REPORT OF IOWA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION 397 



War and that now tlie}^ must take tlie consequences of the depression. 

 That is a superficial view, it is a fallacy. I grant that during the war, 

 measured in money — mark what I say, if you please! During the war, 

 measured in money, the prices of farm products were high, but measured 

 in things that the farmer had to buy they were not relatively high. Dur- 

 ing that great period of strain, while the manpower on the farms was de- 

 preciated 45 per cent because the patriotic boys in agriculture went to 

 war, while it was depreciated 45 per cent, under the injunction of work 

 and produce, we increased the production more than 29 per cent — a mag- 

 nificent tribute to the fidelity and patriotism of the men and women en- 

 gaged in agriculture in our state. Now we have fallen upon perilous 

 times. Taxes are inordinately high. I got a letter from an old man the 

 other day. It is not a singular letter; it is a typical letter. He said that 

 thirty-five years ago he and his young wife went out to one of the counties 

 of northern Iowa — everything was a wild prairie, no telephones, no rail- 

 roads, no electric light plants, no rural mail delivery, nothing but a vast 

 expanse of unimproved country. They bought a little piece of land there 

 and settled, he and his wife. After a while a baby came. They bought 

 more land, and then another baby came, and then another and another — 

 five in all, and he acquired a modest competence because of his integrity 

 and frugality throughout the thirty-five years. As the children grew up he 

 gave them an education, and one by one they married and left, and finally 

 the old man and lady found themselves possessed of 208 acres of land as 

 they approached the twilight of life. Active operation of the farm was 

 impossible for them s*o they concluded to rent their farm and enjoy the 

 proceeds for the remainder of their days. They rented it for five dollars 

 an acre. The farm lay within a consolidated school district and within the 

 zone affected by one of these great highways that had been improved, and 

 while his rent was five dollars an acre, his taxes were five dollars an acre 

 also, and he asked me what he should do. 



Well, there wasn't anything for him to do excepting impair the principal 

 that he has been for thirty-five years laborously assembling. That man 

 had made all the contribution to society that any man should be asked to 

 make. He had devoted a lifetime to developing a farm; he had estab- 

 lished a home; he had supported a church; he had reared up a family of 

 splendid citizens for our country, and he comes now after all these years 

 to a time when his property will not yield him revenue sufficient to pro- 

 vide for his simple and frugal wants. That is simply a typical case. Our 

 taxes have grown to be an inordinate burden upon our people, and they 

 must be reduced. 



We have got to have different principles from those we have heretofore 

 accepted. During the war we became intoxicated with the insanity of 

 extravagance, and that applies to you men and women who sit before me 

 as well, — in the nation, in the state, in the county, in the school district, 

 and in the individual. 



We have 480,000 automobiles in this state. I estimate that on an aver- 

 age $100 a year is spent on each for useless traveling, joy-riding, visiting 

 that we might better devote to the reading of good books. That means 

 approximately 50 million dollars annually that might be saved with proper 



