464 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Wee\, which depicted the farmers as "worn veterans" in the army of 

 depression, alongside whom businessmen were but mere "raw recruits." 

 Something had to be done quickly to relieve them. Out of the maze of 

 proposals that were suggested there, appeared three alternative courses of 

 action: 



. . . First is a blind way that disappears over the hills of hope. We may hope 

 that with a return of prosperity, industry will expand so enormously that the 

 migration from farm to factory will set in anew. Poorer farms will be aban- 

 doned, their occupants find work in the factories. Thus crop production will 

 decrease. But it must be on a scale that will absorb from a fourth to a third of 

 the population now on the farms. Presupposed also, the adjustment of industry 

 to modern economic life wherein it is recognized that the workers' wage sets 

 the ultimate limit of possible sales. Given adequate purchasing power, the 

 ability of consumers to use goods has no easily imaginable limit. But food con- 

 sumption is inelastic. 



The second road leads down hill. If industry does not revive on such a 

 scale, our farmers, competing with peasants, and selling to peasants, must be- 

 come peasants. The general advance in the use of agricultural machinery must 

 be checked. Farms will be broken up into smaller units. The absentee land- 

 lord, who already holds half the farms, or nearly, will predominate; a tenant 

 class will till the soil. 



Where the third road leads, nobody knows. It is the road of permanent sub- 

 sidy. That is, we may tax the city dweller to maintain a decent standard of 

 living on the farm. There can be no economic defense for subsidizing uneco- 

 nomic production. It is social and political; there we may find strong justifica- 

 tion. It might well seem important to us to preserve in our country the one 

 large class of property owners, the greatest body of entrepreneurs, the one stable 

 and rooted element. It might seem worth a high cost and it might be cheaper 

 than to add them to the breadlines of the cities. It is hard to visualize an Amer- 

 ica of the future should the stream dry up that steadily feeds us leaders in every 

 walk of life. 31 



* x v 



Among the specific remedies advanced, there were "taxes to be shifted 

 from the farmers' backs; moratoria on tax, interest, and mortgage pay- 

 ments; writing down of mortgages; credit for crop production; stabiliza- 

 tion of crop prices at higher levels " 82 



Obviously the man selected to serve as Secretary of Agriculture and to 



31. "Three Farm Roads," Business Wee% (February 15, 1933), p. 32. 



32. Ibid. 



