Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-07-31
Daniels Says Men RESPONSE
BILE for High Costs and
Low Returns Should Hunt
Storm Cellars
BY JOSEPHUS DANIELS
Secretary of the Navy i'm Wilson'S
Cabinet)


RALEIGH, N. c., July 2S.-"Pas-
siYe resistance"
That expresses the settled and de-
termined present attitude of. the
farmers of Kansas, Nebraska, Okla
homa, Colorado and Missouri to the
agencies responsible for deplorable
financial conditions in which they
find themselves. But it is rapidly
changing to active offensive. Tn ;
only "normalcy" that has come to
them is ruinously low prices for
their farm products.
L have been chautauquaing (may
invent a Word0 through some of the
farming sections of these states, par
ticularly Kansas, Colorado and Me-
braska these four weeks, spending
most of the time in farm communI-
ties. People living in the east can
have little conception of the plight
of the farmers unless they visit
them on their farms and in the
towns where they trade. On every
hand, except where floods have
played havoc, the countryside is
beautiful with the golden grain I'M
der harvest and the varied colors of
the green in growing crops with cat
tie mot very many on the ranges,
and hogs. There has been no lack
OF industry on the part of the farm
ers. They have done their best to
feed the world, and made their crops
at heavy expense. AS they get ready
to put them on the market, comes a
greater slump than had prevailed
for three lean years, and, most of
them in debt, they look the future
i'll the face with no ground for hope
in the coming year.
BE a Clod," Says White
Whats the matter with Kan
sas?' That was a question asked
and answered 20 years ago by Will
liam Allen White. 1t gave him his
first national fame as a writer. Here
is what the same Emporia editor
says is the matter with Kansas
farmers now:
Now that the farmers are
ready to market what was sal
vaged, prices are being dealt
down."
He goes on to say, THE whole
business of agriculture during the
last three years when the farmer
has been Debated and the laborer in
flated, has made the farmer look at
bankruptcy as his only relief" Mr..
White paints the picture as hun
dreds Of farmers have described it
to me, when he goes on to say In
his characteristic way: Economic
failure and dire circumstances are
grabbing the farmer by the ears and
sousing his head in the mire, saying
to him: Get back into the Wallow
of peasantry; be a clod. You must
support the world and whistle for
your profits. To hell with you gen
orally"
Soaked Eighty Millions
Do you think William Allen White
has painted the picture in too dark
colors? If so, come out to Kansas
and all the wheat and cattle and
corn anu hog states, and hear the
"dirt farmers" talk. You will then
be surprised at his moderation. The
slump in wheat in Chicago to 81 a
bushel about the middle of July
meant a loss of eighty million dol
lars, according to o. 4. Bradfute,
president of the American Farm Bu-
reau Federation. That estimate was
based on dollar wheat, but that was
the Chicago price. The farmers were
getting nearer seventy cents than
one dollar the last time talked with
them.
dollar wheat" says Mt. Brad
flute, simply means that the farm
err will be unable to meet his o6ll'
CATION or do much OF anything else.
The ultimate effect OF this on every
BODY is not hard TO see"
The grain gamblers have lost
nothing and can send their famliles
to Europe for the summer.
1t Is not only the slump in the
price Of wheat that hits the western
farmers hard. Arthur Capper's pa
per says the higher than-war- freight
rates threaten great loss to grow
ers of alfalfa in Kansas. The west
ern farmer demands lower freight
rates, and when President Harding
came among them advocating con-
soidation they felt he was adding
to their burdens instead OF propos'
Ing any way out of their desperate
condition. The cost Of transporting
! heavy crops and cattle and hogs is
| a direct tax more burdensOme to the
| western farmers than 3nV i'm pOsed