Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-11-10

/. Davenport. former dean q the College ef Ag.
Hcatufe ef re University Il Illinois, has article
IN The Saturday Evening Pest which proves thss
there are sundry screws loose n tie hralners fren
which the farmers q Illinois draw their lnsrratlen
TIE farmers are in bad shape. says the great
educator Millions Of dollars worth Of fruit, Negekx-
hes and potatoes LETT the trees retting IN
the ground. while their owners borrow money With
Which 70 pay their taxes. \ corn raiser who keeps
books also informed the dean that his last corn srp
vii not bring enough = pay the cost q production
Al Of which Is undoubtedly true. Moreover.
Mr.. Davenport could have multiplied these illus
trations hundred fold and yet not told half The
truth The farmers are truly IN nltfu condition.
Wool raisefs wear cotton clothes; cotton farmers
so in rage. Cattle Iasers eat sWine's bosom, and
dairy farmers feast on skinned milk and oleonar-
garne.
Potatoes are begging fer buyers At 30 cents per
hushe in northern Wisconsin Coed cows sell for
ten dollars head in the drouth belt ef tie south
vest. In sections farmers Kill born calves
rather than sell them SIX weeks later for dollar
per head. Last fall sheep sold low sixty cents
per head in Montana and few months ago the
Georgia eantaoupe raSefs complained that the price
OF one cent per eantalonpe, IN the New York Market
did not pay fer the crates IN which they were
shipped, TO say nothing Of the freight
Moreover. by going back further and looking
little deeper, Mr.. Davenport could have found that
every census report since the Civil War shows
steady increase in the percentage Of tenant farmers
mortgaged farmers and the size Of farm mortgages.
With little study he could also have discovered that
while the income from farm products per acre has
values and taxes have more than qaadraped IN the
period. BY consulting the report of govern
meni farm survey MADE sbor;l. before the war, he
could also have discovered the interesting fact that
the average income of the Indiana, Illinois and
Iowa farmers in the neighborhood Of 5000 per
year.
And when we consider that this survey covered
the richest farming belt In the middle west and that
of this income of 5000 per year the farmer had
to pay taxes and interest and purchase farm imple
ments 1t requires little astuteness to arrive ut the
conclusion that the farmers are hard up.
However the former Dean of the College of
Agriculture of the University of Illinois, is not In
terested in economic tendencies government surveys
and census reports. To him the cause for the de-
porable condition of the American farmer is plain
and so obvious that surprised that nobody
ever thought of il before.
ITS the outrageously high wages of organized
labor since and during the which have pun
the American farmer in nine hole! Smash the
unions; outlaw strikes. Give US state constabn-
larry" cries the former Dean. "and prosperity viii
fall upon the farmers like from heaven
In addition to these panaceas he wants political
coalition of capitalists, big and little, including the
farmers, to put the labor trusts oat of business.
Having thus prescribed the 'cure-a' Davenport
has relapse complicated with moment Of lucidity,
during which he exclaims. .The farmer is the end
man who sells cheap and buys dear in every market
of the world.p