The Demand for Cheap Food 



By L. H. BAIL P] Y 



From an address given at the dedication of the Administration Building, New York Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, August 31, 1918 



EVEEYONE of us looks to the im- 

 provement of agriculture in the re- 

 construction period which will follow 

 the war. We are concerned that agriculture 

 shall have proper attention when again we 

 put together a society that is now shot to 

 pieces. We want to keep our schools in 

 which agriculture is taught, our colleges of 

 agriculture, our experiment stations in 

 which truth is discovered. Very good: we 

 shall improve the occupation ; yet agricul- 

 ture cannot take its proper place in human 

 society by internal improvements alone. We 

 must have a new kind of public view on the 

 question. The larger remedies lie with the 

 people. 



The Standard of Living 



The past generation has been known by 

 its attention to the standards of living. We 

 recognize that there can be neither democ- 

 racy nor effectiveness without sufficient in- 

 come to enable the citizen to acquire the 

 essential goods of life. The tenement system 

 has been overturned. The sweatshop is 

 being abandoned. Slavish piecework has 

 been virtually eliminated. Child labor has 

 been made illegal. We are standardizing 

 the wage, the length of the day's work, the 

 conditions under which labor is performed. 



The justification of all this effort lies in 

 the human result. We are willing to pay 

 more for pig iron, for shoes, for furniture, 

 for books, for transportation, if only the 

 fair standards of living can be maintained. 

 No one raises a voice for cheaper workshop 

 commodities for the benefit of the consumer 

 and at the expense of the worker. Yet the 

 public still wants cheap food. 



We go even farther than this with the 

 workshop products. By every means we en- 

 deavor to eliminate the risks of workers. 

 The compensation laws, and various insur- 

 ance plans, are of this order. We recognize 

 that society cannot be stabilized unless the 

 workingman is protected and his personal 

 hazards reduced to the minimum. Yet the 

 farm people, far outnumbering the factory 

 612 



men and producing our fundamental sup- 

 plies, work always and necessarily against 

 the hazards of nature and carry the risks 

 imposed by the Almighty. These risks can- 

 not be averted ; but society must carry the 

 insurance. 



The demand for cheap food is fallacious. 

 Pressing down the cost of food has one or 

 all of three results on the producers of it 

 (and its effect on the producers is a vital 

 concern with us as citizens of a state) : 

 we reduce the standards of living of the 

 producers in our own country; we exploit 

 the cheap labor and cheap lands of new and 

 remote countries; or we live on the products 

 of peasantry in other countries. These three 

 are the same, considered in the human re- 

 sult. If we are glad to meet the problem 

 of maintaining the standard of living for 

 workingnien, we must be equally glad to 

 maintain it for farmers. There are reasons 

 why we should not attempt the same pro- 

 gram for farmers as for workingmen: our 

 problem is to be willing to pay as much for 

 farm products as is necessary for the mainte- 

 nance of the standard of living on the farms. 



We are building great fleets. Every soul 

 of us is glad of it and proud of the enter- 

 prise. We rejoice at every new launching. 

 The submarines will not sink these fleets. 

 After the war we must find water to sail 

 them on. We are looking forward with 

 much anticipation to the extensions of our 

 commerce. We shall send away our manu- 

 factured products. We shall bring back the 

 raw products, much of it in foodstuffs and 

 hides and other agricultural supplies. Shall 

 we be alert to see that the farming people 

 are as well protected as are the industrial 

 people? We can run no risk of lowering the 

 standards of income on our millions of 

 farms. 



As a whole the public appears to be care- 

 less of the standards of living on farms. 

 We demand cheap food in the interest of 

 the consumer. Many discussions in the 

 press, on the platform, and in conference, 

 might be citeil as indication. I content my- 



