The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-02-02
Liberal Viewpoint
By DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

THERE seems to be alarm in some quarters
l. about the alleged raid of the "hay-shakers"
on the federal treasury. 1t is assumed that the
farmers have the inside road to the god-lined
pockets of the new deal and have succeeded in
inducing the government to pay them for loaf1ng
about on their pitchfork handles and milk
stools. 1t is further contended that the govern
ment has done nothing Of the kind for the city
worker
It so happens that the opposite of these con-
tentions is the stark truth. The farmers have
no desire to loaf. Indeed, they desire to culti-
vate more and more land. So great is their de-
sire to work-even for little or no proft-that
the government found it necessary to bride them
with a bounty to refrain and to restrict their
crop acreage.
This may not reflect favorably upon the in
telligence of the American farmers, but it does
put the quietus upon the charge that they have
bulldozed the government into substituting
their Incidence.
Moreover, crop restriction among the farmers
is exactly analogous to the limitation of the day
and week for city workers which is embodied in
the NRA. The idea is to pay the workers just
as much for shorter period of work in order to
spread employment
am no apologist for the farmers, but have
lived among them long enough and have studied
American economic history sufficiently to real
ize that they have case.
be made against them is that there are too many
double -crossers among them to make possible
any effective organization in their own behalf
In the milk strikes, for example, "scab" farmers
have done more to break the strikes than the
state police
When I note anybody getting high blood
pressure over the prospect that the farmers may
be lifted from servility am reminded of the
passage from Gastons Mon Partisan League"
which used to read to my students in the days
when I was teaching American history:
"a man, a product OF pioneer days in North
Dakota, who achieved university degrees and
high official position though a successful man
himself in other than farming career, had, as
he said, bred in his bones the resentments
which have furnished fuel for the flames Of the
farmers revolt in North Dakota.
TIE tells how his own father, cripple with a
l. l. large family to support fought the battle
against rust and drought, intense cold and iso-
lation and how his other burdens were multi
piled by burden of usury and extortion.
lone bitter winter, he says, with his mother
lying sick at home, their chief food had been
meal. home ground of ruSted wheat. country
missionary doctor, providentially happening
along urged different diet, and the father
struck out at risk of his life in storm to go to
the distant village for supplieS-without money
tc buy them.
There the merchant, who was also banker,
in his capacity as banker caused the farmer to
sign a $50 note at 10 per cent interest, and in
return gave him credit in his own store for not
$780, but $40 worth of supplies, with which he
struggled back in the storm to the sick wife and
the family.
Father died a few years after that said
the man who told the story. But for the hard
ships he had undergone he could have lived
many years longer. The thing that really killed
him was usury.
He continued: The banker is still living He
prefers now to be known as farmer. He owns
several farms and collects rent and interest
money enough to give his family the luxuries OF
life He is one Of the pioneers who won out one
of the successful men who have built North
Dakota as they say at the pioneers meetings
"'I often think when see these gatherings
of pioneers-many of them the men who merely
lent money or sold goods at eXorbitant prices,
while others lived in sod houses and fought to
make the land produce wealth-that the real
pioneers are not among them.
1.-The real pioneers he went on to say, ARE
sleeping in the little country chuchyards and
forlorn prairie cemeteries, men and women who
gave way to hardShips when so years old or
less"
Here we have the real historic background OF
the farmers growth against the usurers and the
loan sharks. 1t can not be laughed off by any
wisecracks about the hay shakers" The Won
der is that even the individualisn Of the Amer
lean farmers has been able to keep them quies-
cent for so long.