The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-08-02

liz
mortgaged; that, isl about a million
and half.
(c) Seventy per cent OF all the Inn
proved land in the sUnited States is
today operated by tenants.
Cd There are two million agricul-
tural workers. These farm hands are
mainly disfranchised, migratory work
ers whose standard of living is low
(e) We must take further into ac-
count the fact that in the United
States except in certain sections of
the South, we do not have big, spe-
cial land owning class in the Euro
pean sense. The same bankers and
manufacturers who own the mines,
factories, railroads and shipping facili-
ties are in the main the owners of the
land used by the farmers.
(f) Furthermore, the conditions are
such that in many instances farmers
are simultaneously farmers and work
ers, the industrial workers turning to
farming for several months Of the
year.
60 In the United States, because
Of the tremendous economic and poll
tical power welded by the huge bank
ing and transportation monopolies and
the trusts, there is a far sharper con-
tiict of interests between even the
middle farmers and the big bourgeoi-
sic than there isabetween these farm
crs and the proletariat.
n There are in the United States
over two million tenant farmers
and about one and half million
mortgaged farmers, whose average
income is somewhere between seven
and ten dollars a week. These
two groups of poor farmers, semi
proletarian in their social position
and mode of living, are struggling
desperately to maintain an existence
and are therefore in great need of as
sistance and cooperation from the city
workers in the struggle against capt.
talist exploitation.
Q Unlike the conditions in some of
% the agrarian countries of Europe,
there is in the United States, with the
exception of the South, no large land
owning class, no land aristocracy. The
class that owns and controls the eco
nomic life of the agrarian population
are the bankers, grain SPECTATORS,
mine and railroad rnagnates, trusts and
other capitalist corporations. That is,
the same capitalist glass that domi.
mates and exploits the workers of the
cities. Thus there is a clear com.
munity of interest between the work
ing class and the poor farmers for
common struggle against the COM
mon enemy.
q Undoubtedly the severe agricnl-
~ tural crisis of 1920 which pro
duced such an intense ferment in the
ranks of the farming masses has
abated. The world crop shortage Of
last year was the principal force FOR
whatever improvement recent months
have seen in the lot of the agricnI
tural masses. But it must be pointed
out that
| (a) Tho the crisis has abated it has
not been solved completely. At the
lowest point of the recent agricultural
depression, which was the worst ia
the history of the United States, the
purchasing power + of the farming
masses fell to 20 Der cent below the
pre-war level. Today despite the much
heralded improvement of the eco
nomic conditions ofstfie farming mass
es, the purchasing power of the agr,-
cultural population is still at least 10
per cent below the pre-war level.
(b) Besides, the favages of the las.
severe agricultural depression hare
been so sweeping and so deep going
that it would take many years q:
considerable economic improvement
for the farming masses to make up
Tor their heavy losses.
(c) The fundamental causes for tn.
agricultural crisis in the United
States, a condition which has been
and is part of the international agrI
cultural crisis. have not been removed
The basic causes for the unsatisfac.
tory economic and social conditions
OF the farming masses in the United
States are to be found in the wide gan.
1 In the deep chasm, between the or
! ganization, or rather lack of organiza.