THE FARM LAND 51 



was to prevent cheap farm produce from reaching the markets 

 and forcing farm prices down further. Farmers formed unions 

 such as the Farmers Union, which said, "The American 

 farmer cannot be expected to much longer endure the hardships 

 placed on his shoulders by conditions for which he is not re' 

 sponsible." 44 



And just as the militia was called out to put down the farm 

 revolt of Daniel Shays, so it was called out to put down the 

 revolting farmers of the 1930's. There were farm pickets and 

 farm strike-breakers. A report like this might have come from 

 an industrial city like Detroit. Actually it came from the farm' 

 ing community of Cherokee, Iowa. "Fourteen men were 

 wounded when a carload of armed strikebreakers fired into 

 the picket lines near Cherokee." 45 



These farm strikes can be divided into two classes. First, 

 there were the strikes to prevent prices of farm products from 

 falling further. Most of these strikes were concentrated in the 

 milk'producing areas. The second type of strike was to pre- 

 vent mortgageholders from taking over the land of those 

 farmers to whom they had lent money. In many cases these 

 lenders were large insurance companies and banks. 



In 1933 the total value of land held by such corporations 

 was estimated to be $770,000,000. Most of this money was in' 

 vested in farms which had been taken over because the original 

 owners could not pay the interest and principal of the mortgages 

 held by the corporations. This was more than 2 per cent of the 

 value and about 2.6 per cent of the area of all the agricultural 

 land in the United States. At first the sheriffs and law officers 

 who were to take over the farms for the mortgageholders stood 

 back and permitted the farmers to stop the foreclosure sales. 

 But as the depression wore on, the law officers began to feel 



44 MauriU A. Hallgren, Seeds of Revolt, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 

 1933, p. 149. 

 45 Ibid., p. 151. 



