The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1943-09-24
Bankers Assn
Continued from Page One)

: groups of farmers discuss your selfisl
: proposals, Mr.. Virgins, they ar,
: neither affrighted nor dismayed there
: by-they are just made grim. You
are indeed right, the Pea system il
of established permanency and, thanks
to your resounding threat, it is grow
ing fast in the farmers minds ant
hearts, and also in their usage of the
system.
And in the farmers determination
the pattern of normal farm credit
will remain cooperative. 1t will dc
so, because through his cooperative
the American farmer can go with the
American banker or with any other
man of big business into any money
market and he does not need to twist
his cap or shift his weight while Mr.
Big Business is served, because he,
now, in his cooperative capacity has
himself become big business and in
moneys marbled marts, he gets serv-
ice with smile equal to that of the
most favored customer. That is, as
we deem it, good Americanism, too
good for congress to throw out of the
window.
You assume, Mr.. Virgins, to sound
the trumpet for free enterprise" so
| have scanned your paragraphs to
learn what that noble phrase means
to you. Under it, you seem to think
that you bankers have some sacred
chartered right, which you seek to
makt exclusively your own to finance
agriculture and to finance it on terms
and at rates of interest acceptably
profitable to the ABA Under your
conception of free enterprise, you
would virtually create for yourselves
monopoly on farm credit, you would
create a mighty funnel, as you, with
predatory instinct, picture it, to direct
all reservoired wealth through the
narrow orifice of your private credit
structure" where your take" could
be facile, certain and generous. Your
metaphor of the funnel is perfect, |
congratulate you upon it, but how
dare you employ it in the name of
free enterprise?"
II any industry upon American soil
merits complete freedom of enter
prise, it is agriculture-our nations
basic activity. Any enthrallment here
is shackle and impeachment upon
our national progress. You would not
presume to make the suggestion to
deprive our farmers of the nipple
ments of their occupation whereby
they feed our people as no people on
earth were ever fed before, besides
supplying surplus for all the tables
OF mankind. We farmers glory in
our tools and demand the best and
most efficient implements that skill
and genius can devise, but among
them all, no tool is more important
and indispensable to our efficiency
tool shaped specially for our needs,
as vital to our seasonal production as
is our harvester or plough. The same
ingenuity and handicraft that has pro-
duced the binder and cotton picker
has shaped our PCA's-the farmers
credit tool, the farmers achievement
in the field of finance, his very own
product, in the exercise of free enter
prise. Then how dare you, in the
name of free enterprise, invade our
premises and try to sabotage the
TOOLS our own free enterprise has
wrought and leave us in their place |
only the bankers cast off funnel by
which your rapacity is fifty emblem
lied?
We farmers know all about that |
now rejected funnel. We have def |
nitely rejected the funnel model of |
farm financing. Our cooperative sys-
tenn of farm finance permits no fun
neling of reservoired money through |
the banks, and we, peas, too are fed
orally chartered loaning agencies, and
as such have rights of accesses in
ferior to no bank, to all reservoirs
of investment funds whatsoever.
So when with philanthropic ardor,
you bankers sit down to write that
fair sound" need-meeting program
that is to command the support of
American farmers, / beg of you to
leave out the funnel, it just will not
TAXI with us farmers-not after our
satisfactory experience with the Pea.
And now let us give attention to
the matter of this subsidy, which to
you is such monstrous injustice and
and so subversive to free
enterprise (for the banks). l really
marvel, Mr.. Virgins, that you have
chosen this particular ground on
which to make your attack on the
PCA-a man so prominent in the
banking world must surely know the
'acts. You know the plight of both
banks and agriculture only 10 short
years ago. 1t was the worst OF num-
erous similar experiences of disaster
when both were in the pit of finan-
,ial chaos together-when the banks
could neither help themselves nor
agriculture. That recurring situation
s evidence, important now to be re-
rendered, of the banks utter inabil-
ty to finance agriculture with safety
% the nations basic business.
In their helplessness both the farm
sr and the banker called out to Uncle
sam for help. He gave the farmer
;120,000000 with which to build the
peas into a system of Farm Credit
of the banks, so that
agriculture would not pull the banks
nto the hole nor the banks pull agri-
culture into the hole. Both unfortun-
ties saw it that way then and re-
DICED together in this wise and time h