The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1922-01-25
some ASPECTS OF The FARMERS PROBLEMS
By BERNARD M. BARUCH

1t will not do to take a narrow view
of the rural discomfort, or to appraise
it from the standpoint of yesterday
This is peculiarly an age of fux and
change and new deals. Because a
thing always has been so no longer
means that it is righteous, or always
shall be so. More, perhaps, than ever
before, there is a widespread feeling
that all human relations can be inn
proved by taking thought, and that it
is not becoming for the reasoning ami
nal to leave his destiny largely to
| chance and natural incidence.
Prudent and orderly adjustment of
production and distribution in accord
ance with consumption is recognized
as wise management in every business
but that of farming. Yet, venture
to say, there is no other industry in
which it is so important to the pub
lic-to the city y-dweller-that produc-
ton should be sure, steady, and in
creasing, and that distribution should
be in proportion to the need. The un-
organized farmers naturally act blind
ly and impulsively and, in conse-
quence, surfeit and dcarth, accompa-
MED by disconcerting prce-variations,
harass the consumer. One year pota-
toes rot in the fields because of excess
production, and there is scarcity of
the things that have been displaced
to make way for the expansion of the
potato acreage; next year the punish
ed farmers mass their fields on some
other crop, and potatoes enter the
class Of luXurieS; and SO on.
Agriculture is the greatest and fun
damentally the most important of our
American Industries. The cities are
but the branches Of the tree of ma
tonal life, the roots Of which go deep
| yinto the land We all flourish or
decline with the farmer. So, when we
of the cities read Of the present uni
versal distress of the farmers, of Il
slump Of six billion dollars in the farm
value of their crops in q single year,
Of their inability to meet mortgages
or to pay current bills, and how, seek
ing relief from their ills, they are
planning to form pools, inaugurate
farmers strikes, and demand lcgisla-
ton abolishing grain exchanges, pri-
vate cattle markets, and the like, we
ought not hastily to brand them as
economic heretics and highwaymen,
and hurl at them the charge Of being
seekers of special privilege Rather,
we shoul dask if their trouble is not
ours, ana see "fldC can De QOTc TO
improve the situation. Purely from
sclf-nterest, if for no higher motive,
we should help them. All of us want
to get back permanently to- normal
c"; but is it reasonable to hope for
that condition unless our greatest and
most basic industry can be put on a
sound and solid permanent founda-
ton? The farmers are not entitled
to special privileges; but are they not
right in demanding that they be plac-
ed on an equal footing with the buy
ers of their products and with other
industries?
Let us, then, consider some Of the
farmers grievances, and see how far
they are real. In doing so, we should
remember that, while there have been,
and still are, instances Of purposcful
abuse, the subject should not be APP
preached with any general imputation
| to existing distributivc agencies Of de-
liberatcly intentional oppression, but
r..thcr with the conception that the
marketing Of farm products has not
been modcrnized.
An ancient evil, and persistent
one, is the undergrading Of farm pro
ducts, with the result that what the
| farmers sell as of one quality is re-
sold as of a higher. That this sort OF
chicanery should persist on any i'm.
portant scale in these ays of bust.
| ness intofrity wo,l11 snnm almost in.