THE I. A. A. RECORD 



.Eml 



e Eleven 



The Agricultural Situation 



By ALEXANDER LEGGE, Chairman, Federal Farm Board 



ONE should not face an audience 

 like this without adequate 

 preparation, but my clients have 

 beet, rather insistent since I agreed 

 to come here that their problems 

 in meat, wheat, cotton, and one 

 thing and another were more im- 

 portant than anybody's speech — so, 

 should my talk be rambling and dis- 

 connected, I ask your indulgence 

 to that extent. 



Going back — one of the questions 

 i«: When did the agricultural prob- 

 lem begin? How far have we any 

 record? I can't answer that very 

 clearly; it was before my time. 



A New York paper recently put 

 out in a Sunday supplement what 

 purported to be a tablet dug up in 

 the Valley of the Kings on which was an 

 inscription by Argan, I think it is, the king 

 of kings, who passed away in 3 500 B. C. 

 On the tablet the king admonished his peo- 

 ple that, to protect the nation, they should 

 try to correct the frivolous habiu of the 

 young women of the day and also the dis- 

 parity between the earnings of agriculture 

 and the villages. In other words, they had 

 flapper and farm relief questions even in 

 those days. 



/ ■ Drifting To City - ; 



I don't vouch for the story nor can I 

 vouch for the story of some of the latest 

 economists who think they see in our pres- 

 ent situation a parallel with the history of 

 Rome in its balmiest days. The drift of the 

 people from the country to the city is cer- 

 tainly going on here at the present time 

 and their experiences portray what it means 

 — they had transferred people from the soil 

 to the centers of population and you all 

 know the result. I have seen a little in 

 recent years of the reverse movement where 

 the overcrowded city is being relieved. The 

 people are being moved back to the farms 

 under the escort of a government gentle- 

 man in a black shirt. I hope we won't 

 have to do it that way. 



Now we still hear the question, what is 

 the problem; is there an agricultural prob- 

 lem, is it real? The National Industrial 

 Conference Board, not made up of farmers 

 or supported by farmers but supported by 

 you people here, passed on that question, 

 and answered it very fully and completely. 

 I have never had any doubt about it myself. 

 I was raised on the farm. I have always 

 owned a farm and I know about how the 

 thing runs, but I will not use my personal 

 illustration. If any of you gentlemen have 

 any question about it aik your esteemed 

 fellow citizen, Mr. Samuel Insull. He has 

 a record of being a wizard. He can take a 

 gas company and a light plant and a rail- 

 road and what not and make it purr and 

 make it move and make it pay dividends 

 and profits, reduce the prices and make 



MR. LEGGE made the speech printed 

 herewith before a group consisting 

 largely of Chicago business men, several 

 months ago. It came to our attention 

 only recently. He talked extemporaneously 

 at the dinner closing the Sixth Conference 

 of Major Industries sponsored by the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, the Institute of Ameri. 

 can Meat Packers, and nineteen other 

 organizations. 



Alex Legge's characteristic shrewdness, 

 directness, and grasp of the essentials in 

 the job before him are clearly revealed in 

 this speech. It gives you an estimate of 

 the kind of man we have at' the head of the 

 Farm Board. The common sense and 

 ability to drive at the heart of a question 

 that made Mr. Legge a SIOO.OOO a year man 

 can be read between the lines. Don't miss 

 reading this article. — Editor. 



m- J 



everybody happy, but he can't run a farm 

 except in red ink. He admits it. He has as 

 good a manager as I ever met trying to run 

 it, but he can't make it pay expenses. I am 

 sorry Mr. Insull is not here this evening, 

 but I am sure he would verify that state- 

 ment if he were. 



Now there is a better understanding than 

 there was a few years ago of this subject, 

 but it is not well understood by the people 

 of the country at large today. Some of 

 the questions that come in to us are 

 astounding in the lack of knowledge of the 

 facts that exist all around you. The farmer 

 has been lost in the shufiSe, to a measur- 

 able extent, in the rapid progress of in- 

 dustry. To illustrate: One of these sta- 

 tistical "sharks" down at Washington has 

 been compiUng figures on gifts and dona- 

 tions made by philanthropic people during 

 the last eight years. During that time the 

 front pages of the papers have been filled 

 with this farm problem most of the time, 

 but out of gifts totalling nearly $17,000,- 

 000,000 — $2,800,000,000 of which was 

 given in 1928 — $1,000,000, donated by 

 Gianini to the University of California, is 

 the only donation that you can trace to the 

 agricultural interests of the nation. For 

 the farmer to participate in any other do- 

 nations he has to come to town. 



Is Not Favoritism 



I just quote that to show how completely 

 the farmer has been lost out of the public 

 consciousness of this great nation. 



Then we have the question of this meas- 

 ure, the Agricultural Marketing Act, this 

 law which we are trying to administer as 

 being socialistic, paternalistic — favoritism of 

 one kind or another. Is there the need of 

 government action, and if so, why? What is 

 it? Is it any greater measure of relief that 

 is contemplated in this law than has been 

 afforded to labor, to industry, to transpor- 

 tation or to finance? I think not. It does 

 go, it seeks to go, many good ways. 



In recent weeks, members of the Farm 

 Board have received literally thousands of 



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communications — editorials, news- 

 paper clippings, telegrams, letters, 

 telephone calls, personal commisera- 

 tion — over the panning we got up 

 on the "riiH" in the Senate 

 quiry. There is nothing to thai 

 from our standpoint, but out ot all 

 that not one single friend who tried 

 to condole with us has, seen through 

 the picture of what is beyond. 



Why is there a radical bloc? Why 

 are there Progressives? In each and 

 every instance, gentlemen, they 

 represent distress at home. They are 

 trying to find an expression for the 

 distress in some part of this great 

 nation. Remove the distress and you 

 won't have any trouble with radical 

 blocs in the government of this 

 country. If you do not remove the dis- 

 tress, if some one does not find a way to 

 do it, you will find conditions much worse 

 in the future than you have seen them in 

 the past. 



I Can't Agree 

 Some people say that these cannot be ant 

 parity between industry and agriculture. 

 I can't hold to that at all. They quote the 

 repeal of the British corn law as a marking 

 of the ways, or, to become a commercial 

 nation and pass the farmer over to peasan- 

 try. I don't think that is literally true, 

 but, if it were, I am not certain that it was 

 a good move. You have the picture today 

 of Great Britain, sturdy old Great Britain, 

 which has the farm problem quite as acute 

 as it is here, and, with it all, you have a 

 Prime Minister, elected for the second time, 

 representing the Socialists and rather radical 

 Socialists of the British Commonwealth. The 

 repeal of the corn law may not have worked 

 out altogether happily. 



Individualism The Reason 

 Why has agriculture lagged behind, par- 

 ticularly in this country? I think the an- 

 swer is individualism, isolation. Collective 

 action as compared to Individual action is 

 represented in every industry here except in 

 agriculture. I don't mean by that any 

 great combination of units. That is not the 

 story at all. It Is a combination of minds. 

 Industries are run by a group of minds 

 working together. It isn't any one man's 

 guess that decides the best thing to do. It u 

 the concerted action of many men, studied 

 action, carefully reviewed, and reviewed 

 again. You have to do all that to avoid 

 making any mistakes, while the farmer act- 

 ing Individually gauges his program by the 

 horizon, seeing but little beyond what there 

 is in sight in making his plans. 



Agab In this day of high standards of 

 living — now get that right (the high stand- 

 ard of living we boast about, you have all 

 becoine accustomed to it) -"-many people, 

 who years ago felt that every dollar they 

 gave to the wage earner b«yond what he 



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