lii Pufic Four 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



lorn is snlvi'd in a rti.'innor that is fafir to 

 all interests. I 



"That w«* warn all (loleirati-s to th« Na- 

 tional Conventions that the airricultural 

 niu'Htion is thi* paramount issue before the 

 »-t>unlry an<l that failure of any parly to 

 recofrnize the eoniiition of airrifultuCe as 

 the paramount issue will result in our, sup- 

 port of that I>arty. whose caiuiitlates piake 

 "the solution of the atrriiultural prohler^i the 

 I'-iranjount issue of the eaitipaivrn." ! 



Rt'prt'!;entatives from eleven ceiptnil 

 Illinois counties presented these resolu- 

 tions which were echoed in the press 

 of the United States from coast to 

 coast within 21 hours after their uriani- 

 mbus adoption. 



GALESBIRC; MEETLNG 

 2,3«0 STRONG 



■"PHERK were 2.500 militant farmers 

 ' from a dnzen Western Illinois 

 counties at the Cialesburjr Court House 

 in^Knox county while the SprinKtield 

 iin-etinj; was on. 



Long: before the nieeling was sched- 

 uled to open the Knox County Cburt 

 House was tilled to overflowinK- 

 Crowtls gathered in the adjoininR halls 

 and lobbies. It became apparent that 

 some other provision must be made 

 t«y the crowd, so a large truck .want 

 driven up in front of the Court House 

 to serve as a speakers" stand, and the 

 throng ad.iourni'd to the Court Hpus<' 

 lawn when A. N. Skinner, prominent 

 Yates City farmer, called the meijting 

 to order. Many women were prer^ent. 

 Ten or twelve Western Illinois counties 

 were representctl. Ira Moats of Ma- 

 <luon ojjened the meeting with piaf>-er, 

 which was followed by the auditnce 

 singing "Illinois". 



Coolidge Advice Followed { 

 "The first JIcNary-Haugen bill was 

 presented to Congress at the su^es- 

 tion of President Coolidge." said 'Mr. 

 Skinner in his opening remarks. MThe 

 President had advised farmers and 

 farm representatives who had vi.sited 

 him to go back home and frame {»de- 

 i|uate legislation to be presented to 

 the Congress. The farmers comiflied 

 and when their measure was preseiitcii 

 the first time it was beaten by a tiub- 

 stantial majority. 



"The McNary-Haugen bill was re- 

 vised and was presented again, j By 

 that time it had gained so many friends 

 that the <)lith Congress passed it >vith 

 a substantial ma.jority. President foo- 

 iitlge Vetoed the bill, accompanyinjj his 

 action with the long mc'ssage in which 

 he presented his ob.iections. ; 



"These ob.iections were careftilly 

 noted by friends of the measure land 

 again' the bill was revised to meet|Mi\ 

 Coulidge's ob.iections in.sofar as (hey 

 could be without emasculating the Ibill. 

 .Again the McXary-Haugen nieasjure 

 was presented to Congress where it 

 passed by an even greater ma.iiwity 

 than the year previous. Mr. Coolidge 

 vetoed that bill. In undignified lan- 

 guage he denounced the results ofj the 

 larniers' painstaking efforts to frjime 

 a measure that would meet with the 

 apjudval of the President. 



"\Vi' must have someone in the 

 White House who is not too provin- 

 cial and who has the interests of 

 Ame>"ican agriculture at heart." 



A. (&. Bridgford, Banker and Land- 

 Owner of Mercer County, said: 



"The administration would lead us 

 to hielieve that we are in the most 

 iiroplerous condition that has existed. 

