Milford chronicle., 1955-10-21
THE FARMERS, PROBLEM


and Republican leaders have acknowledged
that it is a problem to which they are giving
intensive attention. The political war will be
largely fought over the issue of high rigid
farm price supports, as urged by the Demo-
Gratis, versus the flexible support plan intro
duced by Secretary Benson and adopted by
the Republican policy makers.
AS with all political imbrOgliOs, the ora
tory tends to generate more heat than light.
So an objective look at the overall agricul-
tural picture is in order.
First of all, the basic economic structure
on which the nations farm structure rests
certainly seems solid. Agricultural assets
are estimated at $163, 100000, including
real estate, cash and investments, and other
property. Farm debt, by contrast, is only
about S1S,000,000,00 Reports from rural
areas indicate that farmers are still buying
machinery automobiles, and other cOmmOd-
tiles on big scale.
Over the years, the farmers relative pO-
sition has greatly improved. In 1915, accord
ling to a Nations Business account, the aV-
Ierage farmer made only SO per cent of the
income of the average non-farmer. By 1854
the ratio had risen to 81 per cent. II is still
increasing. And, of course, farmers get ad-
ditional benefits in the form OF things they
raise and consume themselves.
Coming down to the immediate present,
Time magazine has succinctly summed up
and analyzed the farm problem. 1t cites facts
and figures, some of which are gloomy. Yet,
Time finds, the picture is not as bad as it is
painted-and "the price and parity statistics
do not tell the whole story"
One thing that is often overlooked is that
farmers incomes shot up much faster and
farther than those of other groups during
World War III and ensuing years., According
to Time the per capita jump was almost 300
per cent from 1889 through 1851, as COM
pared with IT'S per cent for non-farm in
comes. Furthermore, Time says, "HistOri-
caly, farm prices have plummeted at least
SO per cent after a war; in the years since
the Korea peak, the drop has been only 21
per cent" And the drop in per capital farm
income has been much less-Only five per
cent-due to the fact that the farm pOpula-
tiOn has heavily declined. TONquote Time
again. Farmers who remain have bigger
farms, run them more efficiently and are
earning enough money to expand still more.
Time marshals some other gratifying
facts and opinions, mostly from official gov
ernment sources. Farm land prices are ris
ing. So are farmers assets, which now aver
age about $4,000 family. And the Depart
ment of Agriculture predicts that farm prices
have reached bottom, and that there will be
little further decline this year.
AS for the price support issue, no one
knows what the ultimate solution will be-.
But one thing is sure-the cost to the tax
payers, a classification which includes farm
ers along with everyone else, is enormous.
The government spent So, 100, 100000, a new
high, in supporting these prices in the last
fiscal year alone. And the total expenditure
in crop buying and loans has reached ST.
000,000,000.
TWO KINDS OF CAPITALISM
Capitalism is not the same the world
That point was made by The Exchange
magazine, a publication of the New York
Stock Exchange, in this significant para
graph: European capitalism and American
capitalism are in many respects two entirely
different economic systems. American cap
italism-with it's inSistence on broad dis
closure of corporate affairs, it's emphasis
on widespread direct ownership Of industry
by people in every income bracket, its en-
couragement of stakeholder control of indi-
vidual Enterprises roughly decades ahead
of European capitalism"
In most other countries, person OF mod
crate means who owns shares in corporate
business is very much the exception. That
is no longer the case here. Many millions of
Americans are shareowners in American bus
/ iness-and the majority of them have aver
age incomes. Their number is rapidly grow
! ing and the base of corporate ownership
steadily broadens.
This brings up a question of semantics.
Historically "public ownership of business
! is government ownership-that is, social
ism But in the United States we are de-
velOping an entirely different kind of public
ownership it is based on the philo-
sophy of democratic capitalism, under which
people voluntarily put a part of their saw
ings into the shares of enterprises in whose
future they have confidence. This is one of
the greatest possible bulwarks against social
ism or any other freedom-destrOyin system
in which the government is the master and
the people the servants. The security ex-
changes, whose services are available to ev-
eryOne, are symbols of this country's unique
variety of capitalism.
5000
ROCKING THE TAXPAYERS
According to newspaper stepies, IVA is
credited with estimating that purchasers Of
"a =