TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 393 



M. Treasurer: 



1. Supervised keeping of treasurer accounts and records. 



2. Carefully guarding invested funds. 



CONCLUSIONS 



The necessity for carrying on with an organization like the 

 Iowa Farm Bureau Federation is very apparent when its varying 

 activities are known. It is now recognized as a potent factor in 

 the future life of agriculture, and while we have been unable to 

 do many of the things hoped for, yet we have advanced at every 

 step with but one thought in mind, that we were building sound- 

 ly. The year has been one of cautious ventures which led to in- 

 timacies with interests that heretofore were not in the habit of 

 asking the opinion of farmers on matters of business except to 

 have him understand that big business necessarily made the 

 farmers' prosperity possible. America never can be assured of 

 her stability and perpetuity if she tolerates a condition that im- 

 poses disadvantage upon the producing classes of her Nation 

 which prevent their uplift, their natural progress and intellectual 

 development. Agriculture at this time is probably laboring un- 

 der more severe imposition than is the just dues of this vitally 

 necessary industry. The thought that something is radically 

 wrong in the economics of agriculture has become a fixed convic- 

 tion in the mind of the farmer, and an admitted fact in the mind 

 of all fair-minded business men. What then should be our first 

 consideration? Certainly an honest effort to find out what fac- 

 tors or elements in our production, distribution and processing 

 of food stuffs are working hardship to the farmer. The war 

 demonstrated that the farmer has met the question of production 

 under most adverse circumstances and conquered it. The farmer 

 never has been found wanting when called upon to feed the 

 world. The subsequent attempt of marketing at a satisfactory 

 price the products of his labor, not to an over supplied world, 

 but to a world one-half of which is in want, has led to but one 

 conclusion. Financing the farmer through the period of produc- 

 tion has been fairly ample, but financing him through the con- 

 suming period of the year has never been ample, and as a conse- 

 quence his products have gone to market in great volumes and 

 in such a short period of time as to allow an unfair advantage to 

 the speculator who did nothing more than store this commodity 

 until the people's needs demanded it. The same unsatisfactory 



