414 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



THE FARMER AND PEACE LEAGUES 



By the Hon. Gifford Pincliot. 



I appreciate the kind introduction President Sykes has been good 

 enough to give me. That is the kind of thing that_ makes a man feel very 

 cheerful. 



The other day I had a letter from William H. Taft, asking me if I 

 wouldn't speak for the farmers in the League of Nations. There was a 

 time when Mr. Taft and I did a good deal of harrying of each other across 

 the fence, but it is different now. Now what he asked me is a difficult 

 thing to do, in a good many respects, because the farmers never have 

 taken any position whatever, so far as I know. And, after a while, when 

 Mr. Wallace asked me to come out here, it occurred to me there would 

 be no more representative body than this before which it would be pos- 

 sible to lay some conclusions that I had reached as to what the farmers 

 probably would want. Therefore, with your permission, I want to try 

 some of these conclusions on you. 



The way my mind worked to it was something like this: That the 

 farmers are closer than any other great body of men in the country to 

 carry the solid reality; that they have their feet on the ground more than 

 any other representative group of citizens, and that they are in my judg- 

 ment more apt to be right in the long run. They were slow to get into 

 the war, as compared with some of the people of the cities, but once they 

 were in, they were in all the way, and no greater contribution has been 

 made to the fighting or success of the war by any other body of men in 

 the United States than they have made. 



It strikes me also that the opinion of the farmers on a good many 

 questions had been sung by others. There was a great deal of talk in 

 high-brow circles to the effect that the Germans could not be beaten; 

 that we had better take what peace we could get. So far as I know, the 

 farmers never fell into that error. They intended to win the war and 

 stay with it until it was won. Neither was there any response to the 

 proposition afterward that the Germans should be let off easy; that we 

 must not leave them with a peace with which they were not satisfied. I 

 never saw any sign of the people of the open country falling into that 

 delusion. 



It has seemed to me, as far as I have come in contact with the farmer, 

 that somebody had to pay for this war, and if the people that started 

 it didn't pay for it, then the people who were innocent would have to pay 

 for it, and I thought the farmers of the country wanted the burden to lie 

 just exactly where it ought to lie. I thought they were also of the opinion 

 that the Germans could not pay unless they could trade with other na- 

 tions. It seemed to me, as far as peace was concerned, there were three 

 things we wanted: 



First, a just peace; a peace that meant reparation to the injured and 

 punishment to the guilty. 



Second, that we wanted this war to be the last war, so far as it was 

 humanly possible, and the necessity for preparing for Avar. 



