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Volume 4 



luued Every Other Saturday for 63,000 thinking Farmers — January 2, 1926 



1926 HNDS PUBUC MORE AWARE OF PROBLEM OF SURPLUS 



PROGRAM OF ANNUAL MEETING ANNOUNCED 



Jardine, Lowden and 

 Davis Will Address 

 State Farm Bureau 



Plan Largest I. A. A. Annual 

 Meeting to be Held at Cham- 

 paign-Urbana, Jan. 21-22. 



A rrangem ents are being made to accom - 

 modate the wives of delegates to the An~ 

 nual meeting; and the w&men folks are 



especially incited. 



There will be lots to hear, much to do 

 and many meeting to attend when the 

 farm bureau officers, members and ad- 

 visers gather at the annual meeting of 

 the Illinois Agricultural Association to 

 be held at University of Illinois, uCham- 

 paign-Urbana on Jan. 20, 21 an* 22. 



It will be a great state farmersV^vcnt, 

 comparable only to the state I. A. A. 

 picnic or the annual meeting of the A. 

 F. B. F. when President Coolidge made 

 his trip to Chicago last month. 



William M. Jardine, secretary of Agri- 

 culture, Frank 0. Lowden, former gov- 

 ernor of Illinois, and Hon. Stephen 

 Davis of the U. S. Department of Com- 

 merce are scheduled as headliners who 

 will address the members and delegates 

 attending the annual gathering. Besides 

 the meeting of the I. A. A., the Illinois 

 Farm Bureau Sen^m Association, the 

 annual conference of the I. A. A. staff 

 and Illinois farm advisers and the Illi- 

 nois Agricultural Co-operatives Asso- 

 ciation, it will be Farmers' Week at the 

 University of Illinois* 

 County President Enter Jan. 20. 



Secretary Jardine will address the 

 delegates at a luncheon between 12 and 

 2 o'clock on Thursday, Jan. 21. Former 

 Governor Lowden's speech will be made 

 at a similar luncheon on Friday noon 

 and Mr. Davis will talk on "The Future 

 of Radio Industry and Its Use by 

 Farmers" at the annual banquet to be 

 given on the evening of Jan. 21. 



The Illinois Farm Bureau Serum As- 

 sociation has scheduled its meeting for 

 9:00 a. m. Tuesday, Jan. 19, while the 

 Illinois Agricultural Co-operatives As- 

 sociation will hold its meeting during 

 the afternoon of the same day. On 

 Wednesday, Jan. 20 all the farm ad- 

 visers of the state will gather in the 

 assembly room of the Illinois Union 

 building at the University of Illinois 

 for an all-day conference with the I. A. 

 A. officers, directors and executive com- 

 mitteemen to consider and map out the 

 program of cooperative work for 1926. 



Special Sectional Conferences. 



The program for this year's annual 

 meeting of the I. A. A. which will open 

 in the auditorium of the University at 

 9:00 a. m. on Thursday, Jan. 21, is 

 planned expressly for the purpose of 

 giving each delegate an opportunity to 

 express himself. To permit sufficient 

 time for free discussion, sectional meet- 

 ings conferences are planned during 

 which open consideration will be given 

 to a large variety of subjects. In addi- 

 tion, each congressional district will hold 

 a conference. The even-numbered dis- 

 tricts will nominate executive commit- 

 teemen to hold office for the next tw^- 

 year period and a president and vice- 

 president will be elected. 



In a notice sent to the 92 county 

 Farm Bureaus of the state particular 

 mention was made that for the sectional 

 conferences on Thursday and Friday, 

 each Farm Bureau should have not less 

 than four representatives — one for each 

 of the four conferences in session at the 

 same time. This was su^ested so that 

 each representative conld be assigned by 

 his county to the particular conferences 

 which it is desired that he should at- 

 tei^d and thus be able to report on at 

 the next county board meeting follow- 

 ing the annual I. A. A. meeting. 

 Publish Complete Program. 



Farm Bureaus should notify Geo. A. 

 Fox, executive secretary of the I. A, A., 

 of the number of representatives from 

 the respective counties not later' than 

 Jan. 15, and specify the conferences to 

 which each representative has been as- 

 signed. 



The I. A. A. will pay one-half of the 

 county president's expenses and one- 

 half of the farm advisers expenses to 

 (Continued on page y, Col. 4) | 



Fairness Demands They Be All 



Up or All Down, Uncle Sam ! 



