The Pioche record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1908-1925, 1922-01-27
GREATEST STRIKE in HISTORY; THIRTEEN
$ MILLION FARMERS CANNOT BUY GOODS
BY S. T. HUGHES.
Especial Correspondence

Especial Correspondence
WASHINGTON, D. c., Jen. as
The American farmer never strikes.
Paradoxically. he is ON strike now. I
But it's a strike that he has not ,
called" that he is against and that ,
has been forced on him. II
It's no riddle at all. The farmers
strike is a buying strike. and he
doesn't buy for the plain, simple
reason that he can't
And because the more than Thlr
teen Million families in the United
States cannot buy, the business of 4
the whole country is suffering.
What's going to be done about it? !
Well, the great 1naneiers of the
country are beginning to see that the
farmer must have money so that he
can go to the stores and the factor
les and big dealers and buy goods.
They are beginning to see that there
will be no prosperity for themselves
and for manufacturers and business
men generally until the members
of those thirteen million families can
buy the necessities, and more. They
are beginning to wake up to the fact
that closed factories and idle work
ingmen in cities and only an effect
of the inability of the farming folks
to buy the products of shops and OF
mechanical labor.
The government is beginning to
see it too, as witness the loaning OF
tens of millions by the Y. S, Wal
Finance Corporation to hundreds q
country banks for the sole purposf
of lending that money cheaply tt
farmers. AS witness President Hard
ing's urgent advice to congress to ge
busy. .'.l
And so, in New York and Wash
ington, l find captains of finance AM
captains of government putting thei
heads together to find the way out.
The farmer is on a forced buyin
strike, but he never strikes agains
work He is always producing---a
WdSS-ytd III anu yCui ou', SDS
y times or bad, good weather or bat
. a even though he knows that he wi
lose money on his crops. Al
~ This winter he is losing five bi
lions of dollars on the 1921 thin!
he produced in toll aud sweat.
The purchasing value of his de
lar is only IS ments
He must spend S2.59 for the. n
cessities he bought in 1913 for $
or 159 per cent more.
The year before the wer he got
cents a bushel for his corn; now
gets about 40 cents. But-a
here's the brutal rub-before t
war he paid $5.75 ton for his &C
ton the ayerage.) This winter
pays about $1050sa ton. So the pi
chasing value in coal of the 40 eel
he gets this winter for his corn,
only about 81 or % cents.
Before the war, the farmer {
$3.50 per hundred pounds for
hogs; now he gets about $3.50.
wagon to houl the hogs to the +;
road, he paid SIT in 191S-and h
is that dirty rub again-now he p
$145 to $3.50 for the same wagon
The cotton farmer, it is true, g
$34 for hundred pounds of colt
where he got $26 before the "
But the majority OF cotton grow
are small farmers raising only
bales and it takes huge pile of
light fluffy stuff to make 100 pou
How much good does the SIS raise
him when he has to pay about
more for his wagon than he did
fore the war-must pay out ain
his total profit on thousand pou
of that same light fuzzy stuff?
l could cite instance after inst;
like these-it works on almost ev
thing the farmer produces, and b
Look at the table that accompa
this article That tells the stor
D.. figures rh ."H irrar,a t@