The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1942-10-22
British Plan Advocated
To Solve Farm Problem
Shortage of Labor in Agriculture Remedied
BY England Through Job Priority Decree;
Essential Farming Gets Preference.
BY BAUKHAGE
Nerps analyst and Commentator.

fGu SOItNbcgttuIOS.
But we have to meet it. And we
will. Before the year is out man.
power for civilian service will be
drafted. as manpower for military
service is.
What, the farmer asks. is to be
done in the interim?
The Voluntary Method
First. the voluntary method. the
way the British began. There are
a number Of things to consider. Sec
rotary Wickard says that the great
est reservoir of farm managerial
and labor power lies in the people
already with farm experience, who
r not farming efficiently.
There are two million farm fami-
lies Che says) working land which
won't produce enough to keep them
decently, much less help the food
for freedom program. Wickard says
we have the money and the ma
chinery to move them. The Farm
Security administration has been do
ing it to some degree. They can
do more. I know that about l25
men from Kentucky recently were
sent to New York state to pick ap-
Piles. The government paid their
way.
Another factor is women-more
women r coming into the field.
The old tradition that women
shouldn't work in the fields is break
ing down. One farmer said to me:
"A lot of women can run tractors.
I'd rather have a woman who knows
how to run my tractor than a man
I don't know. These women are
careful and they are just Dustin
themselves to make good"
Secretary Wickard hates drafted
labor and any farmer knows why.
AS one farmer put it: Il don't want
a mar on my farm who doesn't
want to work on a farm. He'll break
up more than he's worth"
Potential Farm Labor
But the secretary says that there
Is another reservoir Of potential
farm labor made up Of men and
boys with farm experience who are
doing non-essential work now.
Now why. the farmer asks,
haven't the smart people in the gov
eminent ~foreseen all this and pre-
pared for it? Why did they ask US
to raise all these tomatoes when
they ought to have known that we
couldn't get the help to pick them?
Well, nobody in America has had
the experience Of total a We
have as big an army now as we had
at the time Of the Armistice. The
army is way ahead Of the schedule
we thought they could make. And
it takes a lot more men in industry
and on the farm to run an army, q
modern army. than it did an army
that size in 1918.
We never believed that this coun-
try could house and equip an army
as fast as the job has been done.
The calls Of the draft we're heavier
and more rapid than any expert ex-
pected. But don't blame the Selec.
tive Service system for robbing the
labor market. They did what the
doctor ordered. Some Of the others
didn't fall in line.
War Man poxper
I talked with a member of Gen.
eral Hershey's staff. I can't quote
him officially but this is what he
said to me privately and what he
would say to you: Listen to these
figures: In some Of the middle
western states for every one man
who has been drafted. II have gone
into industry or enlisted in the army,
navy or marines. The figures over
the country as a whole show that
out of every hundred men who have
left the farm only is yer taken by
the local draft boards. In the dairy
industry in California, it was shown
81 per cent left their jobs to take
higher paid ones in the same indus
try and 80 per cent went into other
industries or enlisted"
That is a cross-section Of the man.
power problem. America has VOL
unteered nobly. But, alas, volun-
tary service is not the wisest in war
time. We have one goal; we must
reach that with balanced action. To
obtain that, a most careful and COM
plicated plan must be worked out.
1t hasn't been worked out yet be-
cause there is no man in Washing
ton from the highest to the lowest
who a do it alone. 1t takes a lot
of study, and then unified action.
That is coming. And it will come
slowly, as they told me when I was
a boy, like sucking sugar through a
rag.