Page Four 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



lem is solved in a n^anner that is fair to 

 all interests. 



"That we warn all delegates to the Na- 

 tional Conventions that the agricultural 

 question is the paramount issue before the 

 country and that failure of any party to 

 recosrnize the condition of agriculture as 

 the paramount issue will result in our sup- 

 port of that party, whose candidates make 

 the solution of the aEricultural problem the 

 paramount issue of the campaign." 



Representatives from eleven central 

 Illinois counties presented these resolu- 

 tions which were echoed in the press 

 of the United States ftom coast to 

 coast within 24 hours after their unani- 

 mous adoption. 



GALESBURG MEETING 

 2,500 STRONG 



THERE were 2,500 militant farmers 

 from a dozen Western Illinois 

 counties at the Galesburg Court House 

 in Knox county while the Springfield 

 meeting was on. 



Long before the meeting was sched- 

 uled to open the Knox County Court 

 House was filled to overflowing. 

 Crowds gathered in the adjoining halls 

 and lobbies. It became apparent that 

 some other provision must be made 

 for the crowd, so a large truck was 

 driven up in front of the Court House 

 to serve as a speakers' stand, and the 

 throng adjourned to the Court House 

 lawn when A. N. Skinner, prominent 

 Yates City farmer, called the meeting 

 to order. Many women were present. 

 Ten or twelve Western Illinois counties 

 were represented. Ira Moats of Ma- 

 quon opened the meeting with prayer, 

 which was followed by the audience 

 singing "Illinois". 



Coolidge Advice Followed 



"The first McNary-Haugen bill was 

 presented to Congress at the sugges- 

 tion of President Coolidge," said Mr. 

 Skinner in his opening remarks. "The 

 President had advised farmers and 

 farm representatives who had visited 

 him to go back home and frame ade- 

 quate legislation to be presented to 

 the Congress. The farmers complied 

 and when their measure was presented 

 the first time it was beaten by a sub- 

 stantial majority. 



"The McNary-Haugen bill was re- 

 vised and was presented again. By 

 that time it had gained so many friends 

 that the 69th Congress passed it with 

 a substantial majority. President Coo- 

 lidge vetoed the bill, accompanying his 

 action with the long message in which 

 he presented his objections. 



"These objections were carefully 

 noted by friends of the measure and 

 again the bill was revised to meet. Mr. 

 Coolidge's objections insofar as they 

 i;ould be without emasculating the bill. 

 Again the McNary-Haugen measure 

 was presented to Congress where it 

 passed by an even greater majority 

 than the year previous. Mr. Coolidge 

 vetoed that bill. In undignified lan- 

 guage he denounced the results of the 

 farmers' painstaking efforts to frame 

 a measure that would meet with the 

 approval of the President. 



"We must have someone in the 

 White House who is not too provin- 

 cial and who has the interests of 

 American agriculture at heart." 



A. G. Bridgford, Banker and Land- 

 owner of Mercer County, taid: 



"The administration would lead us 

 to believe that we are in the most 

 properous condition that has existed. 

 That is quite true east of the Alle- 

 gheny mountains and the New York 

 Stock Exchange. Stocks and bonds 

 have doubled and tripled, yet in the 

 Middle West there have been more 

 bank failures during the Coolidge 

 administration than in the 60 years 

 preceding it. You have seen agricul- 

 ture and agricultural products take a 

 deflation of over twenty billion dol- 

 lars, a sum sufficient to buy all the 



railroads in the United States 



Mr. Coolidge might just as well say, 'I 

 am opposed to any farm legislation 

 that will help the farmer,' because 

 any bill he would recommend or sign 

 would be of no avail to us." 



R. C. Ford, Farmer, Peoria County: 



"It has been said that Calvin Cool- 

 idge could Slap the farmers in the 

 face and make them like it. I want 

 you to understand that here is one 

 farmer whom he slapped in the face, 

 and he lacks a hell of a lot of making 

 him like it; and if I get the gist of 

 the sentiment of the 800 Farm Bureau 

 members of Peoria county, he has 800 

 more there that he lacks a lot of mak- 

 ing them like it, and I would like to 

 see every Farm Bureau in this United 

 States have the same feeling that 

 the Farm Bureau of Peoria county 

 seems to have." 



