78 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 



for more than an hour. Her talk was crammed full of good sense and 

 happy witticisms. So good was the impression she made that Presi- 

 dent Howard, of the American federation, invited her to speak at the 

 annual convention at Atlanta, Ga., in November. 



"Some of you may wonder," she said, in opening, '"why I, an ordinary 

 farm women, should be on the program to talk to you today. I only 

 want to say that I am one of those women who always have something 

 to say!" She clinched this with an Irvin Cobb story which originated 

 at Oskaloosa, in her home county last winter. The famous humorist 

 had just concluded a lecture there when a lady rushed up to him and 

 said: "Pardon me, Mr. Cobb, but is it true that you men prefer the 

 talkative woman to — ah — the other kind?" Cobb rubbed his chin re- 

 flectively a moment and drawled: "Ah — which other kind?" 



Mrs. Richardson sketched the part woman has always played in the 

 farm movement from the day the prairie schooner set out into the 

 Great West in the uncertain search for a home and a hearth; from the 

 time little graves were made by the side of the trail in the unknown 

 land, and on grimly towards the setting sun until the goal had been 

 reached; then came the establishment of the farm in the wilderness, 

 the building of homes and their development — with the woman stand- 

 ing by the side of the man and playing her full part, doing her full 

 share. "And she has continued to play her full part down to this very 

 hour," Mrs. Richardson added, pointing out the part farm women had 

 in winning the war. 



John W. Coverdale, secretary of the American Farm Bureau Feder- 

 ation, opened the afternoon session. He dealt largely with the problems 

 confronting the farm bureau as a whole, setting out the fact that all 

 depended upon the measure in which the township organization was 

 kept alive and functioning. 



He thought four things were necessary to restore the farmer's buy- 

 ing power, and stated that they were the chief concern at the present 

 time of the American federation: (1) Marketing, (2) finance, (3) in- 

 formation, and (4) legislation. "The farm bureau should not go into 

 the mercantile business," he said, "for the purpose of putting anyone 

 out of business. The farmer must commercialize his products so that 

 they can be sold." 



J. R. Howard, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, was 

 also present and made the main address of the day. Mr. Howard also 

 touched upon the economic condition of American agriculture and the 

 mission of the farm bureau. "Mistakes have been made by the farm 

 bureau," he said, "'I am frank to admit, but they have been mistakes 

 of the head rather than of the heart." 



He condemned the deflation program inaugurated a year ago as hav- 

 ing been shortsighted and ruinous. "The European banker outwitted 

 the American banker in not deflating their currency," he said. "As a 

 result, the European peoples are paying off their debts in the very same 

 money that they contracted them in, while we are paying our debts 

 in a deflated dollar." 



The transportation question he characterized as one of the "'big' 

 questions confronting the farmer. "When we have a surpitis we must 



