The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-03-23
FARM PROSPERITY CAMP PA|GN DOPE T0 BE USED BY |. ]. ?.
Democrats, However, Will Point to European Sltua-
 ton to Offset It

WASHINGTON, March 22.-Repub- lican party managers are expecting to reap practical advantage in the next presidential campaign from the comeback which the farmers. are making. Only two days after the disilluslonment of the election last November. one of the nationally known republican advisers of Hard = ing. asked about the outlook for 1924, predicted the Presidents re- nomination and added:
 Everything points to a period of prosperity, and if we give good times we'll carry the election all right"
 That is why reports showing that the farmers are getting on their feet are so eagerly sought by republican firm in a general way the results of the survey just concluded. There is general feeling of confidence in almost every agricultural state. Illi- nois farmers, for instance, were said to have received S1oo,ooo.o0o more for their last crops than for those of the year previous.
 D. R. Crissinger, governor of the federal reserve board, believes that farmers will be restored to their full normal buying power by next year, They have been fairly prosperous this year, but their earnings have largely gone to paying off mort gages. The republicans argue that if the good times keep up. the farm CTS will go to the polls next year with fat rolls of bills in their pockets and will be thinking that this is a pretty good old administration after all.
  European Situation.
 But democrats are not so sure about this. They say there is one extremely uncertain factor in the whole agricultural situation-the European markets. Last year near ly one-thrd of the wheat crop was sold to Europe. Half of the cotton per cent of the hogs. The price of the whole crop is fixed by the de- mand for this surplus which can be spared after domestic needs have been met. That is why Europe's buy ing power-her economic stability is a vital bread-and butter issue to the farmer at the Kansas crossroads but not necessarily a question of world idealism. It is first a question of the price of his wheat.
 This being the case, democrats say they are in a position tC go out on the stump and show the farmer that he is losing millions of dollars a year because of the administrators s policy of aloofness toward Europe. Senator Borah was one of the first tC see the political connection be- tween the Ruhr basin and the wheat fields of Kansas. While his old irre- conciliable colleagues were still re- hashing the arguments Of the Hard ing-Cox campaign. he astounded them all by boldly demanding an eco- homie conference to stabilize Eu- rope and justifying 1t on the ground that the farmers were being deprived of market for their surplus by the existing chaos abroad.
 O O O
 Harding In Dilemma.
 BCrah's argument aroused the farm bloc and many elements in his own party, But President Harding saw no way by which he could step into the European ring and break the clinch. Hughes suggested his in ternational commission of experts but was unwelcome to France. Since then Harding has confined his for eign adventures to proposing mem bership in the international court q justice at The Hague.
 Then there is always tho. danger that prices will go up to the point where the consumer begins to start a backfire over the high cost of liv- ing. The rise ip sugar is a case in point So that prosperity has dan gers, even for the dominant party, in election campaigns.
 But if the favorable indications