The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1923-01-11
SENATOR TELLS US SOMETHING


SENATOR TELLS US SOMETHIN,
| Minnesota has a farmer senator
who recently said few things in
letter that are very much to tn
point, and might do us all som
good to read and reflect upon. !
banker friend of his wrote to him OF
November 26 expressing the wisl
that the senate would do something
for the farmers, and that gentleman
wrote him perfectly nice letter a!
follows:
Dear Sir:
Your favor of November &c is al
| hand and | am as anxious as you are
to help the farmers as far as it car
possibly be done, help them to get q
better market for their products
and help them to get better credits
but it is very difficult proposition
to handle.
The fundamental trouble is the
attitude of organized labor, railroad
and other union labor, thruout the
country. They are still insisting
upon wartime wages, and they are
6OLIlu6 AOW IudA 1VO pei COAt
the railroad laborers than they
did in 1915. Altho the Labor Board
reduced the wages of the shopmen
only IL per cent, leaving them still
with a wage of from 70 cents to rs
cents an hour, they still struck, and
that strike accomplished endless in
jury to the farmers. 1t crippled the
railroads so that they were unable
to supply transportation as expedit-
iously as needed for the lack of cars
and locomotives. When a railroad
is in regular operation and every
thing is moving smoothly, the cars
and locomotives, after every trip,
are examined, and if anything is out
of order it is Immediately repaired;
but, owing to the strike, that could
not be done, and the railroads had
great difficulty, and have not yet re-
covered from it. l believe if it had
not been for that strike, we would
have had a reduction in railroad
rates before this.
What is a mystery to me is that
the farmers, who want lower trans
portation rates, will combine with
the railroad men, who want war
time wages. To me the two things
seem Numerically opposed to each
other.
The prices the farmer gets for his
products, compared with the prices
he received before the great war, are
not so bad. What the farmer suffers
from is the high price for every
thing he buys, and that comes from
the high cost or organized labor
which enters into all production.
The } men operating the railroads,
the men operating the coal mines,
and the men engaged in various
manufacturing industries, all insist |
on retaining the high wages that
they got during the war; and of
course, in the face of that situation,
it is difficult for prices to come
down, as you can readily see on re-
lection.
The government was enabled,
during the war period, to pay the
prices to the farmers that it did for
heir wheat, but it was owing to the
act that the government formed a
grain corporation to handle the
grain and sold it to the warning ma
ions of Europe, and they were |
obliged to pay our war prices at that
ime. They had to deal with our
grain corporation, and they abso-
utely needed our wheat supply, and
t was furnished thru the corpora
ion. But we paid for it ourselves.
he proceeds of the Liberty Bonds
we're loaned to those countries in
Europe to buy our agricultural
The money we loaned
hem did not leave the country; it
7as devoted to the purchase of agri-
ultural products on behalf of those
ountries in Europe land all we have
OF in place of it is their govern
lent which, except in the case of
'ngland, are of little value.
Wartime conditions do not exist
ow, and we cannot force the
ountries in Europe to buy from us
S we did during the war, as you
an readily see on reflection.
If prices for what the farmer has
, buy would come down in proper
on to what the farmer has suffered
/ defiation, it would not be so diff 5
cult for the farmers. :,
You use this expression in your
tier, 'Is there any wonder that the
ssult at the last general election ,
lrned out the way it did," etc. The /.
My wonder to me is that the farm !,
IS combined with organized labor, :
hen the interests of the two are /
opposed to each other.
l other words, the farmers COM
med with the element of the popu- 7
.tion that were insisting on main s
lining wartime wages, and railroad /
nd union labor got the best of the i
argain. Until the farmers can see
here their true interest lies. it is r
difficult to help them as
ley ought to be helped. I
Low prices for what the farmer .
Ills, high prices arising from the 1
ordinate cost of union labor for .
the farmer has to buy, q
Guiding railroad transportation s
i'd coal supply, is the difficulty.
1 am, today, owing to the great
al strike, paying 50 a ton more
+ coal here in Washington than
i'd year ago and the miners are