472 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



conditions in the business field and if possible increase the efficiency of 

 the business men, and thus reduce the cost of the necessaries of life; to 

 ascertain the amount of needless capital engaged in business enterprises 

 that the public is expected to pay dividends on; to ascertain the amount 

 of needless help employed in the distribution of food products, thus in- 

 creasing the cost to the consumer; to ascertain why the farmer receives 

 only 35 per cent as much for what he raises as the consumer pays for it? 



Why should the government spend millions of dollars annually to teach 

 the farmer how to maintain the fertility of the soil, and to increase his 

 efficiency, so as to cheapen the cost of production, and not be allowed to 

 investigate the conditions of the business field, and possibly increase 

 the efficiency of the business men, thereby reducing the cost of distri- 

 bution? 



The question of distribution and marketing of farm products will soon 

 be pressing for solution, and I would suggest that you give it careful 

 consideration. It should be our earnest desire and we should endeavor by 

 all honorable means to "bring producer and consumer, farmers and manu- 

 facturers, into the most direct and friendly relations possible. Hence, we 

 must dispense with a surplus of middlemen, not that we are unfriendly to 

 them, but that we do not need them. Their surplus and their exactions 

 diminish our profits." 



We have been hearing a great deal about the high cost of living, with 

 the opinion often expressed that the farmer is responsible for the high 

 prices prevailing for food stuffs. If we stop to consider, there are many 

 things that contribute toward high prices. First, the shortage of crops 

 caused by adverse weather conditions. Second, the increase in population 

 of nearly two millions a year. Third, the greatly Increased consumption 

 caused by reason of the better financial condition of the millions of 

 people who are being paid higher rates of wages than ever before in 

 the history of the country. Fourth, the increased foreign demand caused 

 by the war. 



These are all legitimate reasons, none of which the farmer is respon- 

 sible for. True, as compared with former years, the farmers are pros- 

 perous, and why shouldn't they be? But if you will compare their pros- 

 perity with the prosperity of the great industrial interests of the country, 

 which are paying enormous dividends on their capital invested, you will 

 find the farmer a pauper in comparison. I will venture the assertion that 

 the average net income of the farm lands of this great agricultural state 

 will not exceed 4 per cent on the selling price of the land. The farmers of 

 the country have never had their full share of prosperity as compared 

 with industrial interests. The farmers' work has not been confined to 

 eight hours, unless it was eight hours in the forenoon and eight hours in 

 the afternoon. For years the farmers of the great central west struggled 

 early and late, summer and winter, to make ends meet, with no sympathy 

 from organized capital or organized labor. Compelled to sell his products 

 on a free-trade market and buy what he had to have on a protected 

 market, so that labor and capital might be protected; paying high interest 

 rates and selling his products in competition with the world, while the in- 

 dustrial interests were obtaining cheap money and selling their produces 



