Page Twelve 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



could possibly live on was a dollar wasted, 

 today advocate a high rate of wages and 

 make him a better buyer. If that is true 

 of the wage earner, why not of the farmer? 

 If a manufacturer gives his men a raise 

 in pay he quotes it in the price of the goods 

 he sells. Naturally. Why shouldn't he.' 

 He passes it along. Ari*d in many cases this 

 accumulative high standard of living cost 

 is passed along again and again. A man 

 gets a little higher price for making the 

 brick or making the steel, the contractor 

 has to pay a little more wages to build the 

 building. In the end your rent goes up. 

 Then you pass the rent along to somebody 

 else, but eventually away "off, clear out in 

 the prairie, you pass part of this burden to 

 somebody who hasn't any place to pass it, 

 simply because he has no voice in the price 

 put on his goods. His is a buyer's market. 

 He takes what he can get and has abso- 

 lutely no voice in saying what that price 

 shall be. That is the trouble with agri- 

 culture, not only in America, but in many 

 other places. 



What Is Cure 



Now, what is the cure? You hear a 

 great many arguments now about mass 

 production on the farm, production in great 

 units and operating more economically. 

 That is possible. It is being done success- 

 fully in a few instances, but it is very 

 repugnant to the nation's ideals, to the 

 homestead, to the man who tries to make 

 a home for himself and his family on the 

 land. 



In my judgment it can be accomplished 

 without the merging of farms. The farm- 

 er's handicap is not so much in the things 

 that he buys. >5rhen my friend Rosenwald 

 (Julius Rosenwald) here gets out his mail 

 order book, somebody else gets the chain 

 store right up to the door of the farmer, in 

 addition to what service he has had in the 

 past. His buying is fairly comparable with 

 you people in town; he is not paying any 

 great premium on the stuff he buys. What 

 is wrong with him is in what he sells. He 

 needs to get something for that. 



That, I believe, can be done by collective 

 action in the selling line only without dis- 

 turbing what is established otherwise. In 

 other words, by massing together in large 

 units the product of any commodity, agri- 

 cultural or otherwise, you have a better bar- 

 gaining power than when you have a thou- 

 sand people each competing with the other, 

 while one should do the job. 



Producer Has Control 

 Now you say, "Why do I assume that a 

 co-operative run by a bunch of untrained 

 farmers can do better in marketing their 

 crops than the old time machinery that has 

 been set up, the old system, the old agency 

 now at work?" Don't lose sight of this 

 fundamental, gentlemen, and that is, the 

 private agency has no control aver the flow 

 of the commodity to the market. The pro- 

 ducer has. The Producer can so regulate the 



marketings of his crop collectively that he 

 never will have a glut, and if there is any 

 surplus he will keep it at home and not 

 pay freight on it. 



To illustrate, I refer to my friend, Charlie 

 Teague, member of the Federal Farm Board, 

 with 25 years experience in the citrus busi- 

 ness. Today we have the picture of possibly 

 two or three concerns, shipping and han- 

 dling practically all the citrus fruit that is 

 krown on the Pacific Coast, while down in 

 little Florida, which grows a very small per- 

 centage of the whole amount, there are 

 some 132 different shippers. Florida grow- 

 ers bunch their products. It goes to Balti- 

 more today, to New York tomorrow, Btet 

 it goes in a bunch. It gluts the market 

 and it is sacrificed. You don't find the 

 gentlemen on the Pacific Coast doing that. 

 Their market is studied and watched every 

 day, and the flow of the goods to the mar- 

 ket is based on what that market has been 

 consuming in corresponding weeks of pre- 



// you haven't read this 

 speech of Alex Legge's you have 

 missed one of the most interest- 

 ing and important documents 

 and contributions to the vol- 

 uminous literature on the sub- 

 ject, ever published. This arti- 

 cle can not help but stimulate 

 you to thought. Write your 

 comments for the "Reader's 

 Forum", c-o I. A. A. Record, 

 608 So. Dearborn St.. Chicago. 



vious years, and, if there comes a little too 

 much, by-product plants have biren pro- 

 vided in which the surplus is sal^^ed, at 

 home without paying any freight on it. The 

 central market does not get a chance^"to 

 handle that at all. 



