Page Ten 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



February, 1932 



^^pding^llimself in a position where he is receiv- 

 Mig.^a salary- adequately large to allow him to 

 put away a few dollars each month, and pay 

 off some of his past losses. And now at this 



. sati'sfactory period, Mr. McNair insists that the 

 sauries 'be greatly reduced.' 



"Mr. McNair says at the last of his article 



Vjthat 'he believes all farm organizations and 

 farm papers should get busy and demand this 

 reform,' but a little before this statement he 



\,|j^y$ he wants this country to be a government 



v^pf, for and by the f>eople. How do^s he coin- 

 cide those two statements? Would it be a 



. Mvernment of, for and by the people if the 

 agricultural associations and farm papers could 

 cause the postal employees to sustain a cut in 

 .their salaries? Aren't the postal employees as 

 much a part of the people of this country as 

 the farm organizations and farm papers? What 

 .would Mr. McNair say if the postal employees 

 should be able to tell him how much he should 

 get for his corn? Does he think the postal 

 .employees should have nothing to say about 

 .whether or not they should have a cut? I 

 woijder what he would have said if, during the 

 ,yeax 1921 when he was getting $45 per ton 

 for alfalfa hay, the postal employees had de- 

 manded that he receive half that much. But 

 did they do it? No. They peddled right 

 ,aloi)g on their little old pre-war salaries and 

 hoped for better times to come. Now those 

 -better- times are here and the other fellow is 

 yelping his head off about what unnecessarily 



' large salaries the uncomplaining postal employees 

 ar<!, receiving., 



r^: ■ Farm Papers Subsidized 



' "He says that 'all farm organizations and 

 farm papers get busy and demand this reform.' 

 'The farm papers and the farm organizations 

 "who are responsible for the edition of the farm 

 'papers might welT consider that the Post OflSce 

 Department is furnishing them a concession that 

 is furnished to no other business. The Post 

 Office Department allows newspapers and peri- 

 - odicals free transportation in the mails in the 

 counties of publication, and bulk rates on 

 mailings outside the counties of publication. 

 ' These bulk rates are so ridiculously low as to be 

 less than half the rates of postage on the same 

 ' mailings if sent by individuals. Mr. McNair, as 

 a member of one of these farm organizations, 

 might do well ' to insist that his organization 

 ' furnish a vote of thanks to the Post Office 

 Department for these concessions, rather than 

 write articles for his paper that will tend to 

 cause the department no end of trouble by 

 fostering a feeling of unrest among the readers 

 of that paper and a misunderstanding of such 

 vital things as postal employees' salaries. These 

 concessions are of such financial value to pub- 

 lications that editors themselves should see to 

 it that no article should appear in the columns 

 which would tend to cause the Post Office De- 

 partment the least trouble whatever. 



School Teachers Cut 



"Of course, the idea behind this desire to cut 

 salaries is to lower taxes, and everyone knows 

 that taxes are very high and should be lowered 

 And in nearly every community there are those 

 who think first of slashing salaries of postal 

 workers and public school teachers. But if 

 just a little thought is given to the matter, it 

 will be readily seen that by doing so, very little 

 will be accomplished in the way of lowering 

 individual taxes. This salary slashing took 

 place in our community last year and the vic- 

 tims were the public school teachers. Each 

 teaicher received a 10 per cent cut and a big 

 blow was made about the first step in tax 

 lowering. When it was all over and the com- 

 munity began to do some figuring, it was found 

 that the salary cut had actually saved the 

 average tax payer about ten cents. So the 

 school teachers were called upon to lose from 

 $100 to $180 in salary so that the individual 

 tax payer could save a dime. That was what 



Farmers in England "Too Much Salesmanship 



, ' Having a Hard Time Responsible for Depression" 



;:'.■:<;:'■■'. 



A recent editorial in The Field (Lon- 

 don), a British agricultural journal, 

 says: "Depression has settled in a heavy 

 cloud over the farming industry. The 

 markets last week were as cheerless as 

 could be imagined. Wheat, salvaged 

 from the rainstorms of a miserable har- 

 vest, was selling at 1 pound a quarter 

 (fourth of a ton) which is barely half 

 the cost of production. Fat cattle, 

 pigs, sheep and even dairy cows, after 

 the announcement of next year's con- 

 tract prices, were down in price again. 

