E D IT O RIAL 



Minority Control 



f'^i HEN you get right down to it, the biggest 

 VvV 1/ issue in working out a permanent farm pro- 

 ^ y gram is that of handling the small minority 

 who won't go along; the few who either deliberately 

 or uoknowingly undo the work of the many. 



-In his recent message to Congress, President Roose- 

 velt put his" finger on the real problem when he said: 

 "We must keep in mind the American demo- 

 cratic way. Farm programs cannot long succeed un- 

 less they have the active support of the farmers who 

 take part in them. Our program should continue 

 to be one planned and administered, so far as possible, 

 by the farmers themselves. Here again majority rule 

 seems justified. If and when huge surpluses in any 

 one group threaten to engulf all the producers of that 

 crop, our laws should provide ways by which a small 

 minority may be kept from destroying the proceeds 

 of the toil of the great majority." 



Thinking farmers are pretty well agreed upon what 

 needs to be done to solve the crop surplus problem. They 

 said so in the recent Senate Committee hearing at Spring- 

 field. They have expressed their agreement on numerous 

 prior occasions. They want the chiseler, the fellow who 

 is anti-social, the one who increases production when all 

 his neighbors are cutting down, penalized. They looknipon 

 him as an enemy of the common good. And rightfully so. 

 American democracy, in fact any democracy, is based 

 upon majority control. We have plenty of precedent in 

 American history on the subject. Government has estab- 

 lished laws to curb or punish anyone who steals, who 

 fails to pay his just taxes, who destroys what his neighbor 

 has created, who refuses to give his children a common 

 school education, who beats his wife, who commits a public 

 nuisance, who slanders or libels another, who breaks count- 

 less other statutes. All are punishable offenses adopted 

 in the public interest. 



Call it regimentation. Call it depriving a citizen of 

 his liberty. Call it what you will, such acts are against 

 the rules, and society condemns them. And some day, 

 society will condemn, too, acts that undermine a program 

 adopted by the majority of farmers to prevent crop sur- 

 pluses from wrecking prices and leaving a great industry 

 an economic cripple. / 



Farm Imports Slow Up 



LUMP IN LIVE STOCK PRICES CHECKS 

 MEAT IMPORTS." This recent headline 

 talks more eloquently and accurately about 

 the economics of foreign trade than the columns of news- 

 paper propaganda we have seen blaming surplus crop con- 

 trol for importations of Polish hams and Argentine corn. 

 American farmers generally, of course, believe they are 

 entitled to the home market. Some further protection 

 undoubtedly is needed particularly to check imports of 

 starches and molasses that cut into the American farmers' 

 outlet for corn. But recent history has disclosed that in- 

 creasing imports of meats and grain is just another sign 

 that American farmers are getting high prices. Conversely, 

 when such imports dry up it may mean that American 

 prices are not only unsatisfactory to foreign producers but 



also to American farmers. Moderate imports of farm 

 products following crop failures are nothing to get excited 

 about. They only emphasize the merit of maintaining 

 reasonable crop surpluses to make us independent of im- 

 ports in years of short crops. j 



Who Started This Thing, Anyway? 



y^T is fundamental in economics that there is no 

 ^j overproduction if you make prices low enough. 

 ^^ As prices go down, more and more users and uses 

 are found for the commodity or service. We saw an 

 example of this in the bumper com crop of 2,906,873,000 

 bushels in 1932. There proved to be little, if any, surplus 

 at the prices of 12 cents to 20 cents a bushel that so much 

 of it sold for. Com was shoveled into livestock with utter 

 abandon. Hogs were fed out to unusual weights. So were 

 cattle. In Iowa corn was used for fuel. It was made into 

 alcohol. Had the low prices remained, many other in- 

 dustrial uses would have been found for it. Somehow or 

 other that big crop was got rid of. 



Obviously, we would all be better oflf, and have a 

 higher standard of living if everyone was kept busy 

 producing. It is tragic that with so much work to be done 

 in developing our farms, cities, roads, waterways, parks, 

 and public facilities, and in supplying each other with the 

 things and services we would like to have, that the labor 

 of so many men and and women is going to waste. 



Much as the farmer would like to produce to capacity 

 at all times and take whatever he can get for his stuff, 

 in self-defense he has been forced to do something about 

 price. No one else, it seems, will meet the farmers' ca- 

 pacity production with like production. 



In 1932, farmers maintained their production at 

 approximately 96 per cent of the pre-depression period 

 but suffered a drop in prices of 63 per cent. To maintain 

 the bargain prices of 1932, the farmer mined the fertility 

 from his soil, gave away his own labor, wore out his 

 machinery producing big crops, dug into his reserves or 

 borrowed, and ended up the year with less cash than he 

 undoubtedly would have received had he cultivated only 

 75 per cent as many acres. 



Had organized labor cut its wage scales 63 per cent, 

 manufacturers, processors and others cut their prices 63 

 per cent, and maintained production as the farmer did — 

 even at the expense of digging into their reserves — the 

 depression couldn't have lasted very long. 



And yet we read on the financial pages of metropolitan 

 newspapers statements deploring the so-called economy of 

 scarcity the farmers are practicing. Who started this thing 

 of cutting down production, anyway? Certainly not the 

 farmers. Again we read about factories shutting down and 

 men turned out on the streets. Yet how many price cuts 

 have you seen announced in the newspapers of things that 

 farmers buy? How many reductions have been made com- 

 parable to the recent drop from $1.40 to 43 cents per bu. for 

 corn, from Jl3 to $8 for hogs, and from 14 to 7 cents for 

 cotton ? 



The economy of scarcity is here again — but not on the 

 farm. It is in the industrial centers where production has 

 fallen off. And, of course, our critics will expect farmers to 

 go right on producing to capacity so as to provide cheap 

 food to help people through this new depression. 



Fi^rr; 



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L A. A. RECORD 



