The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-12-03
Farmers Are
Beginning to
Hear and See
BY JOHN HERMANN.
Novelist, author of Summer Is
Ended.

Novelist, author of Summer Is
Ended.
THE old isolation of the farm is
broken. In the middle west, the
electric light is turned off because
the bills can not be paid. The old
kerosene lamp is hauled down from
the attic. Even the telephone wires
are dead. Oft-n the farmer has
not enough cash to buy gas. But
he is not to be licked by the lack
Of the modern conveniences. He
has cut through his isolation and
found the solidarity Of his fellow
farmer. Out near Sioux City, Iowa,
when 5000 farmers we're reused up
within Is minutes to resist sheriTs
attempting to highpower truck
loads Of cattle through, the farmer
demonstrated his own strength.
Now he realizes that he has only
the united strength Of the worker
and the farmer to trust. He has
listened to his medicine men, his
bankers, his politicians, his minis
tiers, his grange leaders, his state
agricultural college, for years.
Now his land has gone up at
forced sale, his pigs and corn are
not worth third what he had put
into them. A blight of taxes too
high to be met by the sale of crops,
fell upon him. The medicine men
were paralyzed and when the
farmer went from one to another,
they could only lift their helpless
hands. Burn YOU wheat, plow up
your fields, sell your machinery and
pay off your deficiency judgments.
Sew sacking in your clothing if it
wears out, use newspapers for
warmth. Put on the wooden shoes.
ONLY ONE DIRECTION.
The farmer heard and saw for
the first time. Suddenly, as the
blind see when the cataract is peel
ed off by the surgeon, the farmer
saw the impotence Of his advisers
and betrayers. His back to the
wall, there was but one direction
he could go. Forward. And with
his own united strength. Stand
still and be sold out to the insur-
ance companies, see his barns lev
eled of. tractors moving down his
fences, one gigantic chain farm hir-
ing him for a pittance.
THE answer to the farmers was to
organize, to unite their strength
against the common enemy.
When the Farmers Holiday
movement had its back broken by
calling off the picketing, the rank
and file farmer did not lose conf
dence in real united action. The
politicians wormed their way to the
leaders OF this movement and did
all they could to soft pedal united
action and organizing. For years
people have yelled at the farmer
and asked whv didn't he speed up
and get his rights. AS soon as he
speeded up and began moving,
every newspaper in the middle west
cautioned him to ego slow. AS
soon as he made his power felt,
every big time business man vas
afraid of him. Every Chamber Of
Commerce was out to cut his
throat. But they, the Chambers
of Commerce and the big time bust
ness men, could not succeed in do
ing what they attempted, could
not set the city worker against the
farmer. Around Sioux City they
tried to get the stock yards workers
TO break up the picketing of the
farmers. The farmers retaliated
by Offering to feed any hungry
workers who came 10 them. The
confidence the worker and the
farmer should have in enc another
was not destroyed.
Big and little business again
showed their hands, that was all.
In Sioux City at the head of the
parade in which thousands of farm
ers demonstrated their new found
solidarity, rode Mother Bloor. At
the Golden Slipper Dance Hall
where 5000 farmers assembled to
determine to picket the roads
against the threat even of militia,
representative from the Unem-
ployed Council of Sioux City, spoke.
MIHEN the leaders succeeded in
calling off the picketing, the
rank and file farmers, gathered
themselves together for their an
swer. The answer is the farmers
conference in Washington on De-
cember 7th. The answer is another
long trek in a modern version Of
the covered wagon this time east
ward, to demonstrate once more
that the farmer is alive, is not
slave to the insurance companies
and the bankers and that the gray
paw that would strange him, may
yet be melted and cau2ht by q
power stronger than itself!
Hold an Open Hearing on Hunger
in your ncighborhood; invite all