Evening star., 1934-02-14
BY RALPH w. PAGE.

If the debtor wants a fair dollar
and the farmer fair price and the
merchant fair profit, why shouldn't
the power company and the under
writer get fair deal, too That's q
question I heard on my travels
through the country.
What is the answer?
1t lies deeper than disagreements
on policies of recovery. or than quick
ening ideas Of social justice. 1t lays
bare the only ingrained and ineradi-
cable cleavage of interest and in
herent hostility between factions in
the United States 1t has its root
deep in American history.
Just after the Civil War the manu-
facturer and the flnancier gained the
ascendancy and proceeded to turn the
stream Of prosperity from the cotton
field to the cotton mill, and from
the ranch to the packing plant. The
protective tari~ did the trick. The
animosity between the two factions
died down and all but disappeared
during the World War. But since
then the rural population has with
increasing conviction ascribed its in
creasing poverty to an industrial pol
icy that cut down foreign trade and
piled up domestic surpluses OF farm
products.
Farmers See Way Out.
This isn't general theory. It Is
a concrete matter propounded with
great emphasis at every farm meet
ing in the United States. 1t is broad
cast over the Nation by the three great
farm organizationS--the Grange, the
Union and the Farm Bureau Fedora
ton. 1t is the thesis of the Depart
ment of Agriculture.
The farmers see one Way out by
appropriating the water and power
remaining in the public domain. 1t
may be said that this is detrimental
to investors; it may be said that
cheap power at Government expense
Is also at the expense of Federal tax
payers. In other words, it may be
admitted that the farmers anticipate
Government subsidy.
Well. the reply is, what of It? What
made the manufacturers and security
statesmen rich except Government
subsidies, or worse still, one-way laws
that doubled the value of manufac-
tured articles at the expense OF the
farmer and TO the ruin Of his market?
Tit for tat.
Operating companies and investors,
1t is argued may think they have a
toll on every ones income by reason
OF their transmission lines, and may
fuss all they please about a right to
perpetual 10 per cent or per cent
or what not on their capital. Who
guarantees the farmer 6 per cent or
even l per cent on his capital?
You have to add to this the geo
logical and geographical peculiarities
and The artificial development of the
West that makes this appropriation
as inevitable as the working of a nat
ural law. Except for q small area
along the Pacific Coast west Of the
Cascades. the entire sage brush en-
pire west of Kansas and north of
Texas was originally semi-desert.
Embracing some Of the most fertile
land in the world, 1t lacked rainfall
sufficient to make marketable crops.
Originally it was given over entirely
to grazing.
California Bonds Defaulted.
The entire history OF farming In
this vast kingdom is the history of
water-of the prodigious engineering
feats that stored up the Winter SHOWS
in the river beds and distributed the
water in millions of bitches. A farm
er in this region is acapitalist whose
whole life, like that of o sailor, is
centered on water. His hopes and
doubts and fears have to do with the
supply and cost of his share OF this
or that river. Today he is not only