L. C. Warner, Farmer, Henry County: 



"Agriculture is the basic industry 

 of our land, and yet agriculture has 

 been compelled to take a back seat. 

 Organized farmers in this country are 

 not attempting to pull down any other 

 class. They are simply asking that 

 they may be brought up upon an equal 

 basis with industry and manufactures, 

 capital and labor. . . Thousands of 

 men in my county were disappointed 

 when Mr. Coolidge saw fit to veto the 

 McNary-Haugen bill, but I have not 

 yet heard one single man say he would 

 not still carry on. There was a little 

 meeting over in my county a few days 

 ago, representing some four thousand 

 votes in the County of Henry, and 

 they passed unanimously a set of reso- 

 lutions, which pledged themselves not 

 to support a certain man, who it has 

 been said is one of the chief agricul- 

 tural advisers of the I*resident, and 

 that they would use all the influence 

 and power which they possess to pre- 

 vent his nomination at the convention 

 at Kansas City, and if he was nomin- 

 ated they would use all their power to 

 defeat him at the polls." 



R. E. Kirby, Farmer, Warren County: 



"It seems to me we have 



had the poor end of it all the time. 

 Until just recently we farmers were 

 so near asleep that we never could 



see the advantage of organizing, and 

 a good many farmers are still sleep- 

 ing, but there are some 60,000 in this 

 State of Illinois who have awakened, 

 and I think a great many of them 

 are thinking and meeting today under 

 this same kind of a gathering, and I 

 think we will let the people of the 

 United States know that we have awak- 

 ened from our long slumber." 



C. C. Craig, Former Supreme Court 

 Judge, Banker, and Landowner: 



"Our legislators have passed laws 

 to help the railroads; they have passed 

 laws to help the manufacturers; la'w's 

 which are a benefit to all of those 

 different lines of business, at the ex- 

 pense of the great basic industry, the 

 farmers, the producers. Let me tell 

 you, my friends, those who have to 

 do the making of the laws, they listen 

 to an assemblage like this. They will 

 listen to you. They will listen to 

 others, and we hope to make such a 

 noise that we will keep them awake 

 for a while until something will be 

 accomplished." 



M. G. Van Buskirk, Knox County: 



"We are here today to serve notice 

 upon the Republican party that Her- 

 bert Hoover is not acceptable to the 

 voters of the Middle West and that he 

 will not receive our votes. We are 

 here today to serve notice upon both 

 parties that unless the Middle West 

 is taken into consideration in Kansas 

 City and in Houston, and men satis- 

 factory to the voters of the states in 

 this territory are nominated as Presi- 

 dent, that the results of the November 

 election must rest upon the shoulders 

 of those who so blundered as to leave 

 out of the reckoning so large a per- 

 centage of the constituency of either 

 party, a constituency that is inter- 

 ested not only in its own welfare, 

 but in the welfare of the nation in its 



entirety "Justice must be 



done the Middle West and by so doing 

 the entire nation made to prospei- and 

 enjoy happiness. We will accept noth- 

 ing less than this." 



Resolutions were passed similar to 

 those presented above. 



CLOSE to 3,000 farmers, bankers, 

 merchants, and others assembled 

 on the DeKalb high school grounds 

 Saturday, June 2, to express their re- 

 sentment of the administration's veto 

 message on the McNary-Haugen bill, 

 the Coolidge-Hoover farm policy, and 

 their apparent partiality to the indus- 

 trial interests of the East. 



None of the speakers protested more 

 vigorously than Omar H. Wright, pres- 

 ident-elect of the Illinois Bankers' As- 

 sociation. He stated emphatically that 

 when Coolidge vetoed the McNary- 

 Haugen bill he slapped the Illinois 

 Bankers' Association as well as the 

 Middle West in the face. "We re- 

 sent the words that he used in de- 

 nouncing the legislation upon which we 





