Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1935-12-19

OuIClS Waru. CurLlS was one OF those
sort of fellows who always does his
best to help out when his neighbors
and community are involved, regard
less Of his own personal sacrifice. 1t
is a great pity that the county seat
does not boast of more men of his
calibre. We would then have better
town in which to live.
"ONLY A FEW GENERATIONS
ago inter-dependence between agricul-
ture and industry was not in any way
as great as it is today" said Presi-
dent Roosevelt in his address before
the annual convention of the Amer
dean Farm Bureau Federation in Chi
cago, "but now your welfare depends
in part on what You in the country do
and in large part on what people do
in the cities as well. Your own ex-
perience of three and four years ago
doubtless brings all this vividly to
your minds. Because things in city
and country both got out of balance,
and purchasing power. had declined to
the point where people in the cities
did not have the money to buy farm
products and people on the farms did
not have the money to buy city pro-
ducts, the recovery program was a
many-sided one. The administration
and the Congress that took office in
March, 1888, recognized that the en-
Urgency they faced then came from
many causes and endangered the life
of many groups.
consequently it put the power of
government behind not only railroads
and banks but the industrial workers
of the country, the farmers, the small
home owners, the unemployed and the
young people who suffered from utter
lack of opportunity. 1t was a great
emergency and it required swift ac-
ton. Mistakes were inevitable, be-
cause it was new field.
"Justice and old fashioned common
sense demanded that in the building
up of purchasing power we had to
start with agriculture. What you
wanted and what you and have en-
deavored to achieve was to put an
end to the destructive forces that were
threatning American agriculture. We
sought to put stop to the rule OF
tooth and claw that threw farmers
into bankruptcy or turned them vir-
tually into serfs, forced them to let
their buildings, fences and machinery
deteriorate, made them rob their soil
of it's God-given fertility and deprived
their sons and daughters of decent
opportunity on the farm. To those
days 1 trust the organized power of
the nation has put an end forever.
81 say the orgomzed poyer of the
nation advisedly, because you and l
as Americans who still believe in our
republican form of constitutional gov
eminent know, as a simple fact, that
48 separate sovereign states, acting
each one as separate unit never
were able and never will be able to
administer individual laws adequately
to balance the agricultural life of a
nation so greatly dependent on ma
tionally grown crops of many kinds.
ct promised to do what I could. Let
the record say that relative purchas-
ing power Of below 80 per cent has
now moved up today to better than
80 per cent. The best available fig
ures show that farm income has in
creased nearly three billion dollars in
the past two and half years. This
buying power has been felt in many
lines of business; outstanding among
these is the farm equipment industry
in which employment jumped from n
per cent of the average in October,
1882, to 116 per cent in October 1885
In the motor car industry, which has
found some of its best markets on
farms and in small towns, over the
same three years employment has in
creased from AZ per cent to los per
cent. These simple figures show how
industrial development has been ben
Gifted by the improvement in the
farmers condition. Goods are NOV
ing, money is moving once more and
as it flows millions are getting big
ger share of the national income.
"There are individuals whose in
comes have not risen in proportion to
the rise in certain food prices; but at
the same time the total net income of
city jewellers is several billions higher
than in 1882 and l think you will agree
with me that bargain prices for food
in 1892 were little comfort to people
in cities with no income whatever"