The producers news., 1927-12-30
FARM BUREAU DISCUSS
ES PEASANTRY DRIFT

Has American industrialism reach
eG the point where there is really no
workable remedy for the ills that
beset the farmer? Is the American
farmer on the road to peasantry with
even his friends unable to check the
downward drift? These questions
We're raised at the annual convention
OF the American Farm Bureau fed
Grafton in Chicago after a striking
summary of the dire plight of Ameri-
can agriculture by Pres. S. II.
Thompson of the federation.
Imports of food and raw materials
to compete with American farmers
products, said Thompson, shave in
creased 44%o since 1900; farmers
overhead expenses have increased
5000 and their combined costs 1900
since 1900 while wholesale prices for
their products have advanced only
1850 in the same period. Non-agri-
cultural prices are still 52%6 above
the prewar level and farm prices only
40% above"
Thompson brought out graphically
the inequality existing between agri-
culture and industry. He pointed out
that interest on capital invested in
farming in 1926-27 was only 2.7a6
while in 1926 corporations made 1870
on their capitalization. He showed
that between 1921 and 1927 agricul-
tural capital fell off $4,000, 900, 600
while the current value of corporate
wealth increased by $4,000, 100000.
Last year., he said, "the net pro-
/ fits of American corporations exceed
ed the cash income of farmers by
about $1,000,000 a day"
Thompson stressed the growing
weight of farm mortgage debts. In
1927 the rumble of forced sales and
defaults of farms due to delinquent
taxes, foreclosures of mortgages
bankruptcies and other causes reach
ed 22.8 per 1000 farms, the highest
level on record. The farm mortgage
debt increased from $3356 per farm
or 21.1%o of the value of the property
in 1920 to $4,000 per farm or 41.9%
of the value in 1925.
In the United States, said Thomp.
son, the farmer alone is outside the
wall of protection which makes nos
sible high standard of living.
BY way of remedy Thompson urgeC
American farmers to insist upon &
federal law requiring each marketed
unit of farm products to pay its share
of sterilization and protection. He
advised inspection of pricefixing anc
subsidies, whether direct or indirect.
w. f. Dodd of the University OF
Chicago followed with a sketch of the
history of agriculture in the United
States down to last year when Gas. .O0C
farmers abandoned their vocation. HI
concluded with the question: Is there
a remedy?
If the tariff is lowered" he said
the cities must suffer; if the rail
roads are required to lower theiI
rates, railroad labor will strike; if tht
banks are regulated for social pur
poses, business men will make iouC
protest; If commission merchants anC
other city organizations are put under
control, the cry of bolshevism will
arse; If farmers seek to hold them.
selves, it is socialism; a politician
who seeks to find a remedy is a dem.
agogue; if bill of relife passes con.
gress, the president vetoes it without
offering a better one and forthwith
becomes great statesman. All thi,
IN the richest country in the world.
Here the spotlight is turned on the
dilemma in which capital society
finds itself because it is organized oT
the basis of exploitation rather thar
cooperation between the different
groups of producers for mutual en-.
Joyment OF the good things of life.