Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1933-05-03
AND HOGS

The sO-caled farm relief bill Wends Its tortu0uS course
through congress and up to this time, if one is to judge by
the debate, the statesmen themselves are not any surer
about what the results of the proposed bill will be than
was President Roosevelt when he termed it an experiment.
The stumbling and hesitating way in which the states
men are handling, in debate, the various claims as to what
the bill will do is an indication of the uncertainty which
exists. Just what the effect of taxing the consumer to e-
tablish a theoretical price for the farmer will be, has not
yet been figured out by the statesmen on Capitol Hill.
The same cannot be said, of course, for some of the ex-
perts in the department Of agriculture. When the fog was
thickest In the senate the other day, Senator Vandenburg,
Of Michigan, kindly offered to elucidate the matter under
discussion by reading for the benefit of the ~perplexed SEN
ators what Professor Mordecai Ezekiel, one of the reput-
ed authors of the farm bill, has to say about the way to
handle the price factors with relation to hogs. The SEN
ator from Michigan stated that he desired to read the dis
sertation "to show what a grasp Mr.. Ezekiel has on the
subject" He then proceeded to read as follows:
1.-The price for each month may be conceived as repre-
sented by a small black ball, suspended above the line for
Its own date, at the height of the average price for that
month, and as far over from right to left as indicated by
the supply for that month. There would necessarily be
only one ball for each month. These balls, however, would
all be very close to the demand surface, a little above it
for those months when the actual price was higher than
the price as shown by the correlation formula and a little
lower for the months when the actual price was a little
below the estimated price. In general, however, it would
be seen that the demand surface appropriated the posi-
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ed through space and time.''
How simple! If prices don't perform according to the
chart the consumer can be blackballedi
Certainly this explanation is so plain that anyone
should comprehend it, but fearing that it ought to be fur
Their elucidated, Senator Huey Long insisted on reading
another section of Professor Mordecai's plan which dealt
with Factors X from the first to the tenth power With
a PROGRESSION equatation" showing as fine an assortment
OF logarithms as a hog raiser ever looked at. In further
explanation the clerk continued the reading as follows:
1.-The value of the constant (k) in this equation varies
according to the units in which the different variables are
expressed. The variable X (10) represents the price index,
SO moving the repression value for that variable to the
left OF the equality sign gives the repression equation for
the prices Debated according to the observed relation"
How beautifully simple and convincing. IF any proof
were needed to show that the farm bill would work, here
1t IS. We defy anybody to disprove Professor Mordecai' s
1lgures. Adding to the optimism is the fact that Profess
sor Mordecai, it is said, will be one of the high commits
sloners Tor handling the farm relief if and when the bill
goes into effect. After the above display of his learning
there should no longer be any doubt of his ability to push
wheat to a dollar a bushel and hogs to eight cents a pound.
We are sure that Professor Einstein himself could do no
better!