The Redwood gazette., 1936-12-31
THE, ,GAZETTE'S EDITORIAL AND FEATURE PACE
They're Learning

r. THROUGHOUT the early part of the de-
! preston the battlecry of the western
farmer was "give us fair price for
our products and our purchases will set in
dustry's wheel running again" The rural
sections are convinced that the low ebb to
which the cycle carried us would never have
been reached had the prices of farm goods
risen proportionately with manufactured
goods in the boom era.
Right now a great deal of stress is be-
ing laid on social security, particularly un-
employment insurance, as a depression buf-
fer but the farmer still feels, correctly, that
the best protection against another tumble
is maintenance of good prices for livestock
and grains.
1t is interesting, therefore, to find the
following article in the United States News,
paper of big business, indicating the increas-
ed consideration being given the farmers
place in the economic scheme of things.
Farmers will be able in 1887 to buy more
products of industry than at any time since
the years.
The official figures show that farm income
from all sources including use of products
grown on the farm, amounted to So, $50, 100000
during the past year.
These figures spell prosperity on the farms
of this country outside the drouth areas. They
reveal market broader, even, than in pre-de-
preston days when agriculture was not shar-
ing fully in the good times enjoyed by other
parts of the population
This fact, in turn, is reflected in record
breaking sales of automobiles in rural areas,
in rising farm machinery sales in growing in
terest shown by farmers toward rural electri-
fication, in all lines of consumption.
The amount of farm income received in
i,, fLn Ercf i,cfa
the poverty or well-being of the 25 per cent of
Americas population living on farms
From the farmers it passes to the further
20 per cent of the population located in the
villages and towns of the rural areas of the
United States. large part of the people in
this group depend for their livelihood on serv-
ices rendered to farmers in connection with
trade, local government, the professions, edu-
cation and so forth-services whose continu-
ance depends on farmers capacity to pay.
Workers in factories, especially factories
making goods that farmers buy, depend Tor
their employment upon the continuance of
farm orders. The stability of the credit struc-
ture of the country, of the banks, life insurance
companies, and other investing agencies is
similarly related to the financial soundness of
the farm
That soundness, officials now testify, is re-
fected in the income figures of 1886 and the
prospective income figures for 1887. The i'm
provement in the year just ending made
in the face of the second most disastrous drouth
in the country's history.
Further point is being made of the fact
that increased net income for farmers repre-
sents more in terms of consumption than a
similar increase of income for city workers
means. The reason is that higher income for
agriculture becomes translated gradually into
greater credit resources based on higher land
value. There is broad base on which to rest
whatever financing may be necessary to bring
improvements in farm homes, or to build up
the farm plant or to invest in machinery on
an installment payment basis
For that reason government officials ex-
pect that industries doing business with
farmers will have a busy year in 1887