THE FARM STRIKE 443 



Let's call a "Farmers Holiday" 



A Holiday let's hold 



We'll eat our wheat and ham and eggs 



And let them eat their gold. 25 



When the movement was first considered in 1932, the purpose was 

 simply to withhold products from market, especially if they sold below 

 the cost of production. The movement was expected to last a month. By 

 the fall of 1932, however, state units were in existence in Minnesota, South 

 Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Montana, and other states; but at no time 

 was it a cohesive, well-directed effort. From the start it appears to have 

 been nothing more than a mob affair which first sought to keep farmers 

 from marketing their products by peaceful means but next assumed the 

 aspect of a group of angry, resentful men who wanted revenge against 

 those of their kind who marketed their goods while they "picketed and 

 struck." 26 



In August, 1932, when the strike officially began, farm prices were re- 

 ported as follows: eggs, 22 cents; oats, n cents; butter, 18 cents all of 

 which were far below the cost-of-production levels named by the Farmers' 

 Union. The farmers' cost of production, according to the Iowa group, 

 had to take into account several items: 5 per cent on his real estate in- 

 vestment, 7 per cent on his personal property and equipment, and $100 

 per month for the farmers' own labor and management. The average 

 farmer operating a i6o-acre farm, in order to obtain these returns, had to 

 receive 92 cents per bushel on corn, 49 cents per bushel on oats, $11.25 per 

 hundred on hogs, 35 cents for eggs, and 62 cents for butterfat. 27 



The earliest attempt to launch the strike was made in the Sioux City 

 area, where trouble resulted immediately. Roads were blockaded, fist 

 fights broke out, arrests were made, and gun toting, exhortation, vitupera- 

 tion, picketing, storming of jails and capitol buildings, and stopping of 

 trains and automobiles were among the other events that took place. In 

 some places the old Populist cry of "Raise less corn and more hell" was 

 heard; in others, Hoover was likened to Louis XIV, and the actions of 



25. Iowa Union Farmer, March 9, 1932. 



26. Farm Holiday News, February, 1933. 



27. D. R. Murphy, "The Farmers Go on Strike," New Republic, LXXII (August 

 31, 1932), pp. 66-67. 



