TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 157 



corn enough out of our state to plant our corn crop in 1917. There was 

 demonstrated to us that that was a piece of work that guaranteed the 

 establishment firmly of the farm bureau movement in this state. Then 

 we went in further during the war period and found that there was a 

 scarcity of labor. Over 100,000 of our boys were called into the army 

 and navy and munition works and out of the fields of agriculture. We 

 saw as we got into July that we were to have a bountiful corn crop, or 

 at least the indications were along that line, and all at once those hot 

 winds from Kansas came through southwestern Iowa and commenced to 

 burn up our corn crop. What was the result? There again the farm 

 bureaus, through its exchange, furnished lists throughout the various 

 counties of the state of the products that they wanted to buy, and it was 

 not long until large groups of men were going into southwestern Iowa 

 and picking up live stock by the trainload. It was necessary for south- 

 western Iowa to change that situation, they were in serious circum- 

 stances, they were in danger of losing their stocks, because they were 

 without feed, but the tide turned, and through farmer exchanges of north- 

 eastern Iowa they began to move hay and corn and straw into southwest- 

 ern Iowa, in some counties over 400 carloads of corn were moved, in order 

 to save this live stock. And I want to say to you that the farm bureau 

 as a clearing house has rendered itself serviceable to the people of the 

 state of Iowa to such an extent that it is now in every county in the state 

 of Iowa and they couldn't be without it. 



About state fair time in 1918 when those 100,000 of our boys were 

 taken out of the ranks of production, we had this corn crop coming on, 

 and we heard inklings of the high prices to be charged for corn husking, 

 and at a convention of the farm bureaus assembled at the state fair 

 ground in 1918 they discussed this proposition, and they said that a fair 

 and just price to all parties concerned, both the laboring man and the 

 owner of the crop, would range somewhere around seven or eight cents 

 per bushel, and this went out broadcast over the state and what did it 

 do? It stabilized this situation, and the result was that last year the 

 corn crop went into the bins at seven and eight cents and the same thing 

 was done again this year. 



Now, gentlemen, those were some of the things that led up to the 

 State Federation of Farm Bureaus at Marshalltown last December. After 

 the state federation was made, they said, "Here, what are you fellows 

 going to do? Are you going into politics? Are you going into the mer- 

 cantile business? Are you going to upset the conditions of our state?" 

 And I want to say that after that organization was formed they outlined 

 a definite program of work along four lines — the first one along the line 

 of organization, the second one along the line of marketing and trans- 

 portation, the third one along the line of education, and the fourth one 

 along the line of legislation. Now, from the development of that pro- 

 gram I am sure you would be somewhat interested in the lines of work 

 that have been attempted from the state standpoint. In the first place, 

 from the standpoint of organization: While the organization committee 

 with their program haven't been active until recently, they adopted the 

 following policy: That the farm bureau organization was an organiza- 

 tion not to take the place of any existing agricultural organization, but 



