PERMANENT AGRICULTURE AND DEMOCRACY 



543 



farm, and he thinks he knows why. He 

 will listen to your advice; then he will 

 go on with his plowing. He is hard 

 against facts, real facts, not paper 

 facts ; he accepts them, and acts accord- 

 ingly. You may not like him, but he 

 himself is a fact. 



Bearing in mind these fundamental 

 considerations, established in the na- 

 ture of things, some of the popular 

 attitudes toward the farmer become 

 ridiculous. I was out of the country 

 when war was proclaimed, but I under- 

 stand that everybody who had a public 

 voice fell to advising the farmer. This 

 is futile, since the farmer is the one 

 part in the population that cannot 

 apply advice. I am sure that much of 

 this advice made no account of situa- 

 tions that neither the farmer nor any 

 one else can change. 



It is simple enough to change an out- 

 side or commercial condition in rela- 

 tion to the farming occupation; it is 

 quite another matter to expect the 

 farmer to accept it unless other essen- 

 tial conditions are changed to meet it. 

 Fixing the price of any product, while 

 it may be necessary in times of crises, 

 does not add fertility to the land, or 

 modify the weather, or affect the hab- 

 its of a sheep or a horse, or the require- 

 ments of a herd of swine. To say that 

 a billion dollars is to be added to the 

 income of farmers by war prices means 

 nothing unless we have at the same 

 time a statement of outgo. To say that 

 the increased gross value of farm prod- 

 ucts of 1917 over lOl-t represents war 

 profits is to state only one factor in a 

 transaction and to state it loosely. To 

 advise the use of less milk in order to 

 save it does not take the cow into con- 

 sideration; the cow is not a machine 

 that can bo stopped by turning off the 

 steam and discharging the operator. 



To establish any regulation touching 

 production only on a basis of compro- 

 mise or agreement l)otween contending 

 parties, does not take into consideration 

 the fundamental problems on which 



the regulation must rest for its opera- 

 tion. This is well expressed in War- 

 ren's recent statement following a lonsr 

 hearing on the cost of milk, that there 

 is no known way of making a cow pro- 

 duce milk by argument. 



The political method, which is the 

 method of compromise or expediency, 

 cannot change a single fundamental 

 fact in agriculture. 



You understand that I am not de- 

 fending the farmer: his acts are as 

 much open to review as those of any 

 other citizen : I am merely stating his 

 natural situation. As illustration, let 

 me refer to the recent charge that he 

 is profiteering. The farmer does not 

 make profit in the commercial sense, 

 but only a labor income. Xow and 

 tlien a farmer may buy and sell without 

 producing, or even speculate, but this 

 is not farming. The producing farmer 

 does not become "rich" in the commer- 

 cial sense. His occupation yields only 

 the returns from his work. His over- 

 plus is likely to go back into the land, 

 and the next generation has the benefit. 



One of the most amusing statements 

 I have heard is that reported of an in- 

 fluential financier to the effect that we 

 must now take the farmer in hand and 

 control him. The idea is that the 

 farmer is becoming too powerful and 

 makes too many demands. For the 

 last ten years and more, public men 

 have been advising the farmers to or- 

 ganize for protection, and the farming 

 people have been shown the results that 

 have been won by organized labor and 

 industry; yet as -soon as the farmer 

 begins to use this dangerous weapon, 

 a shout of alarm goes up from those 

 who have advised it. If the farmer 

 anywhere uses the weapon of organiza- 

 tion he only follows the precedent of 

 industry and commerce. This is to say 

 that the weapons of industry and com- 

 merce are then turned against them- 

 selves. The present mood to discipline 

 the farmer is but another expression of 

 the old disposition — so old as to be 



