The Caledonian-record. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1920-current, 1922-11-13

y lnterested-aame that they hac
beer trying to get passed fol
fourteen years. 1t was agreed
that if six of these should pass
the farm bloc would permit tn,
adjournment that the adminiStra
ton desired. In less than 81,
weeks, before Congress adjourne,
on August Is, the following meas
ures were passed: (1) The pack
er and the stockyard control bill
(2) the Capper-Tincher bill reg
ulating grain exchanges, (3) the
extension of the War Finance Cor
poration's powers to loan money
to farmers, (4) raising the interest
rate on Federal Farm Loan bonds
from s to 5h per cent, SO that
they would be more readily sale
able, (5) increasing the working
capital of the Federal Farm Loan
System by $25,000,0 900, and (6) the
bill limiting immigration to 3 per
cent of the foreign born residents
in this country.
II the report of the executive
secretary of the American Farm
Bureau Federation for 1921 it is
recorded that more agricultural
legislation was written by this ex-
raordinary session of Congress
han during any similar period
.irce the gavel first fell in the
State House in Philadelphia. 1t
"a practically all enacted in the
Tx weeks after the administrations
wo attempts to adjourn the SEN
ate. The farm bloc, which hat
o been in existence prior to May
}, 1921, in two short months had
become the most effective political
force in the United States, and in
Mother month had reached the full
height of its legislative power. II
eAnooEe lsou 9ql Sc GBpol spuels
organized force in Congress. Hon
Arthur Capper, of Kansas, is now
chairman of the Senate bloc and
Clement c. Dickinson, Congress-
man from Iowa, is the leader of
the House group. What the pub
liz wants to know is how this new
political u rose to such ascend
ancy, what its aimesa, rnad 4
ancy. what its aims are, and who
this man, Gray Silver, is.
The story has its beginnings in
he Shenandoah Valley and in
New York state. Fifty-one years
ago. in the Shenandoah Valley,
Gray Silver was born in a Scotch
Presbyterian family. Forty years
later, in Broome County, New
York, the first county farm bu-
reau was organized. When Silver
was ID years old his father died
and he went to work for a neigh
boring farmer in the Shenandoah
Valley in West Virginia. One day
when he was about seventeen a
relative asked him if he could find
a buyer for a flock of sheep. This
stirred in Silver a desire to own
those sheep. He had no money
nor any place to keep them, but
he could not cure himself of the
ambition to owns them. The more
he thought about it the stronger
the ambition grew. One day in
town he told his story to a sheep
trader. This man took him into the
bank, signed a note with him and
gave him a hundred dollars. Silver
hurried to his relatives and
bought the sheep-thirty-two ewes
and twenty-eight lambs-for nine
ty-siX dollars.
He started down the road,
proudly driving his first possess
sions before him. They were dirty
and thin, and their wool was
badly in need of trimming. He
passed a man who called out to
HIM, Gray, where are going with
those Nellies?" The boy was
heart-broken. He feared he did
did not have as good a bargain
as he thought. He turned them in
to q woodlot that a kind neighbor
had offered him the use of and
went home convinced that he
would not sleep. The next morn
ing at sunrise, when he went to
look at his sheep, they had filled
up on grass and looked better.
That day it rained and he got a
half day off from his employer.
With a pair of sheep-shears he
trimmed up their heads, backed
them up to a log and chopped off
then tails. The rain soon washed
away the blood and the dirt and
they looked still better. A few
mel nings later the man who had
called them "Nellies" rode down to
the stream in the lot to give his
horse a drink. The sheep were
drinking and fling up the slope in
to the woods. As they passed him
he watched them. Finally he said,
"Gray, where did you get those
sheep? If | could get some like
these | would buy them" The
boy told him they we're the same
ones he had seen a few days be-
fore on the road and said he
would be glad to sell them as he
had no place of his own to keep
them. He asked the man what he
would give for them. 81 won't be
both buyer and seller" he replied,
you set a price. Silver fixed a
price of a hundred dollars for the
sheep without the lambs and with
out the wool. The man accepted
and Silver went to the bank and
nnin off the nnte