The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-09
A DANGEROUS DIVISION.

sign of political health, but sectional divisions are a sign of national ill-health. Yet the principal effect of Republican rule has been to set the rural West against the financial and industrial East. It is no longer possible to ignore the menace that has been brought about by the granting of special favors to big business while denying justice to agri- culture. The LaFollette effort looks to the capitalization of this discontent for it's success. The LaFollette program of- fers no cure for the agricultural unrest except additional legislation and addi- tional extension of governmental credit, both of which are exploded devices.
 Agriculture has had too much of credit already, without corresponding opportu- nity to dispose of it's products at a price commensurate with their cost. What is needed is.a just administration of govern ment so that a favored section with strongly centralized industrial and fi- nancial entrenchments may not possess undue, specially conceded advantages at the expense of the more widely scattered, less thoroughly organized and totally un- privileged producing sections. Agricul- ture is somewhat recovering from it's for mer oppressed condition, because it is taking it's cue from the other side and is organizing its affairs and centralizing it's agencies. Slowly but surely is there arising a stabilization of method and product, with consequent stabilization of market. 2,
 But there is needed one kind of help from the government which is agricul- ture's just due. That help consists in re- voking the privileges to favored interests which have burdened the farmer with the consequent toll. Foremost among these privileges working to the farmers disad- vantage is the high protective tariff, under cover of which the farmer is forced to pay dearly for his supplies. One such burden has been relieved through the re- vision of the Pittsburg Plus practice, which is now in process of discontinuance. 4 years to accomplish the complete disap- pearance of the devices which are talk ing its place during the transfer of the steel and iron leadership from Pittsburg to Birmingham, but the farmer will soon perceive decline in prices of impIe- ments made wholly or partly of steel.
 There is doubtless a heavy tax on the farmer for fertilizers, due to the fact that both the domestic and the imported fertilizers are controlled wholly or in part by trusts. Such trust was influ- ential in blocking the Ford offer for Muscle Shoals for. fear that the result would be such reduction in the cost of producing, fertilizers as to cut deeply into the excess profits of this industry. It is also obvious that the farmer suffers severely from the interpretation allowed by the Interstate Commerce Commission on the long and short haul clause of the transportation act. As a result of this interpretation, the farmer is forced to pay for short hauls an excess charge that serves to reimburse the railroads for their competitively much lower rate on long hauls. This is unjust and is one of the lively reasons for the dissatisfac- ti6n under which the farming sections now labor.
 The clumsy system of forcing farm products to go through 50 many non-pro- ducing hands before reaching the con- sumer, while being gradually replaced by cooperative methods, is still to great extent operative and has been influential in keeping the farmers nose to the grindstone. But the grindstone at last seems to be sharpening the farmers wits as well as his nose, and he is beginning to place the blame squarely where it be- longs, namely, upon the Republican pol icy of favoring the entrenehed and privi- lleged East at the expense of all the rest of the country. },-
 This division between the West and East the Republicans have ignored, not only in their administrative policy, but also in their choice of presidential and vice-presidential candidates, both of whom represent clements antagonistic to agricultural recognition. This division the third party seeks to accentuate and untilize for it's political advantage. This division the Democratic party seeks to heal by denying unearned privileges and giving to the agricultural sections the justice and economic oportunity so long denied them.