Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1924-06-20
ARE FARMERS
HUMAN BEINGS?
By Tom Blodgett

Farmers and chickens are botn
alike, they finally get it in the neck,
and even while they are alive some
body else dictates about all the terms.
It's great fun to be a. farmer it's
the only life if you don't weaken;
the first hundred years is the worst.
The farmer jumps out of bed about
the time the city folks are getting
in from the glare of the whites,
knocks on the hen-house door and
wakes the chickens up, runs out in
the orchard and scares the birds off
their nests so they can get their
breakfast, does the chores for an
hour and ten minutes and is ready
for breakfast.
Some time during the week he
tears loose from the dizzy whirl of
farm work and HES him away with
his jitney to town with load of
eggs, butter, cream, a dressed pork
err, a coop of chickens, and few
tubs of garden stuff.
He steps bashfully up to the gro
Gerry counter, takes off his hat, points
blushingly to his cargo of eats and
with deep humility and much inward
pain listens while the merchant puts
the price on his load of hard-earned
wares After he gets wind, he shifts
his hat over to the other hand, leans
hard against cracker barrel, while
the aforesaid merchant proceeds also
to set the price on what the farmer
wants to buy.
The farmer finds this very con-
venient arrangement to have some
body set the prices going and com
ing, tell him what he is going to get
for all he has to sell, and then tell
him what he has to pay for what he
has to buy.
The fact is, the farmer gets so
much kick out of this double-bar-
relied plan that he lets the elevator
set the price on his wheat, oats, clo-
yer seed and other seed crops; the
commission house tells him what he
is to get for his spuds and apples,
or perhaps sends him a bill fG the
freight and asks him to throw in the
crop, boxes, sacks and labor, for good
measure.
The reason we raise the question
as to whether the farmer is human
or not is because there is room for
doubt judging from the way he un
complainingly takes the hot end of
the poker and hollers for more.
The farmer is the only animal in
captivity that will stand for being
tied at both ends; even hule won't
go against that kind of a game; he
will bray and kick himself loose,
jump the fepce and tell somebody to
go to thunder.
The farmer don't have to stand
for all this unless he wants to. Of
course as long as he prefers to live
in his own little shell, and hum that
little ditty, Let the Rest
Of the World Go By" work alone,
vote alone and cooperate with no
body, he will have to take just what
he is getting now, with the terms Of
his slavery little tighter each year.
The farmer lives on the theory
hat penny in the hand is worth
/ nickel in the bush and consequent
y he would rather get a cent more
. dozen for his eggs today than join
/ poultry association and stand by
lis neighbors a few weeks and then
,e able to get five cents a dozen
more for his eggs, and so on with
III his products.
The farmer belongs to the only
arge crop in America that is unpro-
ected by intelligent, effective organ
cation.
The farmers of Idaho absolutely
odd the balance of power in their
wn hands; they can outvote all the