Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-12-11
SPEAKER URGES
ADEQUATE LABOR
IN AGRICULTURE

American Farm Bureau federation.
demanded in an address before the
Montana Farm Bureau federation con-
vention at Helena recently that the
government Immediately make suffi-
dent help available to farmers to
enable them to keep food production
up and that 1t end Immediately its
present system Of paying subsidies to
encourage production.
In an address bristling With criti-
olsm Of various phases OF the admin
istration's handling of war and re-
lated problems. Blackburn told the
convention that continuation of the
subsidy plan would result in initiation.
He demanded that parity and ceiling
prices on foodstuffs be placed on the
same level and prices to consumers
permitted to rise. He said the national
income well could afford to pay higher
prices.
"The fact is" Blackburn declared,
that consumers have been spoiled by
low food prices. Many families never
have known what it is to pay fair
prices for food. In 1899 Henry A. Wal
lace then secretary of agriculture, said
in a congressional hearing that Ameri-
can farmers lacked two billion dollars
. year Of receiving parity prices Tor
their products. That being true, it fol-
lows that our farmers were substituting
consumers at q terrific rate. When
people get accustomed to a subsidy OF
any kind, they Away protest vocifer-
ously when the continuance OF that
subsidy is threatened"
He blamed the public,s complaints
about the high cost of living on the
fact that meat prices had risen
"spectacularly" since 1910 when they
have to pay more for meat, they for
get the low prices for other foods and
they complain about the high cost
Of living" he declared
Blackburn raped the governments
policy Of paying subsidies to keep re-
tail prices down, pointing out 1t was
costing the government 100000 a
month to keep the price Of milk down
In New York City alone. Il oppose
this because it is wrong in principle"
he said. Retail food prices are lower,
compared with factory workers in
come, than they have ever been, and
still the government steps in and pays
part Of the cost of their milk"
He said the theory of the subsidy
plan was to prevent initiation. Il Won
der why" he commented, "it Is con-
sidered less inflationary for the con-
sumer and the government to pay a
certain price for milk than it would
be for the consumer to, pay the en-
tire amount. The goveDhment is set
ting very bad preceS<at. in this case
it is certain that they (the public)
will demand continuation of the sub
sidy after the war when buying power
will be reduced Congress would find
it hard to resist such demands. This
DEVELOPMENT would hold grave
threat for farmers If they can't have
parity prices in the market place at
a time when food is cheap in relation
to income, what chance will they have
to get parity prices after the war
when earnings are certain to be
smaller?"
Regarding the exodus of farm
workers to industry and the armed
service, Blackburn declared:
Farmers and their wives and small
children can do lot but they posi-
lively cannot keep production up 10
present high levels if the army con-
tinues to take the best of the farm
boys and if Washington policies make
it impossible for farmers to pay wages
necessary to attract inferior labor to
replace the boys that have gone to
war"
"I am certain that, if farm prices
are held at parity or below, but In
dustrial wages are allowed to rise
generally, the result will be disas-
trous," Blackburn continued, because
parity itself automatically rises when
the cost Of manufactured goods is In
creased. And I don't believe price
ceilings on manufactured goods can
be maintained if the cost of the labor
that produces those goods is permitted
TO get out of hand"
In this connection, Blackburn
blistered the conduct of organized Ia
Dor in the war. He said the latest re-
port of the bureau of labor statistics
showed industrial workers were work
ing only 424 hours week. Il sub
nit" he said, "that this situation IS
a fragrant and unnecessary waste
of precious manpoWer and the re-
sponsibility for it is with the admin
istration itself . :. Farm people have
been working 60 and 10 hours week
all year. Why can't industrial labor
work 81 hours? They can and they
should.
TOO many labor leaders have seized
upon the war as an opportunity to
extend further their program OF
higher wages for less production and
too many starry-eyed theorists in the
administration are following a policy
of doing everything they can to pre-
serve the so-called social gains" of
recent years, regardless of its effect
on the war effort"
He also flayed the practice of pay
ing overtime wages on more than 40
hours work week, land when union
labor insists on these rates of pay
when our nation has its back to the
wall on many battlefronts, it brings
out as nothing else could the arbitrary
and strong arm methods that union
leadership uses to achieve its ends"
Blackburn quoted from an address
of Rear Admiral Ben Moreel at the
American Federation of Labor con-
vention in Toronto, Sept. 30, warm
ing that, unless organized labor
changes its attitude, it would mean
the end of unions in this country,