AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



ers bought. Here the farmers had the facts to support their charges as 

 perhaps they never had had before. Freight rates, wages, taxes, farm im- 

 plements, and the like, all of which went into the farmers' cost of produc- 

 tion, remained high or came down via the stairway, while farm prices 

 took the elevator. 10 



The McNary-Haugenites chose to consider agricultural prices from 

 the standpoint of the purchasing power of the farmer rather than in terms 

 of money prices received. 11 In these efforts they were amply facilitated 

 by the work of statisticians of the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture, who had been compiling such figures. They found that "a suit of 

 clothes which cost the farmers in North Dakota 21 bushels of wheat in 

 July 1913, cost him 31 bushels in 1923, and a wagon which then cost him 

 103 bushels would cost him 166." "Average monthly farm wages for the 

 United States on July i, 1923 were 59 per cent above the 1913 level. Day 

 wages at harvest time had increased even more. In Kansas the day wage 

 in harvest was 82 per cent above 1913. . . . Wholesale prices of the more 

 common farm implements were . . . from 45 to 59 per cent higher than 

 in 1913, and retail prices were considerably higher. . . ." Tax burdens in 

 many regions had become excessive. "Taxes on farm lands in Kansas in- 

 creased 171 per cent between 1913 and 1921, in South Dakota, 129. . . ." 

 "Since 1920 prices of wheat have fallen nearly to the pre-war level, whereas 

 freight rates remain 45 per cent and more above pre-war rates." Granted 

 that the price of wheat in 1923 was slightly above the prewar level, the 

 costs of production were relatively much higher. And this was but one 

 instance. The same was true of other commodities. 12 



Also included in this system which kept farm production costs high 

 were such measures as the Adamson Law, the curbing of immigration, 

 the Esch-Cummins Law, and the Railroad Labor Board. "These all tended 

 to protect, stabilize and hold immune from world influence industry and 



10. John D. Black, "The Progress of Farm Relief," American Economic Review, 

 XVIII (lune, 1928), pp. 252-55; see especially page 254 for a comparison of price 

 indexes between farm and nonfarm products over the period 1910-27. 



IT. Brand, in Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, XI (January, 1925), 

 p. 163. 



12. Henry C. Wallace, The Wheat Situation, U. S. Dept. Agri. (Washington, 



PP- J - 2 > 2 



