The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-01-05
Farmers Getting Poorer;
Tenancy Steadily Gnows

the old timers out of their farms,
bought the land-and incidentally
reduced the standard of living gen.
orally. All the time the capital re-
quired for machinery, ETC., increased.
But in the main, the second gem
Grafton hung onto their land MAX
ing less from the smaller holdings,
mortgaging them more and more,
and finally losing them to the ban
ker, who allowed them to continue
farming, as tenants, under his SUI
pervision, because he didn't know
what to do with the land-unless1
a colony could be started, and a
few more Fasteners be sold for
twice the price at which the Native
Son went broke. But that, as the
poet says, is another story. So are
the special forms of exploitation
in California, railroad tyranny, and
electric power extortion, tho in all
the frontiers, something else suited
to the time took their place.
And this brief history of the
last agricultural frontier, is gem
orally true for all the frontiers.
that is, for all the U. S. The final
stage is reached everywhere, now.
We have a few rich farmers, des-
cendants of the first settlers who
got the choice bits, or rich capital
list farmers who buy into the indus
try, for sport, sometimes. Then
we have mass of farm owners who
own their own farms, usually mort
gagged. Thus, the number of both
sorts of owners in 1925 was $780,
600 all over the U. S., an increase
of 80 per cent over the number in
1880 Summary of the 1925 Census
of Agricultural and they owned, in
1920 about 637,000,O0O acres.
In 1925 by the same authority,
there were 2,436,000 tenant farmers,
an increase of 141 per cent since
1880, and in 1920 tenants farmed
573,000,000 acres, including land
rented from the government.
II we exclude land rented from
the government, as the capitalist
economists like to do, on the false
assumption that these leases go to /
capitalists and those already own
ers, still the proportion of land in
farms held by tenants to the total
acreage under cultivation, is 23.3
per cent in 1900, and 25.S per cent
in 119O, and 27.7 per cent in 1920. |
Serfdom
Evidently there is a steady, drift |
towards farm tenancy. Evidently
also it is no longer true that the
tenant becomes an owner, as a gen.
eral thing, but rather that the own
ers are crushed out by mortgages,
and become tenants. Most of these
new tenants are share troopers,
really wage laborers doing piece !
work and bound to their job by con-
tract, the new serfdom. They work
enormous hours: the twelve hour
day is a short work day. The whole
family works, the women and child
rem doing the Chores" taking care
of the pigs, chickens and calves,
which are subsidiary lines on grain
farms, and washing the utensils,
separating he milk, ETC., OIL dairy
farms. They chop and pick cotton :
on the southern plains, andnhills;
they weed and hoe on truck farms, I
and do innumcrable other tasks.
On Two Fronts Il
The farmer has no control over
the prices of his products, which are
beaten down consistently below
their exchange value by the mono
poles that buy them and transport |.
them. The farmer has no control
over the tools, means of subsistence,
and materials he buys, those prices
are held above their exchange value
by monopolies like the fertilizer
trust and the International Harves-
ter Co. Taxes are vastly higher
than on other property, being about
20 per cent of income. The result
is the steady crushing out of small,
independent" farm owners, and their
reduction to tenancy OF to wage la
Dor. This last nhase. wage labor