Evening star., 1922-02-26
Business Quietude Until Spring Probable;
Period of Waiting Not One of Dependency
BY ARCHER WALL DOUGLAS.
Chairman, Committee ON Statistics
and Standards, Chamber !of Com.
merce of the United States.

meECG
~ USINESS Is more or less in
u state of Information. and quiet
times are likely to continue
until the spring comes.
This Is the conclusion l reacneo
after travelling from the endless prai-
ries of the great plains states to the
financial capitals Of the east, all with
in the space of a week.
One the one hand 1 found a imam
cial atmosphere tense with world
wide problems, great constructive
nlans and fraught with all manner OF
hopes and doubts and fears; ana on
the other the short and simple Annals
of the countryside, where similar
great problems are silently ana IN
homely fashion working themselves
out under your very eyes.
X X \ +
You learn from those you meet that
the farmer is really after an equality
of opportunity rather than special
privilege. In ways financial. in times
past, he was distinctly handicapped
as to borrowing money. rather by cir
cumstances than from the fault OF
any one in particular. Likewise. in
faraway and remote sections or In
districts off the railroad he suffered
from lack of adequate and economical
transportation whereby to market his
products. Want Of educational facili-
ties and opportunities was the worst
of all. Often one-room schoolhouses,
with scant equipment. educational or
sanitary; poorly paid teachers. chill
dren walking miles to school through
snow and ice and mud; the high
school usually a long way of in some
large town; country roads that were
clouds Of dust in summer and inn
passable in winter. Such too often
was the story, and those who stuck
to the farm under such circum.
stances did so because they could not
get away. or because they loved ma.
ture rather than the ease, comfort
and social life Of the city.
So now that there are many good
roads and many more buildings. bet
ter transportation. more equitable d.
vision of the states money for edu-
cation and constantly easier and more
urally the farmer Is doing all be can
to improve his condition; II. per-
chance. he should "slop over, some-
what in seeking class privileges, weS
need not wonder, since we set him the
example in ways political by special
tariff. and the class legislation. all In
the specious guise of being for the
general good. Nor need we be great
" concerned by any such divergences
on the farmers part, should they oc-
cur. in view Of the prevailing sane,
sober sense of the man next to the
soil and the popular sensitiveness
against class privileges for any set Of
men. It is! truly the case today that
the things that the farmers move
ments are most concerned. In are the
yery things that will soonest bring US
back to better conditions.
X 4
One also learns what wrong con-
ceptions we get from those solemn
fictions which tell in engaging graphs
and curves how the cost OF living de-
clined SO many decimal points in the
past month. and yet the average
price" received by the producer Of
farm commodities advanced 30 many
decimal points during the same thirty
days. Here is something I ran
across to illustrate what these same
statistics fail to record In many
thousand instances. A farmer had
some corn to sell, but could find no
local demand at 26 cents bushel or
less, for all the farmers around were
In the same pre6cament as himself,