That is the difference between organized 

 marketing and the present disorganized 

 system in general use. The ability to reg- 

 ulate supply to demand is the life of - any 

 business, of all our businesses. If you manu- 

 facture too much stuff and the market 

 can't absorb it, what do you do? In the 

 last analysis this organized marketing of 

 agricultural products will do that same 

 thing for farmers. 



A Little Arithmetic 

 It isn't a happy thought to the average 

 farmer to think he might have to reduce 

 production, but some day he will get it 

 through his head that four bushels of wheat 

 at tl.iO a bushel is $6.00, but that five 

 bushels at $1.00 a bushel is only i5.00. 

 That percentage of reduced production, 

 twenty per cent less, would easily result in 

 a return of 20 per cent more, could it be 

 applied this minute. A 20 per cent reduc- 

 tion in what he produces would bring his 

 supply within the tariff barriers which today 

 are practically of no use to grain growers. 

 He wouldn't have any trouble iii getting 20 

 per cent mor.; for 20 per cent lesi gain. 



No Need To Worry 

 This question comes in right there: 

 Suppose this works out successfully? What 

 is it going to do to the other fellow? The 

 miller and the canner and every other fel- 

 low who processes farm products w-^nts to 

 know, "What is it going to do to me? Why 

 don't you consult me before you do this or 

 do that?" 



The answer, gentlemen, is simple. If that 

 processer, whoever he may be, is doing a 

 useful service at a reasonable cost, he has 

 nothing to worry about. Service has to 

 be performed. If he can do it as cheaply, 

 as well, and as efficiently as anybody else, 

 why should he worry? He won't have to 

 change. If he is not doing it effectively 

 and economically, and furnishing good serv- 

 ice for the revenue he gets out of it, he 

 is going to pass out of the picture, anyway. 

 It may be competition, it may be co-op- 

 eration, but in any event he is going, be' 

 cause the inefficient has to go. 



Now I am not going to take much more 

 time, gentlemen. It is getting a bit late 

 for us farmers. "^- -^^ "\ 



, ■ !^^ - 



The Consumer 



Then we get. the next question: How is it 

 going to affect the consumer? To some 

 extent it may increase the cost • to the 

 consumer on some farm products, but not 

 on everything. We start with the wage 

 earner who gets a raise of pay and he passes 

 it along to the manufacturer and the whole- 

 saler and the retailer and it finally gets back 

 to the farmer. If he has to pay out a little 

 bit of that wage for an increased cost of 

 living, why, you have only made the circle 

 complete. He hasn't any kick coming; 

 only he will just try to get a little more 

 when he gets the next advance. 



You people living here in Chicago (I 

 lived here for thirty years until quite 

 recently) have been paying fourteen cents a 

 quart for your milk in recent years. People 

 in St. Paul or Minneapolis buy the same 

 grade and the same quality of milk, all- 

 pasteurized and sterilized and whatever they 

 do' to it (it is a lot these days, to comply 

 with the health regulations), and they get 

 it for twelve cents. Yet, the . farmer in 

 Minnesota gets thirty cents a htmdred more 

 for the milk than the farmer in Illinois. 

 All that difference was taken out of obsolete 

 methods of distribution — every cent of it. 



The Modern Way 

 Instead of there being eight or ten or a 

 dozen different milk wagons goiiig down 

 the alley, one goes "down the alley. The' 

 distributors, the same men who grew up mv, ' 

 the trade, are still doing the worb^ They 

 have so many blocks allotted to them and 

 nobody else goies on their* territory. You 

 don't have a case where yftu have five or 

 six or ten apaftment buildiAgs together, 

 and as many different men coming up, put- 

 ting down a package of butter and a bot- 

 tle of milk, and in a few minutes another 

 . /, .(Continued on pait 13) -...i- 



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