Evening star., 1936-01-17

Inc 1mpl1catlOn was CnaC some WICKED
middle man would pay it. The house
wife rebelled at this more abundant
life. One result of 1t was that the
consumption of food in 1885 fell below
the worst year, 1882, by the product
of over $4,000, 900 acres.
Exports Have Decreased
Since Worst" of 1888.
We may explore what these New
Deal principles did to our export and
import market. You will remember
that 1892 was the year when ut could
not be worse" So we will take that
worst year and compare 1t with the
New Deal year Of 1885. From that
worst year exports Of cotton have de-
creased 4,250,000 bales; our grain
90 ,000, 900 bushels; our animal prod
ucts by 50O,0O0,000 pounds. This is
estimated to be the product Of about
0.000,0 900 acres. But, worse than
that, this greatest producing
country on earth has imported this
year about 100,000.000 bushels of
grain, 100000, 900 pounds Of animal
products, and increased its imports Of
vegetable oils to be used as substitutes
by another 700,000,000 pounds. 1t
would take another probable 15,000,-
900 acres to produce these imports.
The Secretary Of Agriculture says
America must choose one of three
courses in foreign trade. The three
are various degrees of the theory of
industrial te IL, kat
the American farmer may sell more to
foreign countries. But what he pro-
duced was q fourth choice: that is,
to give the foreign farmer the Ameri-
can farmers market.
From all this decrease In home con-
sumption and shift in foreign trade
the farmer has lost the market for
more acres than the whole New Deal
curtailment of 50,00O,000 fertile acres
Is that not the principle Of the
economic dog chasing his tail?
On January 10 President Roosevelt
declared himself in opposition to
shipping our soil fertility to foreign
nations" The logical conclusion of
all that is to stop exports altogether.
There Is futility here somewhere. The
idea is that We encourage imports
Of industrial products and create un-
employment at home. We are told
We must do this IN order that the
farmer may export his products. Now
We are told that 1t Is not to our ad-
vantage to export farm products at
all. He overlooks the fact that we
can manufacture synthetic fertilizers
to any amount necessary to cover ex-
port Of soil fertility
In May, 1882, when I vetoed bill
for reciprocal tariff treaties, 1 stated
that most Of such treaties would sac
rifice the American farmer. The New
Deal method in testing poison is ap-
parently to make the Nation swallow
it. BY just these reciprocal treaties,
the American market is today being
opened to farmers Of Cuba, Canada,
Spain and Italy. Yet under these
principles farmers are told they must
allow fertile acres TO be idle because
there is no market for their products.
1t is very confusing The economic
dog whirls even faster under this
stimulus.
Coercion Increases a.
Checks Grow Fewer.
We must explore as to where We get
to when we start controlling crops.
This principle of scarcity gets scarcer
and scarcer. The moment one farm
product was regimented, another had
to be modified to prevent the farmers
energy from going into that. So we
marched from seven controlled COM
modities in May, 1888, to five more in
| April, 1884, another In May. 1884, and
finally We come to potatoes in 1885.
Moreover, these measures are moving
steadily to more and more coercion
and less rain Of checks-as witness the
cotton and potato acts. AS I read
further and further into the $3.50
verboten words Of the potato law, I
realize that one OF the impulses to
cheerfulness was about to be mashed
out Of American life. The potato had
yielded not only food, but it had
radiated humor to our daily converSa-
ton. 1t was once the happiest of all
vegetables. Its life would have been
saddened by the bootlegger. the pas
sive resister, and the Federal inSpec-
tors. Confined to a package by law,
its eyes would have been dimmed by
the alphabetical revenue stamps 1t
must bear.
One of the assured principles Of
New Deal farming is politics. One
| would think in the thunders OF ideal
ism that have accompanied planned
agriculture 1t would be clean of politics.
have but one comment. That is to
read two lines from letter hold,
written by a high officer in the A. A. A.
scientific work for the farmer and
who was accepted for appointment in
that service. 1t says, 1t will
be necessary for you) to secure politi-
cal clearance, which means a letter
Of approval from the Democratic
National Committee in California"
The Department of Agriculture was
wholly under merit service before this
sort of idealists got it. The execution
of these principles required 10000
part or full-time Federal officials.
Their pay was assessed against the
farmers. This new breed of middle
men every day tried hard to bring
agriculture into balance with politics.
Unemployment Created
BY Crop Control.
We may explore the effect Of this
economy by scarcity and crop control
upon employment. For instance, the
reduction of cotton by 10000. 900 acres
is producing hideous poverty in the
share croppers of the South. 1t is
creating unemployment all over the
Nation of some hundreds of thousands
of agricultural laborers. railway men
and others who formerly lived by pro-
ducing and handling the 100000
tons of agricultural products that
could come from the acres forced into
idleness.
And above all other consequences
the whole notion of regimenting the
farmer under bureaucracy was the
f,sk