Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1924-02-21
WISE SELLING ONE
GREATFARM NEED
Highly Important to Organize Agri-
culturaily, Says Bernard Baruch
A BIG FlNANCIER'S VIEWS


pard Baruch, big New York finan-
cier, who is trusted farm leader.
He goes on as follows in an inter-
view granted George Rommel in a
recent issue of Farm and Fireside:
81 approach this subject Of farm
ing in "a very simple way. You pro-
duce something. The first problem
is to get as much as you can for it,
so that you can get the other thing
you need that you do not produce
That might be a watch, button, a
.,lecktie, pair of shoes, a hat or
sugar. How can you do that? The
best way is to put your produce in
to the hands of a highly specialized
agent. The only way we worked
that out was by cooperative market
ing. So after getting everybody
to agree to cooperate and put their
outputs in one place, we should get
the smartest specialists in the world
to sell it for us. That is intelligent,
isn't it? That is the first step.
"After | have attained the highest
prices for my product, | am going
to see If l can get cheaper the things
| need. There's the question of trans
portation comes in. Transportation
affects the farmer in the sale Of his
product, because if the cost is too
high it may limit his market-where
he can send his product, For in
stance, if the cost of rail transpor-
tation of potatoes into certain mar
kets having water transportation is
too high, potatoes from Denmark or
Sweden, or wherever they might
come from, might be obtained cheap
er than certain domestic shipments
by rail.
"The farmer is also affected by
the cost of transportation of the
things he buys. But transportation
is so basic to everything it is use
less to discuss the wisdom of good
transportation. 1t is like talking
about the wisdom of getting pure
air. Transportation is just as much
a part of our daily life as air and
water. The matter of good trans
portation or bad transportation, or
no transportation, is not the question,
the real point is how can we get the
best the cheapest, and the most effec-
tive transportation.
Transportation at it's best and
cheapest will have tendency to i'm
prove the condition of us all The
man with something to sell can go
farther to sell it, thereby widening
his market, and if he wants to buy
his selection is made wider. If we
had cooperative marketing system
the railroads could be helped by
moving wheat as is wanted, and not
rushing it to market during a linn
tied period. In that way the roads
would not be congested right after
harvest, and {the financial market
would be helped at the same time.
Transportation is an important
question, but if | had to specify the
important problems before US today
q do not know which | would put
first, they are both of such great
importance.) | would say the foreign
situation and the domestic agricul-
tural situation. They are so mex
tricably linked that you cannot put
one first and the other second. Part
Of the agricultural situation is the
transportation problem. 1t is true,
as you say, that the farmer feels
That the transportation problem will
not be solved, so far as he is con
cerned, unless the price of transpor-
tation comes down. What | think
we ought to do first however, is to
see that we are organized agricul-
turally so we can ge as much as is
possible to get fairly in the markets
of the world. We cannot get it by
cling in hundreds of thousands of
competitive units, to very few buy
ers, can we? And everything the far
mer buys is sold to him at more or
less controlled prices. My theory alb
out this whole thing is not to pull
anybody down, but to bring the far
mer up to the economic level of other
classes, asd to keep him in position
where he can remain on a par with
other men. We must do that, not by
legislation, but by intelligent coop
erative effort on the part of the far.
mer-not politically, but economi
cally: and it is possible to do so,
''Bht l would not give you thirty
cents for all the organizations in the
world, or for all the machinery in
the world, if, you did not get the
brains. That is the principal thing