The Semi-weekly leader., 1922-10-25
HELPING THE HAND THAT
FEEDS us.

All through the country there is
evident steady, drift from the farm
to the city. Much less than half the
population of the United States now
lives on the farm. Ten years ago
less than. As per cent OF the people
lived in the cities. Forty years ago
more than 20 per cent of the people
were farmers.
We have just recently learned
that for the first time in history we
have more people working in factor
les than on our farms, although our
population is increasing at the rate
of one million year. A study of
the census returns shows that agri-
culture has been the only interest to
decline. In the last decade em-
ployment in manufacturing increas-
ed 20 per cent. The professions all
show a healthy growth. But we are
not keeping the boys and girls on
the farms and we are not going to
until the conditions of the agricul-
tural industry make it worth while
for them to stay there.
WHY FARMERS LEAVE HOME.
1t is difficult toSsee how the cost
of living is going to come down and
stay down with producers leaving
the farm and joining the ranks of the
consumers. Our farms are being de-
populated because a farmer no long
er knows, after weathering all 9TH
er vicissitudes of his hazardous call
ing, whether he can count on getting
back the actual value he has put
into his products. 1t should be the
chief concern of the American peo-
pie, as the surest guarantee of an
enduring national life, to make
farming as reliably profitable as any
other occupation requiring the same
amount of capital, hard work and a.
bility. If the farmer is not prosper
ing the man in the city cannot pros
per.
The best way to mend the present
situation and provide for the future,
it seems to me, is to increase the
producers profit by shortening the
road to market. The way to accom-
plish this is through cooperative
marketing, which eliminates the un-
essential and speculative middleman
and which gives both producer and
consumer their due.
This I have great hope we shall
accomplish through the recently en-
acted Capper-Volstead Cooperative
Marketing Law, which gives farmers
for the first time an unclouded right
to organize for the sale and distribu-
tion of their own products.
When farmers cooperative asso-
Citations perform this great service
there will be only one or two groups
of profttakers where we now have
five or six. Not only will this bring
us to the solution of our marketing
problem, but automatically and ma
turally it will give us the sound and
much desired system of farm finance
which national welfare has come to
recognize as an imperative necessity
Cor the farm industry. Then we can
provide him with the necessary Gre
dit to handle his annual turnover.
1t is significant tfat the only gen.
timely prosperous nation in the
world today is tho worlds only CO.
operative commonwealth - Den
mark. Denmark is an agricultural
country with what in its natural
state our farmers would consider
rather poor soil. About fifty years
ago the competition of American and
South American products brought a
bout an agricultural revolution in
Denmark. The farmers were facing
ruin. The result of that peaceful
revolution was the breaking up of
large farms into small farms, the ex-
tinction of tenant-farming in favor
of farm ownership, the elimination
Of exactions of unnecessary middle
men through cooperative buying and
cooperative marketing and with it
a standardizing of products.
These Danish farmers then sent a
commission to England to find how
Johnny Bull liked his eggs, butter
and bacon. They next proceeded to
50 far improve upon those products
reaching the English market that
they have virtually captured and
held that market ever since. Dan
lsh agricultural products are even
imported into this country the great
est foodproducing country in the
world.
Here the cost of distribution is
approximately 70 cents on the dollar
against cost of less than 10 cents
on the dollar in cooperative Den
mark.