The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1936-09-21
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
THE PERILs OF DEPENDENCY

| Businessmen politicians of all faiths, and even
Tho itinerant casual observer are now able to get
little clearer view of the posed problem OF the
farmer than earlier in the or during the last
two or three years. have had ever since the peo-
nile began to read and hear much of Mr. secretary
Wallace's restrictive agricultural program the
,.o,,o suspicon that there was something artificial
about it ALL continued era of low prices ana poor
markets for the products of the land had it is quite
true made million farmers and the wives OF farm
ers susceptible to the suggestion that only polltl-
cal doctor could improve or relieve their dlstreSSeS
as diagnosed by experts in Washington
Now they are discovering, unless my oDserVa-
tions are amiss like many others who have endured
somewhat similar experiences that they would have
been far better off had the expert with no diploma
and without a record of any previous past success
fuI performances, kept away. Into these Middle
Western cities there has come, opportunely per-
haps an authenticated official record of the volume
If farm products corn, meats and other commodl-
ties usually produced in abundance on home tarms'
imported from foreign or neighboring countries
during the last years. The people out here are
studying these charts and tables and have come 10
the realization that they could have supphed all
these commodities and more, at reasonable prices
and at living profit, had not the federal authori-
ties destroyed millions of little pigs, driven hefoS
of cattle to canning and soap factories and induced
the blowing under of vast areas of growing crops
But more important and more significant than
this is the dawning realization that despite the I'M
position of these un-Amercan economic policies,
and despite the difficult experiences of this re-
cent years. the vast majority of western farmers
are far from being dependent upon financial aid
from paternastic government In Kansas, day
or two ago, the fact disclosed that the admin
strators of government drouth relief funds are nav
ing some difficulty in finding those willing to accept
proffered aid In one county the dispensers OF tnls
bounty were informed that relief for one hundred
farm families had been apportioned for immediate
distribution But they protested that only Is were
in need According to reports easily Verlhed, they
were ordered to produce, soon as possible SUI
ticient number to absorb the funds available
This means if the orders are carried out, that IS
additional benefciaries will be required to testify
under oath that they are in dire need and that the
money furnished is necessary if they are to be pro-
tected against foreclosure and their families are TO
be housed and fed during the coming winter
1t is vain, perhaps, to attempt to appraise the
probable effect of such practices as these, either
upon the recipients of benign governments
largess. or upon the government itself. But it is
my impression that already there is being mani
tested, even among those who have been persuaded
to Join the army of dependents, determination to
assert their heritage of economic Independence
There remains dominant the American spirit of de-
termination of initiative, of self-sufficency. The
prairie farmer declines the invitation to become the
ward of his remote neighbors, or to be CLASSIFIED as
a pawn in a political game which he is just now
beginning to understand.
Even the dispensers of government bounty IN
some of the centers of the Pacific coast states
where asylum has been sought by those who have
lost or deserted their homes elsewhere, it is report
ed, are finding difficulty in keeping their rolls of
dependents filled to the prescribed quotas. Case
workers nurses and supervisors, facing the posi-
bihty of being dismissed the need diminshes, are
said to be conducting an intensive canvass among
prospective dependents in an effort to hold their
jobs
This doesn't sound like America. Certainly it
isn't America.-Frank L. Perrin in Christian Sci
ence Monitor, written from Kansas City.