2 3 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



representative of the extremist views that prevailed during the depth 

 of the agricultural depression. He charged that the agricultural colleges 

 deliberately distracted the attention of the farmers from the real solution 

 of the farm problem and conditioned them to "accept the lowly position 

 of the peasant." He heaped unlimited ridicule upon the bulletins sent 

 out by Iowa State College, some of them instructing farmers' wives on 

 how to make undergarments for their children out of feedsacks. 22 



Reno had nothing but scorn for the "stuffy" college professor. He 

 stated that the "stuff" that the "ancient professor" handed out to his 

 students was not going to be of any use to them in the immediate future. 

 "The theories of advanced economics aren't going to be worth a damn 

 in the next two or three years in solving the practical problems that con- 

 front us." Reno, according to one account, carried on an extensive corre- 

 spondence with a prominent professor who had stated in his textbook 

 that there were fourteen basic industries. This, Reno said, was wrong. 

 To Reno, agriculture was the one and only basic industry, because it was 

 concerned with the procurement of food for human consumption; 

 throughout the course of history, man had been able to get along with- 

 out every other industry, but not without the producers of food. 23 



Union antagonisms toward existing economic institutions resulted in 

 orgies of emotional denunciation. Agriculture was a meek lamb sitting 

 alongside the lion of big business. Speculators operating on grain ex- 

 changes were nothing more than racketeers of "a higher . . . mentality 

 and character" who were on the loose. "We permit a gambling game to 

 run in our grain exchanges which takes millions from suckers where 

 slot machines take cents." John A. Simpson, the most militant of Farmers* 

 Union national presidents, castigated the capitalist system after the fashion 

 of a prophet, and heaped unlimited praise on cooperatives. The capitalistic 

 system, like the doings of the devil, he said, was based on "selfishness, 

 greed, avarice," and led to "theft, robbery, murder, suicide and war," while 

 the cooperatives were of "Christian origin instead of the devil," were 

 based on "service instead of profit," and had as their attributes "unselfish- 

 ness and the brotherhood of man." 24 



22. Iowa Union Farmer (Columbus Junction), January n, 1933. 



23. Des Moines Register, January 27, 1934. 



24. Farmers' Union Herald, March, 1927; April 6, December 31, 1931; August, 



1933- 



