Montana labor news., 1932-12-29
GATHER
AT WASHINGTON
IContlnned from Page onel

ltputluueu from rage OHe1
Inmates the mortgage indebtedness
of the American farmer at between
nine billion and ten billion dollars
with short-term indebtedness bring
ing the total up to between 10 and
IA billions.
The object of the meeting is to
present concrete resolutions to Con-
gress, asking for an end to evictions,
a moratorium on debts and a rem
edy to bridge the gap between what
the farmers get and what the public
pays.
A classic example is milk. The
farmer gets 2 cents a quart and the
public pays from 10 cents to IA cents.
AS the price of milk has fallen, the
middleman has not taken the loss.
He has passed it on to the farmer.
The same is true of wheat and of
all commodities. The farmers want
the middleman to shoulder some of
the difference.
One delegate told of a farmer who
sent a carload of sheep and was
notified that the price of the sheep
didn't cover the cost of the freight.
81 have no money" he said, "but I
have mora shaan
The watchword of the conference
was unity and direct action. Every
reference to resisting eviction met
with a thunderous applause. Excite
ment was in the air. These were
all men who had taken things into
their own hands and were ready to
fight. Accustomed to solitary living,
they suddenly found comfort in unity
and cooperation. 1t was an extraor-
dinarily impressive audience which
gathered in Typographical Union hall,
a militant crowd, prepared to fight
hard for what it meant to them, for
IL meant lie ana ueaIn.
The first day was taken up with
personal r~ecitals from farmers all
over the country. A farmers wife
from New Hampshire came down
with other New England farmers in a
log cabin car to attend the confer
ence. She had worked for a week
to get food cooked for her five chill
dren. "They asked me why was
going" she said, land | said | was
going to Washington to fight so they
could live" She had been married
20 years and in that time had bought
just two hats at 35 cents apiece.
A farmer representing the Farm
Holiday Association of Wyoming
said: Farmers don't take kindly to
breadlines. We want to keep our
own beans and make our own soup
in our own kitchens, and the only
way to keep u homes is by organi-
LdJiOll anu ulitCt dCJlOii.
A stump farmer from northern
Minnesota, a member Of the United
farmers League, different from
the usual tall dirt farmers-small,
vibrating with anger-told of the
triple experience of his family, ex
plotted in the mines, and the lum-
Der fields and on the land.
A Montana member of the Farm
ers' Union said: 1--WE are not having
foreclosures where l am because rs
per cent of the farms have al
ready been fo~reclosed and the rest
are subject to foreclosure any min
ute" Farmers are leaving their wool
in sacks because they can't get any
thing for it, he said.
Frightful statistics dotted the talk,
of food that couldn't be sold, prices
which spelled ruin, food r%otting on
the ground. "In Clinton, Iowa, they
told us to eat on the soup line" said
one farmer. 81 didn't eat that soup.
1t seemed like about one onion float
ing in a barrel of rain water. And
there were children, blue and pinched,
10 years old and looking six, who
had not been properly fed for three
years, and there we were who had
sheep and cattle we couldn't sell,
and mounds of wheat and corn, po-
tatoes and onions, herds of pigs to
put fat on those kids and we could
not bring it to them"
That was the question for which
the conference vas held-how to get
the food to the children who needed
it, and give the farmer the security
to do SO.