 Farming in this country does, indeed 

 seem a hopeless business at times. 



But farmers must hold on. From 

 Norfolk the answer may come that 

 there is no option when two-thirds of 

 the farms virtually belong to the banks, 

 and they have no desire to foreclose. 

 Holding on is a nerve-racking feat when 

 the very foundations of business slip 

 away. To-day there is no branch of 

 British agriculture which can maintain 

 its position. None has escaped the de- 

 vastating competetion from abroad, 

 where labor is cheap or exports are sub- 

 sidized to maintain agriculture at all 

 costs in this topsy-turvy world. 



Low Milk Price 



Even the milk market is assailed, and 

 now dairy farmers have to accept no 

 more than 9d. a gallon for their milk 

 through the year because it has become 

 hopelessly unprofitable to manufacture 

 condensed milk, dried milk and cheese 

 in competition with the bargain sales 

 conducted by overseas producers in our 

 markets. If we were competing on 

 equal terms, farmers in this country 

 would have no grievance. But we are 

 not. The cleverest producers, men who 

 do not waste a penny on superfluous la- 

 bor or extravagant feeding stuffs, are 

 beaten by the prices of imported pro- 

 duce. 



If the encouragement of farming 

 were regarded by our politicians as one 

 means of righting the adverse trade bal- 

 ance, farmers could hold on with re- 

 newed hope. Once confidence in the in- 

 dustry is restored, there will be no lack 

 of enterprise. We should be able to 

 count on a great impetus to production, 

 and this in turn would be reflected in 

 many industries whose fortunes are 

 closely bound up with agriculture." 



I call mighty poor judgment, for it disrupted 

 the morale of the school faculty, and if kept 

 up long enough, will completely demoralize the 

 entire school system and our kiddies will be 

 the sufferers. And the same thing will happen 

 to the postal workers if their salaries are cut, 

 and you men and women who demand this cut 

 will lose a whole lot more in postal efficiency 

 than you will save in taxes. Think it over." 



Dean-Emeritus Davenport Advo- 

 cates Conference for Permanent 

 Welfare of All 



IN the next economic cycle, organized 

 agriculture must resist the salesman- 

 ship of industry which is responsible for 

 the present plight of the farmer, de- 

 clared Dr. Eugene Davenport at the 

 University of Illinois during Farm and 

 Home Week. Industry brought on the 

 collapse of agriculture by over-selling 

 the world on extravagance, he said. 



Dean Davenport spoke on the sub- 

 ject, "What Shall We Do with the 

 Next Cycle?" • ^'^ -- ■■■:'.:\ ""■::;■■" vv 



When Tide Turns "^ •' 

 "When the tide turns, instead of per- 

 mitting the man with something to sell 

 to do all the talking and again bewitch 

 the public with a false and dangerous 

 psychology," he continued, "let the 

 American Farm Bureau and the Na- 

 tional Grange invite to a conference the 

 biggest and best of our industrial fra- 

 ternity, together with bankers and or- 

 ganized labor, to meet around a common 

 table and discuss the situation as a 

 whole. 



"Such a conference should be guided 

 by the permanent welfare of all classes, 

 recognizing the natural danger of a gulf 

 between the price level of that of manu- 

 factured goods and that of foods and 

 the perils of artificial methods in trade 

 as bound to force the situation to the 

 dizzy and dangerous heights from which 

 we have just taken our economic and 

 social tumble. ' - 



Greedy for More ' . 



"The present crash all happened as a 

 result of a desire on the part of all 

 branches of industry to show each year 

 a vast increase in volume of business 

 done and of paper profits piled up, often 

 regardless of methods or of conse- 

 quences. It established and maintained 

 an impassable gulf between manufac- 

 tured goods and farm prices. It has 

 wrecked thousands of young families 

 whose inexperience was unable to with- 

 stand the onslaughts of high pressure 

 salesmanship. And now it has broken 

 down of its own weight, destroyed the 

 farmers' market and brought distress 

 everywhere." 



A 15 per cent patronage dividend 

 was declared by the directors of the 

 Peoria County Service Company prior 

 to the annual meeting of the company 

 January 16. Six hundred ninety-two 

 Farm Bureau members will participate 

 in the distribution of $12,000 patronage 

 refund. 



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