The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1950-04-05

| tNaA SoAiiCW t1IiC LIldt TIE u
! S. Government is aWfully mad al
a man who pulled fast caper In
| the potato subsidy deal and thai
they have preferred charges
against him. 1t seems that he
bought potatoes from the GOV.
ternment for penny or two {
bushel and then SOLD the spud.
back to the government for &
couple of bucks a bushel.
l guess he must have beer
Ereading about free enterprise
and figured that if the govern
ment had a right to go Juggling
spuds about the way they have
been doing, it would be safe fol-
him to do likewise.
The lads who figure out things
like subsidies really whomped
up a dilly in the matter OF
'taters. They bought up all they
could, thousands of tons of them,
at around three bucks a bushel,
more or less, and then sold them
to farmers dirt cheap, including
the sacks. Ore farmer sold $4,000
sacks for nickel apiece after
he'd resold the spuds at profit.
The idea was to keep the price
of potatoes up SO Mrs. House
wife would have to pay enough
for them to keep the farmers
happy and balance up the loss
the government took ON them,
which Mrs. Housewife, as a tax
payer. had t. pay in the first
place in addition to paying taxes
to pay the salaries of the experts
who thought up the scheme in
the second place, so the farmers
could afford to pay more taxes
IN the third place.
When l was a kid in the
second grade l would have been
tossed into kindergarten for try
ing to foist an arithmetic jig
saw like that off on my teacher
whose name was NETTIE RINE-
HART.
That kind of figuring involves
algebra, and perhaps calculus,
and by the time we got old
enough to funk algebra we
knew better than to sit about
buying spuds from farmers and
then giving them back SO the
farmers could sell thenf TO a
man in the next county,n who
probably hated potatoes any
how.
Besides, when I was in the
second grade, the little red
scheolhouse was smack dab in
the middle of farming country
and the farmers went about 1ais-
ing corn and potatoes and all
manner of stuff, including live
stock, and minded their own
business. When it got so that
potatoes weren't bringing a de-
cent price on the market those
poor, unedueated farmers would
raise something instead of pota-
toes the next season and the
matter would be nicely evened
up.
Recently the experts spent
billions on the potato subsidy. 1t
got so that potatoes were stack
ing up and about the land so
that even the farmers didn't
want to buy them. So the bright
boys bought some kerosene and
set fire to a few thousand tons
of spuds to save the cost of buy
ing toe-sacks.
Hot potatoesl
So now they are mad at a
farmer who sold the darn spuds
back to them. Which goes to
show that it is not a smart .caper
to copy the business methods OF
the government.
OF course, when I was. in sec
ond grade, farmers were still
under the impression that their
farm was their business and they
worked pretty hard at it. If a
city slicker had cut across the
south pasture and said, Look,
Hiram, we will give you four
hundred and seventy six dollars
and eighty six cents an acre not
to plant potatoes this year over
there on the north section" why
Hiram would have hotfooted
back to the barn for a shotgun
and a rope.
Nine billion bucks worth OF
spuds is an item of some signifi-
canoe to be booted about. es-
pecially since lads like Hiram