The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1942-10-08
RIDING
AT ANCHOR
MIR. MODESTUS


Whose farmers lobby?
There's about million farms in
U.S.A.-
Ten per cent of these control over
One-half of total farm acreage
In 1880, one-half of total number Of
farms
Produced So per cent of marketable
farm products
Fifty per cent of farms produced
only 10 per cent of marketable prod
uctS-
Now, which bunch of these Ameri-
can farmers, do you suppose
Is raising this enormous howl about
rising wages for farm hands?
x X X
Farm mortgages were foreclosed-
In deep Depression days, by whole
sale
Impossible to sell those farms back,
on good mortgages
So, insurance and finance companies,
wishing to farm farms, this time
Instead of farming poor farmers
Organized farm corporations, which
took over farms
Organized farms ON large scale, with
modern machinery
About 100000 farms now have up
wards of 1000 acres each
They don't hire farm hands,; they
employ agricultural experts
These hunt for experienced farm
machine operators
Former farm lands become grain,
fodder, cattle factories
Back of them, insisting on farm
dividends
Stand finance companies, owning
farm corporation shares
These are the noisy guys
Who want prices of farm products
raised
In proportion to increase in farm
hands wages
But labor cost per bushel or per ton
does not Increase
In same ratio as increase in wages
per day of farm labor
Any more than 10 per cent increase
Of cotton mill wages
Increases cost of cloth production
by same amount.
x X X
Down-trOdden farmers
Doing farm labor, with wives and
children
VIII get small slice of any increase
in farm prices
But big hunk of increased profits
will go to farm corporations
With increased prices on farm prod
uctS-
In 1870 our rural population was
about 95 per cent of the whole
1t had to be: farmers produced just
about enough for their own families
In 1920 farmers produced enough to
furnish four other people
Then came steel ploughs, harvesting
machines
by 1920, farmers could raise enough
for eleven other people
Because Mccormick started making
farm machines on big scale
In 1917 he made 800 reapers in one
year!
His successors do even better than
that, now
But the little farmer today, is still
back in the 10Th century
Twenty-Five per cent of them still
nave no tractors
They are still close to The Man
with the Hoe
And, they don't employ any farm
lobbies.
These farm lobbyists
They are not poor men, with cal
louSes on their hands
They talk on familiar terms with
Millionaire Senators
OF whom there are still quite Il
number
Most of whom, also, know more
stock
Factory farms, fruit factories, with
thousands of acres nch--
Garden farms, operated with traC-
tors, trucks, seasonal labor
Beet sugar farms, corn farms,
wheat farms, cattle ranches
Where hand labor has almost dis
appeared
Where mechanics do almost every
thing, from plOwing To milking COWS
These furnish the great streams of
farm products of America, today
But they are owned and operated, to
"A great extent, by corporations
And these people can afford, and
they do employ, farm Hobbies
Which are just the same as other
corporation lobbieS-
knowing which, President Roosevelt
is not excited, about farm labor"