The producers news., 1926-12-17
LOVE FOR FARMERS


what is organized labor doing to match
the organized business in cooperating with
the farmers in the solution of their diff
culties?
This question is raised by the sympa-
thetic address of President Magnus Alex
ander Of the national industrial conference
board at the annual meeting of the Ameri-
can Farm Bureau federation. Alexander
announces that the conference board and
the National Association of Manufacturers
have jointly created a business mems com
mission to work with other groups toward
a constructive national policy for agricul-
ture, says Leland OldS, of the Federated
Press, who then proceeded to quote from
the above speaker:
There was never in our history, says
Alexander, "a time in which there has
been a greater danger from both the
weakness of agriculture and the strength
Of industry. There is discernible dis
tinct tendency of our agricultural devel-
Opment being sacrificed to the develop
ment o other part o our economic
structure
agriculture has had a progressively
smaller share in the national income. The
proportion of the national wealth which
our total national wealth, as we have be-
come more and more dOminantly an in
dustriaI. commercial and financial nation.
As a result there has been an increasing
disparity between the returns to the
farmer as a producer and investor and
the returns which have come to workers
and investors in other fields"
Farmers, according to Alexander, are
victims Of their failure to organize along
the lines Of business and labor He point.
to economic organization as the only meth
odby which any large and important grouI
of our people can effectively assume theil
rightful place in our democratic society,"
Alexander suggests that organized bust
ness is interested in farmers as consumers
debtors, producers and investors -primari
1 ly as consuming at least $4,000, 100000 o
the products of an enormously expanded in
dustry and as owing over S12,00O,0 ,000-
more than the private Indebtedness to u
Of all the rest of the world, he says:
The wise business man has a pri-
mary interest in the prosperity of his
customer and the sOlvency of his debt
or"
$50, in the last analysis, although he get
off much claptrap about the business man
interest in the quality of citizenship, Ale2
ander reveals the real nature of capitals
sympathy for the poor farmer"
Of course in the last analysis a Sympath
for person or a class, expresses the syn
Ipathizers economic and social interest.
The industrialists in America, obse17
ing the trend Of affairs abroad, are comm
more and more to comprehend the impor
I ance of h American domestic marke
which he has monOpoliZed by means of hig
tariff walls, which he sees threatened b
the unorganized condition and general d
cay of agriculture The investors who hay
S12,000,0 100000 invested in farm securitit
are also coming to look to their ducats-fC
Z if the wreck Of agriculture continues, the
q papers viii go to join the Russian ruble
r is becoming obvious that even farme
can't pay debts unless something is alloy
ed him to pay debts with.
Unless there is a change soon, taxes W
cease to be paid on farm lands: interes
. will default and principle will become u
cOllectable. The municipal undertakin
n will become worthless, schools will clos
? and general ruin will possess the Ian
. all because we are allowing the exploite
to suck the very foundations from und
the economic structure.
We are flirting with doom in the Unit
E States. which all will see and understal
when the collapse Occurs-when it is t