The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1941-03-19

| The Voice agrees or disagrees with
/ mitted for this department should
| cussed to some degree at least, OF
Custer, Mont, March 2, 1916
The People Voice,
| For some time, | have noticed thai
in the publications that have spaces
which allow the readers to express
few farmers using this space to ex
press their dissatisfaction with the
National program in relation to their
farm interests and justly so.
The farm problem or | may say
the farmers problems are the prob
lens of all citizens of nation be-
cause nations can't exist without farm
ers. But farmers can exist with ma
lions otherwise we wouldn't be here
today.
Take the Americas for instance and
go back some 600 years, the area
of the United States wasn't nation
but just a vast tract of land inhabited
by 1907 agricultural people, of course
they had sort of clan government
dependent upon leaders and did some
barter trading among themselves with
commodities. There was lot of
things they didn't have and there was
a lot of things they didn't need, as
in comparison to our present day
standards, but they did exist as peo-
pie and liked their mode and standard
of living, and their span of life was
on par with ours, though theirs
may have seemed shorter.
Today we find the area of this vast
tract of land the area of the United
States and a political nation inhab-
tied by different people and divided
by some dozen or more political par
ties consisting of some 1870 millions
of people but about the same number
of agricultural inhabitants as there
were some 500 years ago.
The result of this whole thing is
900 years ago the agricultural people
only fed and clothed themselves to-
day each of the producing agricul-
turists must feed and cloth some 81
persons besides himself and those 81
persons are being fed, clothed, housed
and transported, in a manner far be-
yond what this farmer can have for
himself
Now it appears to me that, if those
81 persons understood this situation,
they would be very much concerned
about the economic position and abil-
Ity of this agriculturist, upon whom
they are dependent
But the fact of the matter is that
this great mass of people are so di-
vided by class and again sub-divided
by politics that they lose sight OF
the one most important factor. The
factor responsible for their existence.
What this nation needs and will
some day have is national agricul-
tural program that will see to it that,
all farms are economic units of a
family size Now that don't mean
family sized farm when farm com
modify prices are favorably high and
a non-family sized farm when prices
are unfavorably low. But family
sized farm with a commodity price
fixed, or flexible SO that it stays at
q certain point in relation to farm
net income governed by what the
farmer must pay for manufactured
so that he can retain
producing position.
In our county yellowstone we
nave 5-acre tracts that are as much |
If an economic unit or family sized |
arm as 6, or 10 sections of land |
IN other of the county. The com
produced from those two diff |
.erent units are not the same, nor
could one produce what the other
loes. But the dependent people must
lave the commodity produced by |
both.
Space doesn't permit for a long
lrawn out discussion in relationship
between producer and consumer. But
am merely trying to remind the peo-
lie that there is a relation and that
citation is of vastly more Importance
han most people think. The agricul-
ural people can exist without con
tuners (they did before) but consum-
rs can't exist without agricultural
producers, and the ratio
s about 81 to l.
The sad part of all is, that quite
majority of those 81 dependent per-
ons still think we farmers are just,
Hay Rubes."
Yours very considerate,
G. S. HORTON.