Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1931-12-03
: DON'T GIVE UP THE FIGHT
By VICTOR E. LAWSON
Publisher Willmar Tribune

The writer recently had occasion to
make few calls at some farmsteads
in this county and incidentally the
conversation led to economic condi-
tions. Among those who for one rea-
son or another have been obliged to
mortgage their farms and are in debt
the situation at the present time is
desperate. One case of a man who
must have passed the seventy mark
sticks in my memory very wildly.
With his good wife they have lived
and struggled upon the place the best
part of their lives. Heretofore by
close figuring and scratching they had
managed to raise the amount of cash,
some $500, each year which was re-
quired for the payments that must be
made upon loan, for taxes and insur-
ance. This year all his crops when
sold will not suffice to anywhere near
ly pay this amount. "They will have
to take the farm, that's all" he said
with despairing look. But where
will he go? We advised him not to
despair, but stick as long as he could.
We cited a number of instances from
the depression in the early nineties
where those caught with obligations
which they could not meet threw up
their hands and let their land go who
might have salvaged at least part of
if they had grimly hung on. Others
later made handsome profits on the
land these unlucky folks had shaved
upon and improved. What will the
mortgage holder do with the land in
these times? If the debtor does the
best he can, does not become careless,
takes care of the premises as well as
he can, and keeps in touch with his
creditor, some adjustment is possible
in most cases. The saddest thing that
one can see is the passing of these
wonderful Minnesota farms from the
people who are the sons and daugh-
ters of the pioneers who redeemed
this country from its wild state. 1t
is their inheritance which should be
held and cherished in the family as
long as possible. First it was the
temptation to sell at a good price that
was the undoing of many-both those
who sold as we'll as those who pur-
chased. Now the pendulum has swung
the other way to the extreme, and the
impulse to give up and let things go
helter-skelter comes naturally - to
those who get discouraged.
We are no apologists for the
present system Which from its very
nature leads to periods of speculative
mutations only to plunge the country
at times into the despair of failure.
There is better and safer way and
there ought to be intelligence, patriot
ism, and humanity in this country
sufficient to solve the problem of Sc
curing more stabilized conditions of
life, liberty and pursuit of happi-
ness" But we are speaking of the
conditions which we face now and
must meet, and we are urging those
who are hanging on by thread to
stay by their homes just as long as
it is possible to do so. In the very
nature of things there must soon be
a change for the better, however tenn
porary it may be. Hang on, and when
the change comes unload enough to
get out of debt, even if you can't save
over forty acres. Those parts of our
country where there was the least
change of ownership and speculation
in farm land are now the best off.