Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-26
TAXATION BALANCE
URGED BY LOWDEN
Farmer Is Done Injustice
Under Present System,
Says Ex-Governor.
By the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
MILWAUKEE, June ga new pub
lie attitude toward agriculture and the
frank recognition Of the facts as to
the agricultural situation is needed
more than any one piece of legislation
to bring economic justice to the farmer,
former Gov. Frank o. Lowden of Illi-
nois told the thirteenth annual con-
vention of the Kiwanis International
today.
With the attainment of these ends, he
held, ways to restore the proper bal
ance between agriculture and industry
will present themselves.
One way in which the ills of agri-
culture may be remedied, Mr.. Lowden
said, is to change the present method
of taxation. The farmer Is being done
great injustice, he contended, by the
existing methods, inasmuch as intangi-
BILE property escapes direct taxation,
while farm land, always tangible prop
erty, is made to bear the greatest bur-
den of the cost of government.
while agriculture, business and the
economist all agree to this theory, said
the speaker, Il have heard of no
Chamber OF Commerce. nor any other
organization representing business lend
ing its support to the equalization of
this burden through a revision Of the
taxing laws.
Soil Depletion Goes On.
Depletion of soils is going on at a
dangerous rate and, when farm sur
farm products below the cost of pro-
duction, we are adding to those sur
pluses by robbing the SOIL" said Mr..
Lowden. The State and Federal Gov
ernments could aid the farmer In this
by exempting all lands from taxation
which are devoted to some legume or
by paying q reasonable bounty to the
owners of the lands while they Kept
them out Of cultivation, the speaker
suggested.
The former governor outlined the
contrast between city and rural life
and warned OF the imposSibility OF
maintaining much longer the double
standard of living in the United States.
City Schools Improve.
While the country school has rapidly
lost its old vitality and its Importance
in the life OF the people, the city school
has constantly improved, he said. Due
largely to improved machinery the pop
ulation of the rural school district has
declined so rapidly that in Iowa alone
500 schools were closed. The speaker de-
clared this in substance was an integral
part of the farm problem, and that I
should not be overlooked in seeking
q remedy for the ills Of agriculture.
1.-THE trek cityward is already under
way" he said. II am not disturbed
about the movement, but am tremen-
dously concerned that this migration
should not drain our countryside OF
the stalwart young men and women
who prefer life on the farm, but who
are drawn to the cities because they
cannot secure q fair reward for their
efforts on the farm. Generations hence,
when the problem Is not OF surplus, but
of deficit of farm products. these stall
wart men and women will be needed
on the farm. If We are to feed at q
reasonable cost the constantly increas-
ing population In our metropolitan
centers."
Mr.. Lowden urged that an "inven-
tory be made Of the Nations agricul-
tural resources. II this had been done
q half century ago, he said, I'VE would
not now be Inundated to find huge
devastated areas in the Great Lakes
region, upon which the forests are en-
tirely destroyed, lands that have re-
yerted to the States, or which have been
sold to the deluded farmers only to be
abandoned when their owners had been
starved out"