The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-04-21
THE PRESENT CONGRESS
AND THE FARMERS

try, has been III SO complete accord
or III such sympathetic touch with
the aspirations of the farmers OF
America as the present congress. The
farm problem has been studied in
minute detail in all its aspects. No
thing has been too trivial or too diff
cult of solution to receive the atten-
tion Of our ablest statesmen. A sin
cere effort has been made to get to
the bottom of the causes that have
all but brought disaster to the agri-
cultural industry of the nation Sys-
TENS and practical means or establish
ing adequate agricultural credits, the
marketing of farm products, and the
relation of agriculture to other indust
ries have been studied as never be-
fore. Members of congress repre-
scnting agricultural sections have with
compelling force and irrcfutable logic
pressed their measures of relief with
unhagging energy. They have con
vinced their colleagues that without
q reasonable return to the tillers of
the soil, who are our nation S largest
purchasers of manufactured goods,
there can be no general prosperity
for others, and that when agriculture
is strangled all other lines must nee
essarily languish.
The result has been the enactment
of a series Of laws whose beneficial
influence will become increasingly APP
parent. Already agriculture has been
lifted to its feet. Despair and pes
simism are giving away to hope, and
the farmers are again on the highway
to better times and solid prosperity,
not an ephemeric, speculative hys-
terra that leads only to disaster, but
a prosperity that shall bring substan-
tial and adequate returns upon capital
invested and labor expended.
Before the republican party came
into power on March 4, 1921, millions
of pounds of wool and mutton from
Australia, great quantities of corn
from South America, and wheat from
Canada had been dumped upon our
market. A republican congress had
attempted to stem the deluge OF i'm
ports by passing an emergency tariff
bill, but this was vetoed by Presi-
dent Wilson. Had an adequate tariff
been imposed upon these importations
shortly after the signing Of the armis-
tice agriculture would never have suf-
fered the terrible slump that overlook
it. Wool became so cheap that it
was largely substituted for cotton.
Cotton in turn slid to the bottom of
the toboggan.
One of the first acts Of the new ad-
ministration was to re-enact the
Emergency Tariff Law. This was ap-
proved on May q, 1921. The good
effects of the law soon became appar-
ent in the advancing price of both
wool and cotton. 1t also put stop
to the importation of other staple
farm products, and as the surplus,
largely created by heavy importations,
was gradually worked off, prices COM
menced to improve all along the line
The Russian Relief measure added
further stimulus to the upward trend
of corn and grain prices by still fur
ther reducing our domestic surplus
and has helped bring on an era which
promises better things for our farmers
Other laws of special Importance to
our rural population may be briefly
summarized as follows:
A law reviving the War Finance
Corporation and so amending it as
to enable it to extend credits for not
to exceed three years to any person,
firm, or corporation in the United
States dealing in or marketing farm
products, or to any association COM
posed Of persons engaged in produc-
ING such products, including livestock,
and to any bank, banker or trust COM
pany which makes or has made ad-
vances to persons engaged in the pro-
duction of agricultural products, or
in the breeding, raising, fattening or
marketing of livestock But for the
credits extended under this law tens
of thousands of farmers would have
been involved in irretrievable ruin
as it would have been impossible for
the local banks to have extended their
agricultural paper, The huge advan-
ces made to marketing and exporting
agencies have had their reflex in better
prices for farm products and have
been large factor in bringing about
better conditions eenerally,