366 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



taking the country over. They were, in addition to this, paying com- 

 missions and brokerage charges on renewals of loans for various peri- 

 ods, usually five years. When we computed the interest upon the 

 farm mortgage debt of this country, and struck the balance of trade, 

 when we began to send our farm products abroad, we found that we 

 were handicapped to the extent of about two per cent on every dollar 

 that we borrowed, and that our foreign competitors had that much 

 advantage over us when they met our products in the market. It was 

 an economic condition which could not continue. Consequently, the 

 best thought in this country was put upon the solution of this problem. 

 The federal farm loan act was passed, and went into operation on the 

 17th of July, last year. The farm loan board was created under the 

 authority of that act, consisting of five men, with the Secretary of the 

 Treasury chairman ex-officio. After extended hearings, continental 

 United States was divided into twelve regional land districts and twelve 

 banks established. The eighth district was composed of Iowa, South 

 Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming, and the bank representing this dis- 

 trict was located in Omaha. 



The title on your program is "Borrowing from the Government." 

 I want you to forget that. When you borrow from a land bank, you 

 are not borrowing from the government at all; you are actually bor- 

 rowing from yourselves; you are borrowing from a loan institution. 

 It sounds like a sort of financial paradox, doesn't it? 



How does it happen that the railroads, steel corporation, great man- 

 facturing industries, great mercantile enterprises, have been able for 

 many years in this country to get an interest rate of from two to four 

 per cent lower than the farmer can get upon the best land security in 

 the world? Simply because the geniuses of American business and 

 finance have co-operated, and the credits of these great industrial and 

 transportation enterprises have been mobilized in one mass, and their 

 securities have been taken to the money market in a sufficient volume, 

 and, based upon the credit so brought, they have been able to get the 

 lowest rate there was. 



The farmer has dealt as an individual with combinations which are 

 irresistible and beyond his control. Now I believe in individuality. It 

 is the thing that has made America great. I don't believe in too much 

 of it, however; there is such a thing as goin^ to the extreme. The 

 development of all human society is based upon a reasonable amount 

 of selfish co-operation. That is just the reason this association was 

 organized fourteen years ago; that is why, thru all these years, it has 

 continued to do the things which have been for the interest not only 

 of every member of this association, but of every live stock raiser of 

 the state, and every state that touches this. You men have co-operated 

 for your mutual interest and for the interest of those who were not 

 co-operating with you. And so it is that great co-operative enterprises 

 have sprung up all over this country. The difficulty has always been, 

 in the handling of his own personal, financial problems, or of his 

 marketing problems, or of any problem on which the farmer touches 



