260 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



was both a laborer and a capitalist. Because he performed menial tasks for 

 long hours and small returns, Marxists, liberal politicians, labor leaders, 

 and intellectuals assumed that the interests of the farmers and laborers 

 were alike. But, as one farm economist wrote, ". . . these are scarcely 

 comparable social groups." "The farmer is to be compared with the small 

 business man of the city the retail merchant; or with the city man with 

 a profession the small city lawyer, doctor, or teacher; or with the city 

 man with a trade the carpenter or plumber." 12 The Wisconsin Council 

 of Agriculture carried this point a little further: "In addition to working 

 long hours, he ... the farmer . . . has a large investment in land, build- 

 ings, livestock, machinery, and other equipment. He is a business man 

 carrying large inventories. He must take chances on the markets that 

 gyrate with the weather and world-wide conditions. As an individual, he 

 is the world's greatest producer of new wealth, under the most speculative 

 conditions and on the narrowest margin." 13 



Besides the fact that the average farmer had a substantial amount of 

 money invested in property, there also was his psychological attitude that 

 militated against the formation of a farmer-labor coalition. Under normal 

 conditions, the farmer felt superior to labor and often displayed an in- 

 difference toward it. He was likely to regard labor unionism as something 

 with which his "capitalist brother" had to contend. His unfriendliness to 

 "cults, and isms and new-fangled notions" made him suspicious of such 

 "urban phenomena." During periods of low prices, as in the postwar 

 depression, such differences transformed themselves into open hostility. 

 At these times the farmer had no difficulty in detecting the means by 

 which his interests conflicted with those of labor. He sensed a conflict 

 arising from the buyer and seller relationship. Each group sought to buy 

 the other's commodities at the lowest possible price and sell its own at 

 the highest. Shorter working hours and higher wages meant higher living 

 costs and higher production costs for the farmer. The fact that there was 

 some relation between large labor incomes and large farm incomes did 

 not necessarily interest him. In times of strikes the farmer could easily find 

 his market affected adversely. Finally, "Manufacturers and middlemen," 



12. John D. Black, Agricultural Reform in the United States (New York, 1929), 

 p. 49. 



13. Wisconsin Council of Agriculture, "Farmer-Labor Relationship," Hoard's 

 Dairyman, LXXXIII (June 10, 1939), p. 319. 