I. A. A. Will Be 10 Years Old This Month; 

 Farm Editors, Who Watch Growth, Comment 



It wa* in January 10 years ago that the Jllinoia Agrieuliitral Assoeiatif^n was 

 born. When the forthcoming annual meeting is held at Champaign-Urbana 

 January 21 and Zt^ it teill be almost exactly 20 years since a smaU group of farm 

 advisers, then knoum as county agriculturists, in co-operation with leading fam,- 

 ers and farm paper men met at the University and took the preliminary step 

 in forming the iUinoia Agricultural Association. That was January se, 1916. 



In recognition of the 10-year birthday, the editors of Orange Judd ILUNOIS 

 FARMER and Prairie Farmer have contributed brief comments for the annual 

 repttrt vfhich will be placed in the hands of all delegates at the annual meeting. 

 Both Mr. Gregory and Mr. Page have followed and watched the Farm Bureaus 

 and the I. A. A. grow and it is thought their comments wiR be -of particular 

 interest to readers of the Record. 



A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ILLI- 

 NOIS AGRICULTURAL 

 ASSOCIATION 



Br C V. Qitt$n, cAter, Prakic Fncr 



HERMAN DANFORTH of Taiewell 

 county, Illinois, went to the short 

 course at the University of Illinois in 

 January, 1916, with one idea firmly in 

 his mind. He be- 

 lieved that the 

 county soil im- 

 provement asso- 

 ciations (they 

 were not called 

 farm bureaus in 

 those days) ought 

 to join hands to 

 form a state as- 

 Bociation. 



When Danforth 

 gets an idea he 

 sticks to it per- 

 sistently. So on 

 January 26 he got 

 a group of farm 

 advisors and farmers together in the 

 Agricultural Building and the Illinois 

 Agricultural Association was formed. 



A few weeks later (March 15) at a 

 meeting at Ottawa, a constitution and 

 ( Continued on p^c 4, Col. 1 ) 



■eforjr 



THE FARM BUREAU IS FIRMLY 



ROOTED 

 •r Arte C Pv; e<l«, Onu«e JaM Unw Fner 



V\7"E HAVE learned from watching 

 '" processes of Nature how an ideal 

 organization should develop. A fertile 

 soil, a seed, and a small growth mostly 



of roots come — ^ 



first. As the plant 

 grows above 

 ground, the roots 

 strike constantly 

 deeper ' into the 

 soil. 



That is the way 

 the Illinois Agri- 

 cultural Associa- 

 tion started; that 

 is the way is has 

 grown. 



The farm bur- 

 eau idea in a 

 single county was 

 the seed. The 

 great farming 

 public of Illinois, 

 entering a period 

 of trem e n d u 8 

 importance in its 



history, and needing public representa- 

 tion, was the soil. The Illinois Agriral- 



Coolidge 's Blunt Dismnsal of All F€um 

 Relief Proposals as '* Price-Fixing" G^s 

 Fiery Come-back in Des Moines Conference 



And Next Day Secretary Jardine Announces: ''Now that the 

 Plan to Aid Co-operative Organizations Has Been Placed 

 Before Congress I Feel that Further and More Definite 

 Attention Can Be Directed to the Agricultural Surplus 

 Problem." 



THE year 1926 starts off with excellent prospects for a 

 real consideration by Congress of agriculture's major 

 problem — ^the disposal of the abnormal 

 surplus. 1 ' 



Ever since President Coolidge's failure to 

 recognize this problem adequately in his 

 speech before the annual meeting of the 

 American Farm Bureau Federation and the 

 triumph of the export corporation idea as a 

 means of obtaining equality for agriculture, 

 which is characterized by the election of Sam ^ 

 H. Thompson as president, there has been 

 a wide and startling awakening in the city 

 press and by the public to the fact that 

 there is a farm problem. 



Before that event the city press frequently 



referred to the truly 



Reinsurance Company 

 Sustains First Loss 

 In Franklin Co. Fire 



The first loss of the farmers Mu- 

 tual Reinsurance Company occurred 

 on Monday morning, Dec. 21, when 

 the granary of J. S. Webb of Ewing, 

 Franklin county, was burned to the 

 ground. The losses included the 

 building, about 1500 buahels of corn, 

 400 bushels of oats and machinery 

 valued at $700. 



Grain and implements were in- 

 sured for $500 each in the Farmers 

 Mutual Reinsurance Company, while 

 the Franklin County Farmers Mu- 

 tual Fire Insurance Company car- 

 ried ^500 each on the building and 

 implements and $200 on the grain. 



