Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1925-03-26
Rural Life Problems and
Current Topic Thoughts
Confined from Page u


put the blame where it really be.
longs? | do not believe it. Oh
course, it is true that the Re
serve Board increased interest
rates; il is true that they stopped
discounting notes, or made il
more difficult to discount them
il is also true that they let the
member banks understand that
the time for meeting obligations
in cold cash had come, but was il
not so in reality? Did we not
owe enough, as it was? Could
they have let us down in any 9th.
er manner. believe not. The
Board saw that a halt should be
called, il the country should be
saved from ruin. Most everyone
had gone crazy, the merchant, the
farmer and the banker as well.
No one had any conception of
values. The seller named his
price and the buyer accepted it;
paid for the thing, not in cash,
but with scraps of paper that
could be discounted at the bank
with currency furnished by the
Federal Reserve Board. suppose
the Board had to keep its print
ing presses running day and
night. No wonder these men got
to thinking. II the Federal Re
serve Board should carry any of
the blame, it should be for the
continuation of these unsound
conditions as long as it did. /,
personally. believe that the halt
should have been called IS
months earlier. IL would have
been easier to let us down at that
time and the suffering would
have been less acute. But then
there were other things that the
Board should have had in mind.
The Victory loan was to be car
ried over, and if money was made
tight IL could not be done.
AS for the other parties named
above. they, of course, have been
factors in the general debacle.
Capital was scared. II wanted to
withdraw from the farmer. What
a short time before was consid-
cred gold edge security. looked
rather fringed now. Interest was
not paid on due date, not because
the farmer wanted to skin any
one, but because the banks had
to collect the notes the farmer
owed them, so they could square
up with the Federal Reserve
bank, and so nothing was left for
interest. Taxes were trebled,
and nothing to pay them with.
The merchants and all the Others
that held the farmers l.. o. u.
wanted to collect. In order to
meet some of the most pressing
obligations the farmer had to sell
his grain, his hogs, his cattle and
everything else that he could
possibly do without. Prices went
down, and freight went up.
The dealers and the railroads
took everything, nothing was left
for the producer on the farm.
Not that prices TO consumers
were low, how could they be?
Freight, rent, wages, taxes and
all overhead expense had advanc-
ed and had to be met; and they
were met, because the people
handling it were organized. They
had cost system and were able
to show us that they were not
grating or stealing from the pro
Queer, They only tried to buy
as cheap as possible in order to
sell reasonably. They even went
so far as to advise the farmer to
organize, stand together and get
protection. The farmer tried to
organize, but he felt he couldn't
hardly afford it. The small fee
the Farm Bureau asked him TO
pay, looked big to him when he
measured it with the price he re-
ceived for his products. and SC
it didn't go very fast with the
organization. He also found tina,
r,anv of thnSa axNounl.,>s. L..