Evening star., 1932-09-28
WEST VOTE TO CO
!. FOR BETTER TIMES
Farmers Hardly Satisfied
With Sporadic Relief, as
They Hark to Speakers.
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

By MAhh AN.
CHICAGO, September 28-The po-
litical color of the West is determined
by the mood of the farmer. The mood
of the farmer is determined by the
depression. To attempt to predict how
it will express itself in terms of States
likely to be carried by either candidate
would be idle. AS of this date, the
amount of discomfort is formidable.
A strongly prevailing sentiment In
the West is to vote blindly against
what is and against whoever is in"
whether Republican or Democrat. In
one western community an aggressive
exponent of common sentiment cir
culated a petition in which the signerS
engaged to vote against every candidate
nov in office, from President down to
county clerk.
The depression. the acutenesS OF it.,
Is still more present on the farm than
in almost any other industry and IN
the West more than in any other sec
ton The stirring of recovery that
has appeared in some sections ana some
industries has not yet expressed ltsel1
in the West either in sufhclently IN
creased prices for crops or in resump-
tion of employment.
Some Help in Price Rise.
The increase in prices has helped
some. but as respects about so per cent
OF the farms there is fundamental
condition going deeper than can be
remedied by any ordinary increase in
the price of crops. The roughly hall
of the farmers who have mortgages on
their farms are in deep and acute
distress. They cannot pay interest or
principal with the prices of crops where
they now are. They borrowed the
money when wheat, for example, was,
let us say. a dollar bushel. They are
expected to repay when wheat is under
so cents a bushel. From their point
of view. and in terms of the commodity
upon which they depend, they borrowed
81 900 and are now expected to repay
$4,000 Foreclosures is the result, and
foreclosures gives rise in the farmers
to that peculiarly acute resentment
which is accompanied by Jutlhed
sense of wrong. by the feeling that
they are being oppressed by a condltlon
which is in no manner or degree their
fault.
1t is not merely the foreclosed and
evicted farmer who IS angered. Some,
though by no means all, of the instltu-
tions holding mortgages, are following
q policy of cold routine foreclosure, SELL
ing the farms at any price they Will
bring Inevitably prices of land thus
established are ridiculously low. even
by present standards. This creating OF
an artifically low price of land angers
the whole community. In one OF the
most conservative, laW-abiding counties
in all the West, there has been an
incipient suggestion that farmers unite
tc picket the court house in order to
stop foreclosure proceedings.
One of the agencies conducting fore
closures consists of some, though not
all, of the joint stock land banks
Nearly everybody thinks these banks
are Government institutions. though IN
fact they are not but are only super
vised by the Government as ordinary
banks are The result is resentment
against the Government. which means
resentment against the admin stratlon
and that means in many, many cases
votes againct Mr.. Hoover.
Farm Aid Loan Plan.
The Joint stock land bank system was
founded in 1916 as an instrumentallty
to help the farmer! by loanlng him
money at a lower rate than private
lenders. For the first 10 or II years OF
their existence they fulfilled this func-
ton of benefcence. Now, very few OF
the banks or practically none. are max
ing loans Due to the change of con-
ditions, they cannot make new loans
because they cannot raise money to sell
their own bonds to investors. Thus the
system has practically ceased to fulfill
the benefcent purpose for which 1t was
founded
Worse. some joint stock banks have
passed into new ownership, not identl-
fed with the communities in which the
banks function AS to these. the policy
is cold foreclosure and sale of the land
at any price The result is JUSTIFIED II
ritation of whole communities. So we'll
balanced and thoughtfully edited
paper as the Des Moines. Iowa, Register,
printed on Monday a cartoon showing
a Joint stock land bank as turkey
buzzard with a protuberant stomach
sitting on a limb watching foreclosure
proceeding and remarking with we'll
fed satisfaction, Its good depres-
sion" That sentiment reflects, as 20
some joint stock banks, not the angry
emotion of farmers alone, but the de-
liberate judgment of a newspaper care
fully conducted in the interest OF its
community and of the Nation.
mortgages is not merely a passing de-
tail of the depression. 1t is funda-
mental thing which in the judgment
of thoughtful persons in the West must
be remedied. It should be said that
some institutions holding mortgages, in
cluding some insurance companies, fol-
low a humane and enlightened policy
of going as far as possible to avoid
foreclosure.
Sporadic Leniency insufficient.
Sporadic leniency by some mortgage
holders is not, however. enough. 1t is
insisted that either by legislation, co
far as it can be done that way, which
is not far, or preferably by general vol
untary understanding there will need
to be a scaling down of principal of
mortgages or rates of interest or both.
SENATOR Borah believes in the latter
suggestion. Reduction of rate of inter-
est is the remedy commonly recon-
mended The way the situation appears
to common sense and to the average
mans instinct for justice is reflected
by one who said: IF the wages of men
must be reduced. why not the wages OF
capital, money!"
The sum of this condition is justified
discomfort, and the effect OF justified
discomfort is votes against the admins
tration. 1t is not votes for Gov. Roose-
welt, though of course he is the bene-
ficiary. Nothing that Mr.. Roosevelt has
said so far has held out the concrete
relief that the farmer seeks On the
contrary, there is much cynicism about
the vagueness of Mr.. Roosevelt's altru-
istic generalizations in his Topeka
speech on the farm problem. AS one
Mr.. Rosevelts bone" So far has this
sentiment gone that there is gossip
that Mr.. Roosevelt in his final West
cr,oanh will ir,dQrSa a Sraecific nrn=