146 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 



ested in agriculture without reflecting somewhat upon the conditions 

 which prevail in that business. And agriculture is a business, a manufac- 

 turing business, if you please, and entitled to the same consideration that 

 ought to attach to any other business or industrial enterprise. We have 

 a great state here, an area I suppose that is unequalled anywhere in the 

 world for productiveness. Our soil is generous in the returns it makes to 

 our labor and we have always an abundance of those things which are 

 necessary to the comfort and happiness of the people. 



We have fallen upon perilous times in agriculture. We were to blame 

 for part of it ourselves. While the war was in progress everybody, far- 

 mers and all, became intoxicated with the insanity of extravagance. We 

 lost all our bearings, all our notions of economy and prudence and frugality. 

 If a farmer living in the country had a Ford car which answered every 

 function of his family and his neighbor bought a Cadillac, and the wife 

 of the first farmer said, "I don't intend to ride around in this old rattle- 

 trap when that neighbor of mine enjoys that handsome limousine." Well, 

 the farmer went down to the bank — hogs were $20 a hundred, corn $1.85 

 a bushel, — ^and he made an exchange of his serviceable Ford for a Cad- 

 illac and the banker kindly loaned him the difference with which to make 

 the transaction. Prices were as I said at that time, and after a while the 

 note matured, as all obligations have an unhappy faculty of doing, gen- 

 erally at the most inopportune time, so when the time came for this good 

 man and his good wife to pay, corn had dropped to forty-five cents and 

 pork to $7.50 a hundred. The case I have stated is typical of what trans- 

 spired all over Iowa. It is not confined to farmers but to every element 

 of our society and the consequence is we have discovered ourselves fallen 

 upon times when men who heretofore have been regarded as entirely 

 solvent now find extreme difllculty in commanding money to defray their 

 ordinary and regular expenses. 



What is to be done? That is the question that is engaging the attention 

 of every man who is now interested in our situation, because there can 

 be no permanent or acceptable prosperity in Iowa until the men who pro- 

 duce food commodities can market them on a profitable margin. Our agri- 

 culture is the basis and bottom of all our industrial activity of every 

 description. What can be done? We have lately had another agency 

 added to the financial machinery which has been installed to relieve the 

 situation. The War Finance Board — to start with I want to say that I 

 believe the bankers of Iowa have exhausted every resource possible to 

 relieve the situation as it has existed in our state. In my opinion they 

 have performed as patriotic a service in this emergency as they did during 

 the great world's war. But the truth is that all our reservoirs of credit 

 were exhausted and the banks of our state were not able to take care of 

 the vast mass of indebtedness which was maturing day after day. The 

 government has placed at the disposal of the farmers of the country a 

 billion dollars, and if that money could go direct from the government 

 to the farmer there would be very great relief, but I am persuaded to 

 believe with the restrictions which have been imposed will render im- 

 possible the relief of a great many farmers of this state who otherwise 

 might accept of it. I wish we had had the judgment in Iowa to embark 



