AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION 259 



that capital and labor will come to an amicable understanding without 

 the intervention of some outside organization of sufficient power and 

 influence to act as a balance wheel." "Patriotism," Howard said, "ought 

 to be as vital a part of our existence today as when we were fighting the 

 Huns. Patriotism should be taught in the schools, and the American flag 

 should float over every school house in the country today as it did two or 

 three years ago." 7 And he believed that a farmer-labor party was "an 

 economic and political impossibility." 8 



Perhaps nothing aired the atmosphere that surrounded the Bureau 

 better than did the resolutions enacted by it in 1919. They stated that "a 

 large factor in the high cost of living is the curtailment of production 

 through short hours, lessened efficiency of labor and strikes," placed the 

 Bureau "unqualifiedly in sympathy with the government's determination 

 to suppress radicalism," and offered the aid of the federation to the effort 

 "to rid the country of Bolshevism and other anarchistic tendencies." 9 The 

 state farm bureaus that assembled in Chicago on March 3 and 4, 1920, to 

 ratify the work of the November meeting re-emphasized their "unwaver- 

 ing faith in and full support of the Constitution of the United States,'* 

 denounced those "who have distressed and bewildered the country by 

 ill-advised and un-American virtues and beliefs of the yesterdays," hailed 

 the American Legion as "one of the most important factors in the life 

 of America," assailed the Farmers' National Council as the ally of "the 

 radical element of the industrial world," and condemned the lag in pro- 

 duction brought about by strikes for shorter hours and better wages. 10 In 

 1921 President Howard again warned: "There is too much radicalism, or 

 going off 'half-cocked', using a common vernacular, among farmers of 

 this country." 11 



Even though the fear of a farmer-labor alignment haunted many lead- 

 ers, there appears little to justify these apprehensions. The economic posi- 

 tion of the average farmer militated against such a union. The farmer 



7. Iowa Farm Bureau Messenger, February 7, 1920. 



8. Ibid., January, 1923. 



9. American Farm Bureau Federation, Resolutions of November 14, 1919, and 

 March 4, 1920 (Chicago, 1920) [leaflet]. 



10. What Is The American Farm Bureau Federation? (Chicago, 1920) [pam- 

 phlet]. 



11. Milwaukee Journal, June 10, 1921. 