The fire originated in a country 

 store building of A. N. Webb and 

 Sons, located some 200 or 300 feet 

 from the granary. Clues* point to 

 the belief that the fire was started 

 by burglars who wer« rifling the 

 store. 



Mr. Webb is a farm bureau mem- 

 ber and a charter member of both 

 the Farmers Mutual Reinsurance 

 Company and the Fratklin County 

 Farmers Mutual Firt Insurance 

 Company. 



Insurance settlements for the 

 losftea were made in la few days 

 after the loss. 



tnral Association in its present stature 

 is the tre^, with roots reaching back 

 inPo almost every couilty and every 

 township and into thousnds of farm 

 homes throughout the state. The or- 

 ganization has grown in the ideal way, 

 supplying a need. 



Whole branches might he cut off from 

 this great tree, and it would still live. 

 Even if some of its roots should now^' 

 be cut away it would go on growing 

 and bearing fruit. 



The greatness of the Illinois Agricul- 

 tural Association has always depended, 

 and depends today, on its responsive- 

 ness to the thoughts and desires of ita 

 membership. 



Among the achievements of the I. A. 

 A. one 6f the most important has been 

 the development and education of lead- 

 ers. Agriculture has its full share of 

 intelligent and thoughtfvl men, but it 

 has lacked men trained for public lead- 

 ership. In training a -.few such men 

 through thMr pr(rani£atlon. wl)o have 

 been contributed to the nation, the 

 farmers of Illinois hav^ p^Tt^prmed 

 great aerrica. . 



:\..- 



Franli D. Barton. 



Repreirntativr «t 



Das MoiAes M«*ttec 



representative 

 spokesmen of the farmer? as "calamity 

 h( wlers" and labelled practically all at- 

 tempts of the farmers to get national 

 legislation desi^'nod to place them on a 

 level with other clashes as "nostmnut" 

 and every kind of quackery. 



Waabiiifftoa G«ttiag Boay 



But since that event a wnvr tf real- 

 ization that ' agriculture is not fretting 

 its fair share of the national income 

 has swept the country — nnd ha* gUrrett 

 Weuhinfjton. Several measures have 

 been introduced in Congress embodyinir 

 the principle of the McNary-Haugen 

 bill which, briefly, provided for the ab- 

 norm.'il surplus to be seirregated and 

 sold abroad in the world market in 

 order that world price levels would not 

 set the price on the whole American 

 production \as, is now the case). Any 

 losses incurred through the sale of the 

 surplus abroad was to be borne equally 

 by those producers who benefited. 



Several other plans have been sug- 

 gested. Now the problem is to run all 

 suggested plans through a hopper of 

 sound judgment and grind out an ef- 

 fective one which CongresK will msk 

 and which will do the job for which it 

 is intended. It must be effective on 

 cotton, as well as for wheat and com. 

 Red Blooded Meetinf at 

 D^s Moines 

 On Dec. 21 and 22, representatives 

 of every grain belt farm organizatioB 

 of consequence, including in their mem- 

 bership about 1,000,000 farmers in Ok- 

 lahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South and 

 North Dakou, Minnesota, Iowa, Mis- 

 souri, Illinois and ladiana, met at Des 

 Moines. Iowa, and passed bristling, reso- 

 lutions demanding effective export con- 

 trol of abnormal surplus crops. It was 

 a joint meeting of the Corn Belt com- 

 mittee, representing 23 farm organixa- 

 tions in the west and northwest, snd the 

 executive committee of the American 

 Council of Agriculture which has for 

 its one and only objective securing 

 "equality for agriculture." Frank Q. 

 Barton of Cornell, Livingston counts 

 chairman of the I. A. A. legislative 

 committee, represented the IlIinoTS Ag- 

 ricultural Association. R. A. Cowlet. 

 I. A. A. treasurer, also attended, but ill 

 capacity of secretary-treasurer of tUs 

 American Council. j^ 



Fear Co-op BUI Only G««tnr« * 



Although the Illinois Agricnltorml 

 Association has the word of SecretaiW 

 Jardine that the administration's bill 

 which has be«n introduced by Senator 

 McNary and Representative Hauges. 

 providing for creation of a divi»io»i 

 within the department of agricultuiv 

 to give advisory service and assistance 

 to co-operative mwketing will in no 

 way take the place of some measui^ 

 meeting the surplus problem, there wi 

 (Continued on page' 4, Cot. SJ 



