The Washington times., 1924-05-29
.DIS|LLUS|0NED,
FARMERS ASK
FOR LEADER
Rryan-Townley Combination
Could Sweep West, Says
Prominent Kansan
By o. M. .KiIe.
(CopyriRht. lS2A.l

By o. M. .Kile.
Copyright, 1S2A.)
TOPEKA, Kan, May 30.-'If the
farmers had q leader Of the mag
netic personality and persuasiveness
of William Jennings Bryan and the
organizing. ability Of Townley, OF
Non-Partisah League fame, he could
sweep the West today. There II no
telling where and at what moment
such leader may arise"
The above statement was made to
me today in all seriousness by a
man so well and so favorably known
In Kansas affairs that he felt Il
necessary to request that his name
be withheld.
'"The farmer has dragged along
for nearly four years, now, trying
one so-called relief measure after an.
ether and deriving no. appreciable
benefit from any Of them. He has
tried organization and cooperative
marketing and has watched all these
efforts come to ruin, at least that Is
the case In Kansas.
During all this time that our
farmers have been cutting down
their expenditures closer and closer
end drawing in their belts tighter
and tighter, they have been watch
ing >the man in the city go on and
on with apparently endless pros
Verity."
"Our farmers have been studying
economics during these past few
years-the practical working out Of
economic theory. And they have
come to the conclusion that by some
slight. OF hand, economic principle
has been made to work against the
farmer.
"They have no patience with the
theorist who tells them the McNary-
Haugen bill, for instance, Is un.
sound. They now retort. 80 Is the
tariff unsound in principle, yet it
is accepted and upheld, even by US
farmers who suffer from it,
Professor ASsaiIed
Doctor William M. Jardine, pro.
lessor Of Kansas Agricultural Col
lege, got himself into no end of
trouble by his lengthy statement
made at Washington the other day
and later repeated at Cleveland in
q speech before the United States
Chamber of Commerce, wherein he
asSailed the McNary-Haugen bill as
being unsound in theory. He has
received a perfect deluge of letters
from farmers and small business
men, am informed.
Some even go SO far az to sug'
geSt that this episode may impair
his future usefulness to the college
and to the State Another thing
Kansas farmers have learned. I am
assured by various observers, ia
the fact that cooperative marketing
Of grain, at least so long as we
produce an exportable surplus. can
do very little toward bringing bet
ter prices.
All those fabulous margins sup
posed to be taken by the elevators,
the brokers and exporterg-the prof
its which the farmer was told were
keeping him poor and making the
midlothian rich-were found to be
imagination. pure and simple. The
plain truth of the matter, as the
farmer Is now learning 1t, is that
cooperative marketing Of wheat,
for instance, even under the best
Of management, could effect a saw
q few cents per bushel.
Few Pennies o BusheI.
Those few pennies per bushel,
probably never over cents In
total, may make a few dealers
wealthy, but they fall far short OF
meeting the farmers expectations as
to what cooperative marketing
organization ought to do for him,
AS for the idea that the Spectator
depresses market prices at harvest
time and then boosts them after
he has the crop in his own bands
an idea spread far and wide by
organizers Of cooperative groups
Kansas farmers have learned that
this is pure bunk"
The market figures for the last
fifty years fail to bear it out. Promi.
nent national organizers like Aaron
Sapir0 now realize the futility OF
this appeal on the basis Of savings
to be made in the cooperative mar.
keting Of grain. They see their mis-.
take in taking 1t for granted that
the same principles used so success.
fully in marketing California fruits
would work In marketing the staple
midwest farm crops. So Sapiro and
his followers now talk organization
Tor world price control.
Kansas farm leaders are consid-
erably wrought up over what they
call an attempt of several Of the
big Chicago grain houses to unload
their plants on the farmers at lib
eral valuations. A prominent ma
tional farm organization is cited as
promoting the scheme from the
farmers end. The Kansas people
claim to have nipped this scheme In
the bud. 1t would have had prob.
ably deciding influence on the
pending McNary-Haugen bill. With
al. the Kansas farmer has much to
think about and he cannot he blamed
Tor scanning the horizon anxiously
Tor this combination Bryan.Town-
ley'Deliverer my friend suggests.
SIS, 900 IS SOUGHT FOR
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL