The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1924-07-04
ST IN ASSETS TO
81 INDEBTEDNESS
THUS is TOLD THE STORY OF
FINANCIAL CONDITION OF
THE NORTHWEST
Farmers of this section have total
wealth of So, O39, OOO, 900, and owe
1900, 900, 900, according TO the
late John III. Rich.

late John III. Rich.
The late John III. Rich, chairman
and federal reserve agent, in bull
Ietin issued shortly before his death
estimated the banking and farm
mortgage Indebtedness of ninth re-
serve district, farmers at $1,000,
100000. These farmers had lands
and improvements valued at $S,-
O39, 1000, 900 exclusive of $3.50, 0O0,-
600 farm value of the seven prin-
cipal crops they produced In 1928.
AS against this estimate northwest
agriculture as whole has So with
which to pay 81 of Indebtedness.
Senator La Follette's recent resolu-
ton asking for congressional recess
only, and stating that appalling con-
ditions demand legislation for agri-
cultural relief excited more than or
binary interest in northwest business
and financial circles because of the
representation therein of degree OF
distress not known here.
Senator La Follette's statement
credits the secretary of agriculture
with having reported that 40 per cent
of South Dakota's farmers are bank
rupt, so per cent in North Dakota,
and 60 per cent in Montana.
Survey of Conditions
There are 72,5O0,600 acres in $685.
PAP farms in the northwest grain
area. Six months ago. in the only
comprehensive survey that has been
made, so far as is known here, the
Minneapolis federal reserve bank
compiled the results of an inquiry
into the actual circumstances and con-
ditions of 203,040 farmers. There
were found 1888, that over the de-
preston period of three and one-half
years had become bankrupt, in the
area wholly or principally classed as
grain raising. These included farm
abandonments, almost wholly in the
far western, semi-arid or poor mans
country, the last part of the United
States where in the past 10 or Is
years a man with little or no capital
could start Of the 203,040 farmers
under consideration the bankers with
whom they did business estimated
that in Minnesota and South Dakota
Is per cent were incompetent, in
North Dakota 20 per cent and in Mon |
tana rs per cent. Men of nearly every !
former occupation remote from farm
ing figured among these incompe-
tents. In the Montana area of the
heaviest failures 81 per cent of these
who had gone upon the land were
nxnnriQnOn
At least one-third of the farms
abandoned in Montana in the period
of 1920 to 1923, when activity of
numbering, copper mining and other
industry created demand for higher
priced labor meant the going back in
to industry of men who came origi-
nally from labor's ranks and who,
after taking chance on the land with
slender capital in a territory of vary
ing sufficient and insufficient rain
fall, lost out in two successive bad
seasons, although the history of the
farther agricultural west is that hum
dTeds of thousands, homesteaded or
otherwise, began with practically no.
thing and did win out.
What Survey Showed
nc oQlFSy SAOMSQ luciI LII duulblOn
to the 1888 bankrupt farmers there
were 1902 badly in debt and not able
to see their way out. Assuming that
these would all eventually go bank
rupt there was total of 1850 or
~ per cent. Montana had a per
centage of 17.7, North Dakota 10.5
per cent, South Dakota 7.3 per cent,
Minnesota 81 per cent, northern Wis
consin per cent and northern Mich
igan 2.8 per cent
Whether the proportion of farm
distress as set forth in this summary
representing the cumulative effect of
a condition extending over several
years, could possibly have grown so
much worse over a six-month period,
in which the bottom in agriculture,
banking and general BUSINESS un-
doubtedly was struck and reaction
airy trend indicated, one may judge
from the per centage comparisons.
From the time, now nearly three
and one-half years ago, when the first
small country banks had closed in
number sufficient to draw outside at
tention, no denial of conditions ever
has gone forth from any responsible |
source in the northwest states. Frank