Evening star., 1925-11-10
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

| plainly in evidence-a matter com
mon to all the country today. name
ly. the distress of marginal land
Broadly speaking, poor land is max
ing no money in the United States
today.
1T is of some Importance that the
country at large includes these back
ground considerations in its view of
the West. Snap judgment on agri-
cultural recovery in relation to ques-
tions of freight rates. land reclama-
tion. taxation and similar economic
issues can be very harmful at this
particular time"
* * x X
Farmers are now getting better
prices than they received 10 years
ago, but not enough better to Offset
| the increased cost of farming. Farm
labor, when it can be hired at ALL
receives S75 to $50 a month and board
where, in 1918, the going wage was
$50 a month; common labor, such as
railroad section hands, receives $3.50
to SIS a day. making severe Compo-
tition for the employing farmer
Every kind of farm implement costs
from two to five times what 1t cost
before the war, as does everything
else the farmer has to buy. Farm
products do not fetch proportionately
increased prices, hence the farmer is
relatively poorer than when he sold
his wheat at 75 cents in place of $1.45.
X x \
This comparison has nothing to do
with the calamity of farm speculation
which the inflated war prices and the
abnormal demand for food during the
war brought about. 1t is not strange
that farmers who had had little ex-
perience with a worldwide horizon,
were lured into overproduction in the
years Immediately following the close
of the war, and a condition aggra-
waited intensely by financial defation
and curtailment of credits. There was
wild land speculation. This resulted
in sales of farms at extravagant
prices, usually on long contracts, and
when the hard times followed these
purchasers were wiped out. bankrupt
In 1916 the number of farm bank
| ruptcies in the United States num-
| bered only S27; but in the four years
ended June, 1924, the average mum
Der of farm bankruptcies was 4,578
per year, and the number rose from
| 997 in 1920 to 7,772 in 1924.
The average value of farm lands
| throughout the United States shran<
between 1920 and 1924, the sum of
| SIS, 200, 100000, and the farms of
| America are today carrying a mort
gage burden exceeding $4,000, 900 900,
| the interest of which must be paid
| from the crops before the farmer re-
ceives cent Of profit for his labor.
Nevertheless, farming remains the
! greatest business in America. In 1920
the census showed the value of all
farm property was $4,000, 900 900;
| manufacturing, S45 900, 900. 900; mines
and quarries, $7,00O,000,000 and rail-
| roads, as indicated by their stocks
and bonds, s21, 900. 100000 Thus it
is seen that the Importance of con-
serving prosperity of agriculture
| equals that of all manufacturing,
mines, quarries and railroads com
bined, even allowing nearly the full
estimate of the shrinkage in farm
| values since 1920. All other sources
of our wealth, as Secretary Hoover
truly pictures, are prospering enor-
mously, and the investments therein
increasing rapidly in value Only ,ag.
riculture is just beginning to look up.
| ward toward the heights upon which
the lesser enterprises have already
arrived.
Copyright. 1875. By Paul Y. celiins1