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THE I. A. A. RECORD 



Page Nine 



] Governor Smith's Acceptance Speech 



Following i* the text of the Demoeratie 

 presidential eandidate'e atatement on 

 agriouUure delivered in hie tpeeeh of ae- 

 eeptane* at Albany, N. Y., on Atm. tt. 



H-ryjBlAClTY agents of the Repub- 

 _|7 lican administration have writ- 

 ten so many articles on our gen- 

 eral prosperity that they have pre- 

 vented the average man from having 

 a proper appreciation of the degree of 

 distress existing today among farmers 

 and stock raisers. From 1910 to the 

 present time the farm debt has in- 

 creased by the striking sum of ten bil- 

 lions of dollars, or from four billion to 

 fourteen billion dollars. The value of 

 farm property between 1920 and 1925 

 decreased by twenty billions of dollars. 

 This depression made itself felt in an 

 enormous incriease of bank failures in 

 the agricultural districts. In 1927 there 

 were 830 bank failures, with total lia- 

 bilities of over 270 millions of dollars, 

 almost entirely in the agricultural sec- 

 tions, as against 49 such failures dur- 

 ing the last year of President Wilson's 

 administration. 



Disparity Continue* 



"The report of Nov. 17, 1927, of a 

 special committee of the Association 

 of Land Grant Colleges and Univer- 

 sities states: 'Incomes from farming 

 since 1920 have not been sufficient to 

 pay a fair return on the current value 

 of capital used and fair wages for the 

 farmer's labor, or to permit farm peo- 

 ple to maintain a standard of living 

 comparable with other groups of like 

 ability.' The business men's commis- 

 sion on agriculture said in November, 

 1927, 'Since the war the prices of 

 farm products have persisted in an un- 

 economic and unfavorable adjustment 

 to the general scale of prices of other 

 goods and services' and 'the disparity 

 between urban and farm incomes has 

 emphasized the disparity in standards 

 of living in the rural and urban popu- 

 lations. The value of farm land and 

 farm property decreased heavily in the 

 post-war deflation' and 'large numbers 

 cf farmers have lost all their property 

 in this process.' 



"We have not merely a problem of 

 helping the farmer. While agriculture 

 is one of the most individualized and 

 independent of enterprises, still, as the 

 report of the business men's commis- 

 sion points out, 'Agriculture is essen- 

 tially a public function, affected with 

 a clear and unquestionable public in- 

 terest.' The country is an economic 

 whole. If the buying power of agri- 

 culture is impaired, the farmer makes 



fewer trips to Main street. The shop 

 owner suffers because he has lost a 

 large part of his trade. The manufac- 

 turer who supplies him likewise suf- 

 fers, as does the wage earner, because 

 the manufacturer is compelled to cur- 

 tail his production. And the banker 

 can not collect his debts or safely ex- 

 tend further credit. This country can 

 not be a healthy, strong economic body 

 if one of its members, so fundamen- 

 tally important as agriculture, is sick 

 almost to the point of economic death. 



"The normal market among the 

 farmers of this country for the prod- 

 ucts of industry is ten billions of dol- 

 lars. Our export market, according to 

 latest available figures is, exclusive of 

 agricultural products, approximately 

 one billion, six hundred millions of 

 dollars. These large figures furnish 

 striking indication of the serious blow 

 tc national prosperity as a whole 

 which is struck when the buying 

 power of the farmer is paralyzed. 



"When, therefore, I say that I am 

 in accord with our platform declara- 

 tion that the solution of this problem 

 must be a prime and immediate con- 

 cern of the Democratic administration, 

 I make no class appeal. I am stating 

 a proposition as vital to the welfare of 

 business as of agriculture. 



Republicans Break Promise 



"With the exception of the adminis- 

 trations of Cleveland and Wilson, the 

 government of this country has been 

 in Republican hands for half a century. 

 For nearly eight years the President 

 and Congress have been Republican. 

 What has been done to solve this prob- 

 lem? Many promises were made which 

 have never been fulfilled. 



"The tariff is ineffective on commod- 

 ities of which there is exportable sur- 

 plus without controlled sale of the sur- 

 plus. Our platform points the way to 

 make the tariff effective for crops of 

 which we produce a surplus. There 

 has been government interference with 

 laws of supply and demand to benefit 

 industry, commerce and finance. It 

 has been one-sided because business, 

 industry and finance would have been 

 helped more if proper attention had 

 been given to the condition of agricul- 

 ture. Nothing of substance has been 

 done to bring this basic part of our 

 national life into conformity with the 

 economic system that has been set up 

 by law. Government should interfere 

 as little as possible with business. But 

 if it does interfere with one phase of 

 economic life, be it by tariff, by assist- 

 ance to merchant marine, by control 

 of the flow of money and capital 

 through the banking system, it is bad 



logic, bad economics and an abandon- 

 ment of government responsibility to 

 say that as to agriculture alone, the 

 government should not aid. 



Co-ordinated Marketing Needed 



"Twice a Republican Congress has 

 passed legislation only to have it 

 vetoed by a President of their own 

 party, and whether the veto of that 

 specific measure was right or wrong, 

 it is undisputed that no adequate sub- 

 stitute was ever recommended to the 

 Congress by the president and that no 

 constructive plan of relief was ever 

 formulated by any leader of the Re- 

 publican party in place of the plan 

 which its Congress passed and its 

 President vetoed. Only caustic criti- 

 cism and bitter denunciation were pro- 

 voked in the minds of the Republican 

 leaders in answer to the nation-wide 

 appeal for a sane endeavor to meet 

 this crisis. 



"Co-operative, co-ordinated market- 

 ing and warehousing of surplus farm 

 products is essential, just as co-ordi- 

 nated, co-operative control of the flow 

 of capital was found necessary to the 

 regulation of our country's finances. 

 To accomplish financial stability, the 

 federal reserve system was called into 

 being by a Democratic administration. 

 The question for agriculture is com- 

 plex. Any plan devised must also be 

 co-ordinated with the other phases of 

 our business institutions. Our plat- 

 form declares for the development of 

 co-operative marketing and an earnest 

 endeavor to solve the problem of the 

 distribution of the cost of dealing with 

 crop surpluses over the marketed unit 

 of the crop whose producers are bene- 

 fited by such assistance. 



Fledges Immediate Action 



"Only the mechanics remain to be 

 devised. I propose to substitute action 

 for inaction, and friendliness for hos- 

 tility. In my administration of the 

 government of my state, whenever I 

 was confronted with a problem of this 

 character, I called into conference 

 those best equipped on the particular 

 subject in hand. I shall follow that 

 course with regard to agriculture. 



"Farmers and farm leaders, with 

 such constructive aid as will come 

 from sound economists and fair-mind- 

 ed leaders of finance and business, 

 must work out the detail. There are 

 varying plans for the attainment of the 

 end which is to be accomplished. Such 

 plans should be subjected at once to 

 searching, able and fair-minded anal- 

 ysis, because the interests of all require 

 that the solution shall be economically 

 sound. 



"If I am elected, I shall immediately 



