"JUcKIIVlEY WAS 

 ELECTED MD... 



. . That's How Father Happened 

 To Buy This Farm" 



SOME OF MABVm YONTZ'S MARKET-TOPPING HEREFOBDS 

 '1 buy bigger cattle now. Try to get good ones." 



«^' 



r 



ATHER said he'd buy the 

 farm if McKinley was 

 ^^ elected president," said 

 Marvin L. Yontz, with a twinkle in his 

 eye, by way of explanation. 



Just to refresh your memory, the year 

 was 1896. William Jennings Bryan, 

 youthful 36-year-old congressman from 

 Nebraska, had swept the Democratic con- 

 vention in Chicago that summer off its 

 feet with a silvery-tongued oration de- 

 manding the unlimited coinage of silver. 

 He was nominated on the fifth ballot 

 "amid scenes of the wildest enthusiasm, 

 hailed as the 'savior of the Democracy," 

 "the new Lincoln'." 



Able President Cleveland"s unfortunate 

 and unpopular administration, like Pres- 

 ident Hoover" s in 1931 -'3 2, was drawing 

 to a close. Farm prices were the lowest 

 in a half century. Cleveland had come 

 into office in 1892 facing a treasury de- 

 pleted by the previous spendthrift. Re- 

 publican administration of Benjamin 

 Harrison, had alienated the eastern in- 

 dustrialists by reducing the tariff, 

 struggled to build up the treasury's gold 

 reserve, and had insisted on adhering to 

 dear money and the gold standard there- 

 by angering the farmers and the silverites 

 of the west. 



Corn at Chicago in 1896 and 1897 

 as in 1932-33 averaged between 23c and 

 26c a bushel. Heavy hogs averaged 



13.50 a hundred, wheat was under 65c 

 and oats 18c. 



Major William B. McKinley, popular 

 Civil War veteran, twice governor of 

 Ohio and 14 years in congress was nom- 

 inated by the Republicans. McKinley 

 was committed to bimetallism (use of 

 both gold and silver), a high tariff, and 

 promised prosperity for farmers, "a full 

 dinner pail" for labor. 



McKinley backed by the moneyed in- 

 terests of the East with Mark Hanna as 

 campaign manager, won with 271 elec- 

 toral votes to 176 for Bryan, but with a 

 plurality of only about 600,000 votes 

 out of 13,600,000 cast in the election. 

 McKinley carried all the states east of 



• "Thousands of Americans were ready in 1896 

 to vote for a party which represented a sane op- 

 position to the growing power of the trusts, the 

 monopoly of coal, oil, and lumber lands, the 

 nurture of highly prosperous industries by a pro- 

 tective tariff which taxed the poor man's food and 

 clothing, and the growing influence of railroads, 

 express companies, and other corporations with oot 

 legislatures." says Prof. Muziey of Columbia Uni- 

 versity. "But the true 'people's party,* which 

 should have solidified to combat these economic 

 evils, was led astray by the glittering oratory of 

 the silver champion. It ralliea to a platform that 

 was bitterly sectional, to a doctrine that was eco- 

 nomically unsound, and to a leader who was im- 

 mature and untried. 'Lunacy dictated the plat- 

 form,' said a Democratic paper in New York, 

 'and hysteria evolved the candidate.' The election 

 of McKinley undoubtedly strengthened the influence 

 of the big business interests on our government, 

 but the election of Bryan would have opened the 

 way to the repudiation of our financial honor in 

 the eyes of the world and to the reign of untem- 

 pered radicalism at home. Confronted with this 

 alternative at the polls, a majority of the voters 

 who hesitated were convinced that the choice of 

 McKinley was at least the safer course." 



PAST OF THE CATTLE-FEEDING PLANT 

 The Yontz iatnutead ia neat and trim. 



MABVIN YONTZ 

 "It's safer lor a 

 young iellow." 



the Mississippi and north of the Poto- 

 mac, also Iowa and Minnesota, Ken- 

 tucky, West Virginia, California and 

 Oregon.* 



But that's another story. We cite it 

 here merely to tell you how Farm Bu- 

 reau member Marvin Yontz and his fam- 

 ily hapf>en to be residing on a particular 

 240 acre farm, a rich undulating one near 

 the little village of San Jose in the ex- 

 treme south ena of Tazewell county. 



By all odds, the year 1896 was a good 

 one in which to buy a farm. For with 

 the following year, there came a steady 

 uninterrupted rise in prices and land 

 values for nearly a quarter of a century. 



Today the same good judgment that 

 prompted the elder Yontz to call the turn 

 on farm land values, is used by Marvin 

 in feeding market-topping cattle, hogs 

 and sheep and making the farm pay. 



"I started in the cattle feeding busi- 

 ness buying calves and growing them 

 out," said Marvin. "It's safer for a 

 young fellow. You don't have so much 

 invested and the calves can grow out of a 

 loss on the purchase price. I buy bigger 

 cattle now, try to get good ones. We 

 feed mostly on pasture. It saves haul- 

 ing manure, is good for the land, and 

 brings you dieaper if somewhat slower 

 gains. We have fed as high as 167 head 

 in one year. " 



In one feed lot were 35 head of choice. 



THE MODERN GRANARY AND CBIB 

 "SHOO and Lumber from the old Crib 

 Built IL" 



