EDITORIAL 



More Production — Lower Prices 



"^ 



HY not produce more things at lower prices 



for more people?" 



This is the challenge General Motors 

 hurled to the industrial world in a recent advertisement. 

 Why not indeed? A brilliant idea. Farmers would like 

 to see it tried more extensively in the industries which 

 they largely patronize. If the industrial world, generally, 

 should produce more at lower prices for more people it 

 would result in a great upward surge in standard of liv- 

 ing. Factories would run day and night. Capacity pro- 

 duction would flood the market with goods just as farmers 

 flooded the country with commodities in 1932 and prior 

 years. 



regardless of price, market and profit. The farmer doesn't 

 want to be the goat — the only producer who goes to 

 market asking, "What'll you give?" He believes in the 

 profit system but he wants to become part of it. So in 

 self-defense he is forced to go along with the American 

 industrial system and exercise some control through fed- 

 eral co-operation over production and price. 



When all other highly-organized groups and interests 

 produce and work to capacity, leaving prices, wages, rates 

 and fees to the law of supply and demand, farmers will 

 be ready to do likewise. Until then they will insist on 

 the application of measures to give agriculture equality in 

 our economic system. ■' \ ' 



More automobiles, rad- 

 ios, bath tubs, new homes, 

 electric appliances, and, yes, 

 food at lower prices for 

 more people would be most 

 welcome by consumers. 



More wire fence, steel 

 products, cement, lumber, 

 coal, tractors, fertilizer, 

 feed concentrates, and farm 

 machinery at lower prices 

 would be especially wel- 

 come to farmers. 



BUT all these industrial 

 products for years have 

 been produced under a sys- 

 tem of PLANNED SCAR- 

 CITY — the American 

 system, if you please. 

 Planned scarcity with pro- 

 duction control and price- 

 fixing has been practiced 

 by General Motors and 

 every other major industry 

 from the beginning. Or- 

 ganized labor is doing the 

 same thing through the 

 wage scale and the 40-hour 

 week. 



The automobile manu- 

 facturer tries to estimate the market at a fixed price for 

 his car and then produce the number he can sell at HIS 

 price. But he always has an eye out for profits. And we 

 don't blame him. When he can't sell at a profit he shuts 

 down and lays off the help. In fairness, let it be said 

 that the automobile industry has made notable progress in 

 producing more cars at lower prices for more people. You 

 get more for your money in an automobile today than ever 

 before. The same can be said for certain other products. 



But capacity production in industry — blind, unregulated 

 production regardless of price, market and profit — ^ is a 

 long ways off. Alfred Sloan, president of General Motors 

 knows it. So does the farmer who thinks. He is un- 

 willing to be a blind producer running his farm at capacity 



WE'RE WAITING 



Little Pigs Again 



W 



imitn*c 



'OWARD Vin- 

 cent O'B r i e n 

 who writes for 

 the Chicago Daily News is 

 one of America's outstand- 

 ing independent journal- 

 ists. Mr. O'Brien says 

 what he thinks, and to its 

 everlasting credit the News 

 prints it as is. 



His column sparkles like 

 a diamond amidst the drab 

 offerings of less talented city 

 writers who too often are 

 prejudiced against the 

 farmer and his problems. 



Commenting on a bit of 

 propaganda "Facts For 

 Housewives" blaming the 

 slaughter of little pigs three 

 years ago for present ad- 

 vanced pork prices, Mr. 

 O'Brien said: 



"This is a deliberate at- 

 tempt to arouse the city 

 dweller against the farmer, 

 just as the slaughter of lit- 

 tle pigs was a deliberate at- 

 tempt to raise agricultural 

 income by reducing produc- 

 tion — an ancient and well tried device of the capitalist economy. 

 It is true that the price of pork has doubled. . . But the benefit 

 did not by any means accrue altogether to the farmer. While 

 it raised the price of food it correspondingly increased the 

 farmer's income, and therefore his purchasing power. Many 

 a city dweller is now employed at what he considers good 

 wages because the farmer is able to buy goods which he could 

 not buy when pork chops were selling for 17 cents a pound. 

 . . . "The city man under our present clumsy system of distribu- 

 tion must pay roundly for his food if the farmer is to buy the 

 radios, washing machines and horseless carriages which the 

 city man makes. It may be that pork chops at 35 cents is the 

 price of having any pork chops at all." 



Mr. O'Brien has said it better than the strongest partisan 

 of agricultural adjustment could have put it. More writers 

 of his calibre are needed to promote understanding and 

 good will between city and country. 



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L A. A. RECORD 



