Evening star., 1924-04-07

The seventh biennial congress OF
the International Institute in Rome
wilr convene In May. The Depart
ments OF State ard Agriculture have
appointed delegates who will repre-
sent the agricultural interests of the
United States among the sixty-two
nations which will there assemble.
The function of the international
Agricultural Institute is to gather in
formation concerning growing crops
and the world supply and demand of
staples of food and to disseminate
reliable data to the uttermost parts
of the world. By this service. crops
may be planned intelligently the
world over, to supply world needs.
Tricksters and spectators may there
by be largely circumvented in their
overreaching methods OF market
manipulation.
The romance of the establishment
of this great binding Of nation to ma
tion, how it has demonstrated that
the peasant in Siberia is neighbor to
the farmer in North Dakota, and how
the price of bread in South America
depends upon the snowstorm in Swe-
den or the drought in the Balkans,
has not yet been adequately told to
the general reader.
What great statesman devised so
important an Organization? Who was
1t whose deep vision gained the at
tention and inspired the interest and
enthusiasm of kings and cabinets, un-
til nations which never before had
marched together were organized in
a worldwide commercial league?
IT was David Lubin who as boy
little Jew immigrant" as he liked
to call himself-had migrated from
Russian Poland with his mother and
stepfather. David Lubin, the cosmo-
politan-this remarkable enthusiast
who drew all men after him by the
force of his persOnality-waS one of
the great men of America The halls
of Congress echo to the oratory of a
Webster. a Clay, a Calhoun and a
Blaine, but the echoes will die long
before the constructive work OF
Lubin's world craftsmanship can fade
into oblivion. He was the first man
who thought in terms of world crops
and demands, instead of the limita-
tions of a speculative market, or
tion.
The story of how he had led the
movement to organize the California
farmers into corporation, how he
saw that protective tariff, which
brought prosperity to manufacturers
could not help farmers directly, be-
cause their products were not sub
ject in so great degree to compe-
tition of imports, is the opening chap
ter of the tale leading up to his
obsession of the idea that there must
be some other method of aiding agri-
culture.
The scientist Einstein has told us
that there is nothing Of value which
is not measured by its relativity. A
bumper crop in the United States
is either a fortune or a calamity; not
to be estimated by its own volume
but by the RELATIVELY of supply and
demand of similar crops in all the
rest of the world. 1t is more i'm
go to make up the relatively of the
supply and demand of the total crops
of the world than it is to know mere
ly how to make two blades of grass
or two ears Of corn to grow. where
but one grew before" What, then
shall be said of the man who found
a measure of the relativity of the
whole worlds supply and demand OF
all crops?
X X X
Twenty years ago David Lubin set
out TO convert a world to his point
of view. He travelled at his own
expense, urging first the United
States, then England, then France
and. finally. Italy. to see the vision as
he saw it Nothing discouraged him
No dignity of high official rank dis
mayed him. He asked for personal
audience with kings as though such
interviews by individuals with no
official rank were commonplace. Sub
ordinate officials snubbed him only
to drive him over their heads to their
superiors.
President Roosevelt heard him, be-
lieved in him but was unable to COM
NIT this nation to take the initiative
in support of the Lubin plan. The