Evening star., 1925-07-11
SH|PSTEAD DENIES
FARM ILLS HEALED
G. O. P. Panacea Failure and
Discomfort Is Keen,
Senator Says.
By FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.
staff Correspondent of The star.

MINNEAPOLIS, Mimi, July IL
Coolidge policies have not solved the
western farmers problems or weaned
him from radicaliSm, according to Sen
ator Henrik Shipstead, Farm Labor's
lone sentinel in the Congress of the
United States. Shipstead declares that
the soil is more fertile than ever" for
the seeds that La Toilette planted.
They have not been stamped out, he
says, either by the passing of the pro
gressive leader or by superficial
signs" that prosperity and the Repub
Hcan party have come back in the
Northwestern country. The basic
causes of discomfort, Shipstead con-
tends, are still at work, and, until
eradicated, root, stem and branch,
will grow and spread. They are EN-
bedded in fundamental conditions,
and. unless tackled at their founda-
tion, the farmink West will know no
genuine or lasting relief Nature may
become it's seasonal ally, but as long
as the Government withholds concrete
economic support, Senator Shipstead
foreshadows chronically precarious
existence for agriculture, with all the
political consequences that implies.
Impatient With Claims.
The young Scandinavian giant who
was swept into the Senate on the
wave Of rural desperation and distress
that rolled across the Northwest, has
no patience with the theory that all
is well in this region because it went
Republican last Fall. Shipstead is
spending the Summer talking to-
farmers picnics and other gatherings
of agriculturists, tradesmen and con
StituentS in the country districts.
Among them he finds a different sort
of wind blowing than the one that
sweeps contentedly around Lake Min
netonka and White Bear Lake, where
the propertied classes of Minneapolis
and st. Paul disport themselves in the
blithe Summertime. In the big cities
prosperity talk is general, although
many merchants confess they are
leading a hand-to-mouth existence, due
to a buyers strike, and are carrying
the minimum of stock. StorekeeperS
think these conditions are caused by
the general economy trend latterly in
spired from Washington and now
creeping steadily across the country.
Shipstead is amazed at Minnesota
peoples eagerneSs, as indicated by
his innumerable invitations to speak,
for information and guidance on eco
nomic questions. He is addressing
them in the same language he used
in 1922, when he defeated Secretary
kellogg for the Senate. His meetings
astonish him by their size and by their
keen hunger for political light and
leading Shipstead is using facts,
figures and arguments of three years
ago, because he contends that condi-
tions in the interval have undergone
no vital change. You would think,
Shipstead explains, that my people
would be sick and tired of the story
they've heard me tell so often. But
they're not. They sit or stand pa
tiently for hours while l tell it again.
Usually they're disappointed because
/ don't give them still more of it.
Says Farmer Not Appeased.
There's a reason for this. The rea-
son is that the plain people of Mime
sofa know that, despite the farmers
clamor for bread at the hands Of his
Government, he is compelled to con-
tent himself with a stone. The farmer
is not appeased. either by platonic
assurances of official good will or by
advice to help himself. The farmers
demand something more substantial
from Washington than recurrent
manifestos that cooperative market
ing and diversification of crops are
their sole salvation. Knute Nelson
was preaching diversification 80 years
ago-long before Calvin Coolidge was
advocating it or DIR. Jardine became a
Zealot for cooperative marketing. l
am thinking of reading one of Sena-
tor Nelson's speeches into the Con-
gressional Record next session to
show that the administration farm
relief program is not a strictly mod
ern invention"
These are the lines along which
Senator Shipstead is holding forth in
Minnesota this Summer. La Toilette S
death was a personal blow to Ship
stead, who looked up to the Progress
sive chieftain almost as to n father,
but he insists it is of nc grave con-
sequence to the Farm-Labor move
ment Shipstead has always modelled
his politics on the La Toilette pattern
and labored with his people IN terms
of hard economic facts, rather than
popular clap-trap. II never tell them
any funny stories,' says Shipstead.
They can get all that sort of thing
in the movies. They are coming to
the years taught the people of Wis
cousin to understand, what supply
and demand, defiation. imitation, arti-
ficial credit, monopoly and the tariff
mean in the everyday life of men and
women. The more they learn about
these things, the less easy it is to
fool them. They are certainly in just
as little humOr to be fooled today as
they were in 1922. If anything, they
are more cynical than ever toward the
politicians and their posing"
Always Gather Crowd.
This writer asked Senator Shipstead
to summarize the gospel he is preach
ing in Minnesota. There is not day
that he is not asked to preach it some
where in the State. Except for his
need of a vacation, he would be busy
doing nothing else all Summer. He
devotes nearly every week end to the
task, which he finds as instructive to
himself as it can possibly be to his big
rural audiences. A country newspaper
with a circulation of only 1000 will
announce that Shipstead is to speak in
a pasture outside of a town on the
succeeding Saturday or Sunday after
noon. That sufficies to bring out an
attendance to anywhere from 1000 to
5000. From the four quarters of a
county both the town and country
folk will flock to the meeting place
and stay as long as Shipstead cares to
talk to them. He has no difficulty,
sometimes, in interesting them as long
as two or three hours on end.
This is what I say to them in sub
stance" Shipstead told me. Il show
them that, Notwithstanding incessant
promises and pledges to the farmer
during and after political campaigns,
the farmer is never allowed to edge his
way to the public trough in Washing
ton. The agricultural industry is
Americas foremost industry, but is
hindmost in respect of the favors which
a business-controlled Government be-
slows upon its privileged friends
When high finance, or the manufac-
turing interests, or the railroads, want
something at Washington they get it
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