 ThatI is quite true east of the Alle- 

 gheny mountains and the New York 

 Stock P'xchange.' .Stocks and bonds 

 have; doubled and tripled, yet in the 

 Middle Wi'st there have been more 

 bank failures during the Coolidge 

 ailministration than in the fiO years 

 precOfling it. You have seen agricul- 

 ture and agricultural products take a 

 defliiition of over twenty billion dol- 

 lars,! a sum sufficient to buy all the 



railrj)ads in the I'nited States 



-Mr. (Toolidge might .iust as well say. 'I 

 am hpposed to an.v farm legislation 

 that will help the farmer,' because 

 any bill he would recommend or sign 

 woulld be of no avail to us." 



R. C. Ford, Farmer, Peoria County: 



"It has been said that Calvin Cool- 

 idge i could slap the farmers in the 

 face ^ and make them like it. I want 

 you ito understand that here is one 

 farnier whom he slajiped in the face, 

 and he lacks a hell of a lot of making 

 him Hike it; and if I get the gist of 

 the Sentiment of the 800 Farm Bureau 

 memjiers of Peoria county, he has 800 

 iiiorcj there that he lacks a lot of mak- 

 ing (hem 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 

 seenijs to have." 



L. Cj Warner, Farmer, Henry County: 



"Agriculture is the basic industry 

 of our land, and yet agriculture has 

 been compelled to take a back seat. 

 Orgainizcd farmers in this country are 

 not attempting to pull down any other 

 dasSi They are simply asking that 

 they may be brought up upon an equal 

 basi.sl with industr.v and manufactures, 

 capital and labor. . . Thousands of 

 men in my county were disappointed 

 whert Mr. Coolidge saw fit to veto the 

 McN'iiry-Haugen bill, but I have not 

 .vet Heard one single man say he would 

 not still carry on. There was a little 

 meeting over in my county a few days 

 ago, irepresenting some four thousand 

 votes in the County of Henry, and 

 iheyipassed unanimously a set of reso- 

 hitiops, which pledged themselves not 

 to si|pport a certain man. who it has 

 been| said is one of the chief agricul- 

 tural; advisers of the President, and 

 that they would use all the influence 

 and power which they possess to pre- 

 vent Ihis nomination at the convention 

 at Ktuisas City, and if he was nomin- 

 ated they would use all their iiower to 

 defeat him at the polls." 



R. E. Kirby, Farmer, Warren County: 



"It seems to me we have 



had the i)oor end of it all the time. 

 Until .iust recently we farmers were 

 so iili'ar asleep that we never couki 



see the advantage of organizing, and 

 a good man.v farmers are still sleep- 

 ing, but there are some 00,000 in this 

 State of Illinois who have awakened, 

 and I think a great many of them 

 i're 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 hate pa.ssed laws 

 to help the railroads; they have pas.seti 

 laws to help the manufacturers; laws 

 which are a benefit to all of those 

 ilifferent lines of business, at the ex- 

 pense of the great basic industry, the 

 farmers, the producers. Let me tell 

 you, m.v friends, those who have to 

 tlo the making of the laws, they listen 

 to an assemblage like thi.s. They will 

 listen to you. They will listen to 

 othei's, 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 ser\'e notice upon both 

 parties that unless the Middle West 

 is taken into consideration in Kan.sas 

 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 niu.st rest upon the shoulders 

 of those who so blundered as to leave 

 out of the reckoning so large a per- 

 centage of the consfituency 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 prosper and 

 enjoy happiness. We will accept noth- 

 ing less than this." 



Resolutions were passed similjar to 

 those presented above. 



/ ^LOSE to .-5,000 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 AIcNary-Haugen bill, 

 the Coolidge-Hoover farm policy, 'and 

 their apjiarent partiality to the indus- 

 trial interests of the East. 



None of the sjieakers protested more 

 vigorously than Omar H. Wright, jires- 

 ident-elect of the Illinoir- Bankers' -As- 

 sociation. He stated emphatically that 

 when Coolidge vetix'd the McNary- 

 Haugen bill he slai)ped the Illinois 

 Bankers' Association as well as the 

 Middle Wes^t in the face. "We re- 

 sent the words that he used in de- 

 nouncing the legislation upon which we 



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