AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Still another economist, Edwin G. Nourse, who had more appreciation 

 for history than did most of the economists of his day and who wrote at 

 a little earlier time, carried this point further. He observed that at the turn 

 of the century "American agriculture stood in just the same subservient 

 position to American industrialism that the colonies occupied toward 

 England a century and a quarter earlier." 13 



It is certain that, no matter what the causes for the farmers' unrest were 

 and no matter how divided they were over the program to be adopted for 

 their relief, there was one central thought that many could not forget. 

 For years they had been told that they were the backbone of the nation, 

 that their calling was the most important, the most deserving, the most 

 fundamental of all, the collapse of which would bring down the pillars 

 of civilization itself. Of the farmers of the nation, those from the western 

 Middle West appear to have been among the most tenacious in holding 

 to these beliefs and among the least willing to accept a status of inferiority 

 in our economy. This is why their leaders spoke at length of the need for 

 "tariff equality," "a fair exchange value," "parity prices," and a better 

 balance between agriculture, industry, and labor. Their demands marked 

 the beginning of a reconsideration or recasting of past formulas and the 

 creation of new ones. The farmers, instead of putting their emphasis on 

 trust busting with the hope that this would either preserve or restore what 

 they believed would be a healthy state of competition, tossed such thoughts 

 out the window and proceeded to build restrictive devices patterned to a 

 great degree after those of industry. If tariff walls were beneficial to in- 

 dustry and the traditional walls built for farmers, especially for those who 

 depended on the foreign market, were not, then new ones had to be built 

 that would work. If industrialists controlled their production to influence 

 prices, it was conceivable that the farmers could also control theirs. If 

 business profited from better marketing methods, agriculture could also 

 benefit from the same. Again, if industry could be insured from hazards, 

 conceivably agriculture, one of the most speculative of enterprises, could 

 also be protected by the adoption of a plan for crop insurance. 



13. Edwin G. Nourse, "The Place of Agriculture in Modern Industrial Society, 

 II," Journal of Political Economy, XXVII (July, 1919), pp. 565-70. 



