AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



for the growing of corn, due to climatic reasons, was confined to an area 

 already fully exploited. Furthermore, important new uses were being 

 found for corn. Careful observers noted that the rising level of prices was 

 by no means confined to the United States alone, and some of them argued 

 that the increase in the world's supply of gold was partly responsible for 

 price trends. The real trouble, they said, was that gold inflation had re- 

 sulted in a steady decline in the purchasing power of the dollar. 39 



The high farm prices were deeply resented by the consumer public. 

 Sometimes farmers were denounced as conscienceless monopolists who 

 set the prices of the necessities of life to the disadvantage of every city 

 dweller. Manufacturers claimed that the American farmer was lazy and 

 inefficient. If only he would get busy and increase production, food 

 would be cheaper, the wages of city laborers could be lowered, and the 

 American manufacturer could the better meet foreign competition. But 

 the farmers were disturbed only by the fear that the good prices might 

 not last. Senator Porter J. McCumber of North Dakota voiced their senti- 

 ments when he said: 



We are now approaching a condition when the farmer is about to secure 

 equality of remuneration, and the moment we reach toward that goal of justice 

 a boycott is started against his products, both in the cities and in the National 

 Legislature, by the introduction of bills designed to destroy his profits. . . . He 

 is, however, receiving not one cent more for any article than he is justly entitled 

 to, and in my candid opinion he is not receiving as much to-day as he is going 

 to receive in the future, and in the very near future. 40 



But high prices for farm produce did not wholly explain the prosperity 

 of the American farmer during the early years of the twentieth century. 

 He was aided also by a phenomenal rise in the price of land. For the coun- 

 try as a whole, according to the census of 1910, land values increased dur- 

 ing the preceding decade by 118.1 per cent. In states like Wisconsin and 

 Minnesota, with a large proportion of cut-over timber land, the increase 

 was less than this, but as the following percentages show, the advance was 



39. Ibid., XXXIV (October i, 1909), p. 1219; XXXV (November 25, 1910), p. 

 1570; XXXVII (September 6, 1912), p. 1242. 



40. Congressional Record, 61 Congress, 2 session, Vol. 45, Part II (1910), pp. 1479- 

 80; Wallaces' Farmer, XXXV (March n. 1910), pp. 431-32. See also ibid. (April 22, 

 1910), p. 679. 



