EDITORIAL 



Business Principles In Farming 



C\^ONSIDERING the criticism of the acreage adjust- 



jn""^ ment program of American farmers coming from 



\^^ industrial centers, here is interesting reading from 



the May business review of the National City Bank of 



New York: 



"A jew industries, including tires and shoes, give 

 evidence of having improved their position through 

 curtailment, and are doing a little better. Cotton mills 

 have cut operations further, but their sales increased 

 sharply when it became clear to buyers that the piling 

 up of goods on a weak market was to be stopped, and 

 their margins have improved." 



Putting business principles into the business of farm- 

 ing with the cooperation of government should least of all 

 be criticised by business men. This is especially true when 

 they stand to profit by the resulting improvement in farm 

 buying power. 



Stanley Is Back Again 



TANLEY F. MORSE, the self-st>'led South Caro- 

 lina cotton planter, farm manager, agricultural 

 adviser to South American republics, recently read 

 a prepared speech to the Union League Club of Chicago 

 in which he attacked all efforts organized farmers have 

 made since the middle twenties to control crop surpluses, 

 adjust acreage and supplies of farm products, secure parity' 

 prices, and place agriculture on a sound business basis. 



Morse said in his address that he had just come from 

 Macomb. He spoke in complimentary terms of the so- 

 called Corn Belt Liberty League and seemed to know a 

 great deal about its purposes. 



Stanley Morse will be remembered as the one-time 

 secretary of the defunct Farmers Independence Council 

 which propagandized across the corn belt in 1 934-' 36 and 

 unsuccessfully attempted to divide farmers and turn them 

 against the Agricultural Adjustment program then in 

 operation. Farmers will recall that a congressional invest- 

 igation disclosed that the Council had its origin in the East 

 and was backed by the DuPonts, other eastern financial 

 interests, and the Liberty League. 



The address of Mr. Morse is causing farmers to won- 

 der if the same forces are attempting to drag the non- 

 political, non-partisan farm program into politics, to mis- 

 lead and divide them in their efforts to control crop sur- 

 pluses and to secure parity prices and parity income for 

 agriculture. 



Politics in the Farm Problem 



y^N an address before farmers and business men of 

 Qt McLean and adjoining counties on May 6, Presi- 

 y_y dent Earl C. Smith showed conclusively that the 

 solution of the farm surplus problem had been developed 

 throughout the years on a non-partisan basis; that both 

 Republicans and Democrats had pledged in the 1932 and 

 1936 conventions to assist farmers in controlling crop sur- 

 pluses and securing fair prices; that Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture Hyde and Alexander Legge, Chairman of the Federal 

 Farm Board, both appointees of former President Hoover, 

 had exhorted farmers to reduce their acreages in cotton, 



34 



wheat, and other basic crops in 1930-'31-'32; and that to- 

 day we have the paradox of a Democratic administration 

 trying to make effective a program which the Republican 

 Party promised in 1932. 



Mr. Smith said further that "any man in political 

 life who so grossly misrepresents the promise of his party to 

 the farm people of the nation as to try to inject partisanship 

 into the solution of this important problem is not entitled 

 to the vote of a single, thinking citizen. ... I never have 

 been and am not now interested in the fortunes of a 

 political party. I am interested in the fortunes of every 

 statesman who can be developed within any political party, 

 who puts his constituency and the sound solution of eco- 

 nomic questions ahead of his own political ambitions." 



These views clearly express the well-established policy 

 of the Illinois Agricultural Association on this question. 

 They should be kept in mind as we approach another 

 season when voters are called upon to select their legislative 

 representatives in state and nation. 



Why Organization Counts 



r^'TTv FTEN farmers who are not members of the Farm 

 1"^^ I Bureau maintain that they can get along "just as 

 \^^ well" by themselves as in cooperation with their 

 neighbors. They accordingly fail to join their own organ- 

 ization. 



A moment's reflection will show that these men, often 

 benefitting from the activities of organized agriculture, are 

 actually deceiving themselves. 



The present farm program, which experts have hailed 

 as the first truly permanent agricultural policy to be writ- 

 ten on the statute books, is expected to benefit all farmers. 

 By judiciously controlling surpluses, and affording a way, 

 when a surplus is produced, to bring about orderly market- 

 ing, it will tend to produce a stable price, relatively. Be- 

 fore, a year of a big crop inevitably resulted in glutted 

 markets and in a sharp decline of price. 



What then, is the position of the non-member farm- 

 er, if such benefits to agriculture are brought about.-" Isn't 

 it that of the hitchhiker who hooks a ride on the car, no 

 part of whose operating expense he pays? 



Isn't the fact clear that ALL farmers benefit not only 

 from this, but from other activities of the Farm Bureau 

 and its state and national organizations.' 



Tick off on your fingers some of the things that the 

 Farm Bureau has done which have helped agriculture. 

 Isn't it true that in the main all farmers derive benefit, not 

 just members? 



Then suppose that those who are in the Farm Bureau 

 took the position of those who are not, and decided that 

 they could get along just as well without lending their 

 personal support and membership. What kind of Farm 

 Bureau, and what kind of influence at Springfield and 

 Washington, would the farmers have? 



When one studies the organizations of labor and of 

 capital, he can't help drawing the conclusion that the farm- 

 ers, too, need their organization. The general public can 

 rest assured that the farmers' organization, probably more 

 than any other, has no selfish group interest in mind, but 

 that is working for the good of community, state, and 

 nution.-^Pontiac News Review. - 1 



L A. A. RECORD 



