The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1928-08-30
HOOVER TALKS TO
IOWA NEIGHBORS
Republican Presidential Can
didate Discussed National
Problems Last Week
PLEDGES HOME SERVICE.
Takes Definite Stand for De-
velOpment of St. Lawrence
Waterway

Waterway
Back again at his birth place,
among boyhood friends and neigh
bors, Herbert Hoover speaking at
West Branch, Iowa, last week re-
called childhood memories, paid
warm tribute to his former school
teacher, who took him into her
home after the death of his par
ents, and told his hearers that the
problems of Iowa's farmers are
those of all American agriculture.
Speaking freely and Intimately
to an immense throng in which he
saw the faces of many old friends,
Mr.. Hoover spoke feelingly of his
home ties with Iowa and then pass
ed to the discussion of the prob
lems of his home state and of the
nation.
His speech follows:
This is homecoming. 1t hardly
seems an occasion for a lengthy
political speech-rather is it an OPP
portunity to recall old associations
and renew old friendships.
l am glad, a son of Iowa, to
come back to the place where I
was born. Here I spent the first
ten years of my boyhood. Here
my parents and my grandparents
toiled, worshipped God, did their
part in building this community,
and now lie in the cemetery over
the hill.
In a half century the whole basis
of agriculture has shifted. We
have improved seed and livestock;
we have added long list of me-
chanical inventions for saving of
labor; we have increased the pro-
ductivity of the land. And it has
become highly specialized bust
ness. There is no longer one in
dustry called farming, but in fact
a dozen industries. Probably over
80 per cent of it's products now GO
directly or indirectly to the mar
kets and probably over 80 per cent
of the family living must be pur-
chased from outside. In the old
days when prices fuctuated in the
Chicago market, at most they af-
fected only 20 per cent of the in
come of the farm. "A violent drop
in prices could reduce the family
income by only four or five per
cent. Today the same fuctuation
in price, affecting as it does 80
per cent to 100 per, cent of the
nroJ,,ofe of 4ha for,,o oo,n fola OK
or so per cent away from the fam
lily net income and make the differ
ence between comfort and free
dom from anxiety, or on the other
hand, debts and diseouragements.
I had thought today to particu-
larly point out the Importance Of
the development of our interior
waterways as bearing on the pros
perity not only of agriculture bit
of the whole of our Midwest busi-
ness and commerce. It 5 {. mott
supplement to agricul-
tural relief. The necessarily large
advances in railway rates from
the war initiate against the eco
nomic setting of this whole inter-
ior section. This, together with
the completion of the Panama
Canal and the fact that ocean rates
have increased but little since be-
fore the war, further disturibs the
whole economic relationship of the
Midwest. It is as # q row of toll
gates had been placed around this
whole section of our country. It
seriously affects the farmer. I
think we can accept it as an ,co-
nomic fact that the farmer on most
occasions pays the fre:gh. on his
products. 1t is deduction from
the ultimate price; you yourself
can attest this. In a general way,
the centerpoint of markets IS over
seas or the Atlantic seaboard,
where prices are determined by the
of streams of world pro-
ducts. For every hundred miles
you are removed from these mar
ket centers the price of farm pro-
ducts is lower by the amount Of
freight rates. Some calculations
which / made a few years ago
showed that the increases in rail-
way rates had in effect moved the
Midwest 200 to 400 miles further
from seaboard. Moreover, some of
the competitive agricultural re-
gions such as the Argentine and
Australia are close to seaboard and
with sea rates about the same as
before the war, they are able to
compete with the American farm
er in foreign markets to greater
advantage than before the war.
This increase in transportation
rates also affects the prices Of
many things which the farmer must
buy, for much raw material which
comes into the Midwest pays the
increased freight rate and this in
turn is taken up by the consumer.
We cannot return to pre-war rail-
way rates without ruin to the RAID
ways. Therefore, ] have long as
serted that the real hope of re-
ducing charges upon our bulk
goods was through the moderniza-
ton of our great interior water
ways. BY modernization, / mean
increasing depths to point where
we can handle ten thousand tons in
"a line of barges pulled by a tug.
This administration has authorized
CONTINUED on Page Fourl