39 2 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



the Iowa Farmers" in rebuke. 53 The editorial ridiculed the Dickinson 

 bill as "mostly words" that signified nothing and informed the Iowa 

 farmers that the national administration had nothing to offer them but 

 the tariff, and that would not do them any good. The administration was 

 opposed to the McNary-Haugen plan. Nor would farmers in other sec- 

 tions of the country "put their hands in their pockets to subsidize you." 

 What did Iowa farmers ever do for the starved cotton farmer ? Did lowans 

 ever subsidize nonfarm groups ? Did Iowa farmers, for years among the 

 most prosperous in the nation, ever help less fortunate communities? 

 Also, the East had nothing to fear in the voting strength of the Middle 

 West. Senator Wadsworth of New York represented four times as many 

 farmers as did Senator McNary of Oregon. Senator Reed of Pennsyl- 

 vania had 200,000 more farm constituents than did Senator Capper of 

 Kansas. Senator Willis of Ohio had almost as many farm votes as did 

 Senator Reed of Missouri and nearly 300,000 more than there were in 

 Iowa. The farmers in these other sections did not have the same interests 

 that the Iowa farmers had. Why should wheat producers in Pennsyl- 

 vania agitate for lower freight rates so that Kansas wheat farmers shipping 

 to Pennsylvania would have to pay no more freight on their products than 

 would Pennsylvania farmers who had only a score of miles or so to send 

 their produce? Why should cotton farmers feeding corn to their mules 

 help keep up the price of Iowa corn ? Escape from low prices there was, 

 to be sure, but it was in a direction opposite that of the McNary-Haugen 

 bill. Farmers had to organize to reduce general tariff levels and they also 

 had to "squeeze" the water out of their land values. 



William M. Jardine, the Secretary of Agriculture, proposed to deal 

 with the surplus through a farm board, but without adopting the equaliza- 

 tion fee plan, which he described as "an excise tax, put on necessities of 

 life." This proposal was incorporated into the Tincher bill, which he 

 endorsed but which was opposed by Peek, Frank Murphy, and other 

 McNary-Haugen supporters who were bound and determined either to 

 pass the equalization fee proposal or else to elect a Congress that would. 54 

 According to the equalization fee enthusiasts, about the only thing that 



53. "An Open Letter to the Iowa Farmers," World's Wor^, LI (April, 1926), 



PP- 571-73- 



54. Kansas City Times, April 8, 20, 1926. 



