The Devils Lake world. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1920-1982, 1922-01-04
By Sydney Anderson.
In Country Gentleman.

BY Sydney Anderson.
In Country Gentleman.
Agriculture has always had her
hat in the legislative ring, but the
familiar old slouch hat was not treat
ed with much consideration. It often
served as political football, to be
kicked about numerically by those
who needed vent for their feelings
in the annual scrimmage to get full
grist of bills through the congression-
al hopper. 1t was safe and fairly
interesting sport and there was little
reaction against those who engaged
in it. But along in May, 1921, when
no one was expecting an All Fools
Day joke, good-sized, substantial
farm bloc was slipped under the old
hat, and it ceased to be a sport to
kick the thing around.
What was the origin of the So
called agricultural bloc? It was plain
ly born Of the occasion, as reaction
to the emergency which it is striving
70 meet. Just before we got back
home from the long, jazzy joy-ride of
our post-bellum extravagances the
agricultural tire on our big national
limousine blew out. Something had
to be done. A little group of senators
put their heads together to see what
could be done to remedy the serious
plight into which agriculture had fall
len.
Early in May Senator Kenyon cal
led little group of his colleagues to-
gether to consider possible remedies
for agricultural troubles. For the first
meeting there were only a few, in
Guiding Senators Kenyon, Capper, Nc
Nary, Ladd, Norris, Kendrick, Smith,
of South Carolina Harris, Caraway
and others. This group has gradually
increased until attendance at the meet
ings now numbers fifteen to twenty
or more.
From the start these meetings, ordi-
narily held about every ten days, have
been open and public. There is moth
ing to hold the group together except
a mutual interest of the members in
the welfare of agriculture. It was a
casual, voluntary and purely informal
gathering of men who sought to for
mulate and help enact constructive,
national agricultural program. There
was no thought of playing small
politics, Of putting through class leg
islation, of disturbing senatorial
leadership OF Of disrupting any poll
teal party. The thing was too loosely
! organized and informal for such pur-
poses. In fact, its own members did
i MT consider it a definite organization
!: of any sort. They never even gave
it name. The christening was left
to its enemies and critics, and they
called it the agricultural bloc, or more
recently, the Ken Cap Klan, after
two of it's leading workers. ...-
The House of Representatives soon
followed suit with an agricultural
bloc of it's own. Mr.. Dickinson, of
Iowa, called the first meeting of this
group. In selecting members an at
tempt was made to choose an agri-
culturally minded man from the dele
cation Of each of the great agricul-
tural states, twenty-five in all, mostly
mid Western, but including also such
states as New York, California and
Texas. The bloc member from each
state interviews the whole House
delegation from his state so that at
the meetings of the group he can
authoritatively voice the feeling of
his state on the legislative measures
which may come up for discussion.
The House bloc meetings are held ev-
cry two weeks, or as occasion arises.
At the meetings of both the House
and Senate farm blocs agricultural
experts, economists and representa-
tives of farm organizations are invit-
ed to present their views on needed
or pending legislation. Secretaries
Wallace and Hoover, Eugene Meyer,
Jr., of the War Finance Corporation,
|J. R. Howard, of the American Farm
Bureau Federation, T. C. Atkeson, of
the National Grange, J. R. Mohler,
chief of the Bureau of Animal Indus
try, and others have availed them
selves of this opportunity. In short,
the congressional farm groups have
sought in all directions for reliable
and authoritative information on the
problems they were trying to solve.
s. #
But if these legislative falm-bloc
meetings are such innocent gather
ings devoted merely to the public
discussion of farm needs, why is there
SO much excitement about them? Why
are they feared, and why has such a
flood of criticism and invective been
loosed upon them? Well, that's just
what the members of these blocs
themselves would like to know. A
little group Of eight or ten senator's
met one evening to begin repairing
the puncture on which agriculture had
gone flat, and the next morning they
woke up to find themselves already
listed and catalogued and tagged as
danparOnc and insid;orc po1;t;oo1