatter, clatter,
whir-r-r-r goes the stock ticker. On the
Chicago Board of Trade hundred thou
sand bushels of May wheat has Just been
sold. Tick, tick-clatter, clatter-whizz.
whir-r-r-r, New York has bought ten
thousand shares of u s. Steel Preferred
Minute by minute, hour by hour, this busy
little instrument records the rise and fall
of industry and its message spells exhilara-
ton and depression, success and failure.
Industrial experts carefully study the I'M
rolling tape and from it feel the pulse OF
the worlds business.
All over this land, in state and county,
township and community, the fight is
being carried on these days to make perma-
nent a farmers organization; to bring
health and strength back to the funda-
mental industry of soil tilling and stock
raising; and in the Chicago office of the
American Farm Bureau Federation the
progress of this organization campaign
is being carefully watched and checked,
hour by hour, and day by day.
Maps Tell the Story.
Instead of ticker and tape, a map on
the wall shows every county in the United
States. Whenever a county is organized
and Farm Bureau established, a red
headed pin is placed in that county, and
Farmers Preferred" advances a point
Out west, where the counties cover hun
dreds of square miles, these pins appear
far apart, while in little Rhode Island three
pins close together make a 100 per cent
farm bureau state. Every pin represents
days and weeks of hard work and tells in
brief the story Of success.
The entire recording mechanism, how
ever, is much more delicate than is re-
CURED for noting the addition of new
counties. As the stream of daily mail
goes thru the central Office, every letter
is scanned for news from the field telling
the story bit by bit of the steady increase
in membership.
What One Woman Did.
The searchlight plays for moment on
Virginia, where down in the Blacksburg
district of Montgomery County the story
of Farm Bureau is being carried thru
storms and over impossible roads on
horseback In Humboldt County, in
northern Nevada, where a woman drives
fifty miles to the nearest railroad station
and rides five hundred more to attend the
annual state Farm Bureau meeting at
Reno and learn how she best could help
advance the work that means so much to
western agriculture. With a wide sweep
the light swings back for a moment to
old New York State where, in Jefferson
County, Ellisburg Township has just come
thru with a signup of 90 per cent OF the
entire farm population.
In Utah, pushing the regular county
drives, we see the president of the state
| Farm Bureau taking the field at the head
of a flying squadron in one direction,
while an executive committeeman of the
American Farm Bureau personally leads
a picked team from county to county in
another. South Dakota is wiping out a
financial deficit of $500 in 81 minutes.
In Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska new
enthusiasm and endeavor develop daily.
An Organized Agriculture.
The recording system in Chicago ticks
away day after day, abstracting and card
indexing the most detailed and minute
information as to the daily progress of the
work, filing away bit at time under
each state its planning and progress, tell
ing an accurate story of discouragements,
worries, and fears, as well as of successes
and triumphs, so that at any moment the
director may glance over the tape and is
at once in possession of all the facts in
every case.
So the record grows and day by day,
a county at time, the blank spaces on
the map are filed up with little red-headed
pins, small in themselves. but great in
the sum total Fl what they REPRESENT
solidly organized American agriculture.