PageEighteen 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



February, 1931 



■2700 Hear Legge at 



I. A. A. Annual Meet 



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Farm Board Chairman Gets Great 

 Ovation from Large Audience 



IN an informal talk in which he dis- 

 cvissed economic factors affecting 

 the agricultural situation, Alexander 

 . Legge, chairman of the Federal Farm 

 ■J: Board, addressed perhaps the largest au- 

 dience ever gathered at an annual I. A. 

 . A. convention. Seventeen hundred peo- 

 :', pie sat down to dinner in the big 

 arsenal at Springfield, Thursday night, 

 Jan. 29, where Mr, Legge spoke. One 

 thousand more assembled in the gallery 

 of the huge building. The Farm Board 

 chairman received a great ovation when 

 he arose to speak. Plainly the speaker 

 had a sympathetic audience, a group 

 that was for and with him. 



His talk contained little that was 

 new, little that he had not said before. 

 He complimented 

 the association on the 

 progress it had made, 

 first, in building and 

 maintaining a strong 

 organization, and 

 secondly, in devel- 

 oping co-operative 

 marketing in Illinois. 

 Th^, chairman be- 

 gan with a sketch 

 of conditions that 

 Alexander Legrse obtained a hundred 

 years ago when bar- 

 ter and trade were the order of the 

 day, when little money changed hands, 

 and when the farmer received 90 per 

 cent of the value of his wheat from 

 the miller in the form of flour and by- 

 products, while the miller received 10 

 per cent of the wheat delivered for his 

 work. 



Now Gets Only Half 



"Now the farmer gets only 50 per 

 cent of the value of the flour and the 

 by-products in a bushel of wheat," he 

 said. "The high cost of labor and va- 

 rious services take the rest." 



Mr. Legge paid his respects to the 

 opponents of the Agricultural Market- 

 ing Act and the Farm Board who de- 

 clare that nothing is wrong with agri- 

 culture. "If that's true," he said, 

 "why is it that the farmer does not 

 have credit in the big banks of Chicago 

 and other cities? You won't find a sin- 

 gle farmer's note in the richest and 

 strongest banks.". 



Complimenting the delegates and 

 members the speaker said, "You have 

 one of the greatest and most repre- 

 sentative organizations of agriculture 

 anywhere. We need more organiza- 

 tions like yours. You can do almost 



anything when you are properly organ- 

 ized. If farmers don't organize, others 

 will, and they'll take care of their own 

 interests first. 



"The agriculture of other nations has 

 gone down largely because it lacked or- 

 ganization. If you are unorganized you 

 must take what you're offered." 



Wheat Situation 



Then the chairman launched into a 

 discussion of the wheat situation. He 

 stated that wheat from an export 

 standpoint is hopeless. "Wheat produc- 

 tion in this country," he said,^ "has in- 

 creased regularly, month by month, for 

 the past five consecutive years. The 

 wonder is that the wheat crash did not 

 come sooner. You can't compete with 

 the wheat growers of Russia and Ar- 

 gentine in the world markets and live 

 the way you want to and have a right 

 to live," he continued. "You are living 

 in a high tariff country. Your labor 

 and other costs are high. 



"Some people think we can get rid 

 of the surplus in a mysterious way, but 

 there is no hope along that line. Other 

 countries have farmers, too. Germany 

 has a tariff of $1.62 a bushel on wheat. 

 The United States has had similar laws 

 against dumping. We're in the same 

 position on corn. The price of corn in 

 Buenos Aires is 27 cents a bushel. Our 

 South American neighbors can lay this 

 crop down on our sea coast cheaper 

 than we can deliver from Illinois. 



"The world war is the remote cause 

 of the present depression. Every time 

 a shell exploded somebody's labor and 

 efforts were blown to atoms. At the 

 present time the price of wheat in Livi- 

 crpool is the lowest in 337 years. 



"I am glad to see the change in the 

 policy of this association in its efforts 

 toward solving the farm problem. The 

 biggest part of your problem is market- 

 ing. Emphasize that." ' - . . ; • ; 



Getting back to the wheat situation, 

 Mr. Legge explained the stabilization 

 operations of the Farm Board. "We 

 can do some good in taking care of sea- 

 sonal surpluses," he said. "Stabilization 

 won't work on surpluses that accumu- 

 late year after year. Unless the wheat 

 acreage is reduced our efforts in this 

 direction will be in vain." 



Cheap Russian Wheat 



The speaker asserted that over in 

 Russia the farmers have to give 25 per 

 cent of all the wheat they grow for 

 taxes. "They are using conscript la- 

 bor," he said. "The wheat that the 

 government gets for export costs it 

 nothing. Their cost starts when wheat 

 is loaded on the cars. You can't com- 

 pete with them. You might as well 

 make up your minds to produce only 

 for your own market and let the for- 



eign market go." ^ ' '' 



The chairman denied that the Farm 

 Board advocated corporation farming. 

 He discounted the advantages in co- . 

 operative buying. "The savings are in-^ 

 consequential," he said. . "Concentrate ,. 

 on co-operative selling. ■■"'X'/'t 



"The manufacturer quits production - 

 when the selling price goes below cost," v 

 he continued. "Farmers will have to.': 

 learn to do the same thing. You have • ^. 

 an advantage over most manufacturers .• 

 because your market is steadier. We've 

 got to eat every day. A man can wear 

 old clothes and drive an old car if he 

 has to, but he has to eat three times a 

 day. Under proper control your prob- ,v 

 lem of producing to meet market de- ' 

 mands should rxot be so hard. To get ;' 

 fair returns you've got to work to- 

 gether, not alone, as six and one-half 

 million factories. 



Centralize Marketing 



"It has been our policy to centralize ■' 

 marketing operations, in one agency. .. 

 Most commodities now have such a co- . 

 ooerative. Our critics have accused us 

 of being responsible for private enter- 

 prisers losing $30,000,000 in the poul- : 

 try and egg business. Up to this time 

 we have loaned only $35,000 to poultry 

 and egg co-operatives." 



The chairman stated that the oppor- , 

 tunity for organizing the poultry and - 

 egg business seems hopeless because V 

 "everybody grows poultry." "Even if •. 

 all the farmers who produce poultry 

 and eggs could be gathered in one or- 

 ganization a large part of the country's _ 

 production would still be outside," he 

 said. Referring to small town people ' 

 and residents^of suburbs who produce : . 

 poultry and eggs, he said that a recent ■ 

 check-up by a manufacturer in Okla- 

 homa City revealed that 42 of his em- 

 ployees grew chickens and sold eggs. 



Oil Dividends 





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Farm Bureau members of Ford 

 County have received $10,962.93, or 

 an average of $25.73 each, in the form-., 

 of patronage refunds from the Ford 

 County Service Company. A 7 per 

 cent patronage refund was paid Octo- 

 ber 1 and an additional 5 per cent spe- 

 cial refund declared by the board of :^ 

 directors to be paid later. This county 

 has 426 members and 1,070 customers. ' 



A total of $8,380.38 was paid back 

 to the Farm Bureau members of Jersey 

 County by the local supply company . 

 on January 8. This amount represents 

 the regular patronage refund of 7 per 

 cent and an additional 8 per cent. 

 Three hundred ninety-five Farm Bu- 

 reau members received patronage re- ' 

 fund checks; the total number of cus- :-^- 

 tomers is 593. V;:^\-'' ' ■"■:'■> ■v'ClVii'"'/ ■■:■■''": 



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