The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1941-10-29

Farmers Union should adopt a policy
or an objective which says in effec
that every farm family tilling the sol
shall have a decent standard of living
whether that family is a family o.
agricultural workers or tenants OF
farm owners. This of course would
involve the establishment of minimum
wages for agricultural workers. Di
recting earnings away from capitalize
ton of land would involve such things
as minimum rural housing standards
and the elimination of Triple-A bene-
fit payments predicated upon acreage
ownership.
| At the present time one who owns
10000 acres of land receives ten times
as much from Triple-A as one who
owns 1000 acres and one who owns
100 acres receives only one percent
of the amount which is received by
the person owning 10000 acres. Such
an arrangement puts property above
people-money above men.
To get away from speculative land
values and to set up trend toward
breaking up large land holdings, we
should adopt and work in every state
for graduated land tax system which
levies progressively higher taxes
against units in excess of sound fam
lily type farms. l suggested recently
that we determine minimum amount
of income necessary to decently main
tain farm family and then tax all
income above that on progressive
basis for three purposes:
(a) To aid the defense effort.
OBJ To create reserve to retire farm
debt on the particular farm in
volved, and
(c) To discourage production above
amounts normally produced under
family type of farming.
sincerely believe that we should
seek the adoption of homestead ex-
emption laws which would exempt
family type farms and workers homes
in the city from property taxes
One day we must establish and use
the right of public domain in order to
secure the subdivision of large land
holdings into family type farms. Ma
turally it would be necessary to COM
pensate owners of such large holdings
but the land should be paid for on the
basis of the use value or production
value of the land.
8. 1t is futile to adope detectives
and to set up mechanisms such as
the Farm Security Administration If
we are not going to have the distribu-
ton of all federal benefit payments
and subsidies made in way which
will encourage and help family type
farming. In this connection it seems
to me that we in the Farmers Union |
should demand minimum annual bene-
fit payments to families tilling the |
soil of not less than $500, provided, |
farm unit and devotes full time to |
efficient farming.
A. We are not moving nearly rapid
y enough in the tenant purchase pro-
gram The rate of wreckage outruns |
he present rate of repair. We should |
SCI do Jul ODJSCIiFo LIE T0uuCIlOu Ol |
farm tenants in the United States |
rom the present figure of about g.
100000 to not more than 100000 |
Turing the next rs years. To do this
he present tenant purchase program
would have to be enlarged to where
We converted tenants at the rate of
lbout so to 60 thousand per year net.
5. We in the Farmers Union, since
We aren't going to succeed in having
III OF those who are now tenants be-
.ome owners in the next 25 years,
hould very definitely adopt the prin-
iple of long-term written leases and
hould fight for state and federal leg
Station along the line. Naturally such
eases would have to safeguard the