Page Fourteen 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



December, 1932 



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There are indications and some 

 support for the belief that this na- 

 tion is preparing at last to grapple 

 with the farm problem more effec- 

 tively and perhaps more success- 

 fully than has been the case up to 

 now. 



Until recently, our federal gov- 

 ernment over a period of 50 years, 

 or more, has placed emphasis on 

 agricultural production. It has been 

 eflfective through reclamation proj- 

 ects and free land grants in ex- 

 panding and pushing the produc- 

 tion area steadily westward. It has 

 succeeded in encouraging more 

 efficient production in the older ag- 

 ricultural sections of the East and 

 Middle-West. It has stimulated 

 competition in agriculture. 



The world war gave powerful im- 

 petus to the produce-more-food 

 movement. "Food will win the war," 

 we were told. Farmers plowed up 

 virgin acres in obedience to the 

 sudden demand and the chance for 

 profit. Production of wheat and 

 other crops was stepped up in re- 

 sponse to the highest farm prices in 

 anyone's memory. With the end of 

 the war came deflation for agricul- 

 ture and the beginning of a long 

 series of mortgage foreclosures and 

 losses. That story is too well known 

 to be reviewed at length here. 



About ia22 if not before, we be- 

 came conscious of the surplus prob- 

 lem, of inequalities in the exchange 

 value of farm commodities and non- 

 agricultural goods. This problem 

 has been with us ever since, only 

 more intensified in the past three 

 years. There are those who believe 

 there would be no surplus problem 

 here if everyone in this country 

 were well fed. The facts indicate 

 that they are wrong. True the un- 

 employment situation with conse- 

 quent low buying power in consum- 

 ing centers is partly responsible for 

 the more recent drastic decline in 

 the prices of farm products. But 

 agriculture was in a state of depres- 

 sion from surpluses when industrial 

 unemployment was comparatively 

 negligible and consumer buying 

 power in the cities was at high 

 tide. 



The fact is there is too much food 

 produced in this country for do- 

 mestic consumption at any price. 

 We have been relying on foreign 

 markets for part of our production, 

 ever since the war. We have been 

 allowing foreign markets to fix the 

 price on our entire production of 



such crops as wheat, corn, cotton 

 and hogs, while buying needed sup- 

 plies in a protected market. There 

 has been a steady transfer of na- 

 tional wealth from agriculture to 

 industry. 



Were foreign markets open to us 

 and foreign people financially able 

 to buy at a price yielding us a prof- 

 it, crop acreage reduction would not 

 have to be considered. But the for- 

 eign market outlook has completely 

 changed. Where before the wai;, we 

 were shipping our farm products to 

 Europe to pay interest on our debts, 

 now we are a great creditor rather 

 than a debtor nation. And we are de- 

 manding payment of debts although 

 refusing to take our pay in the form 

 of manufactured goods and serv- 

 ices from abroad. 



Another disturbing influence is 

 that Europe has gone back to farm- 

 ing. The World War made the bellig- 

 gerent nations extremely conscious 

 of the importance of a domestic 

 food supply. Economic agricultural 

 nationalism has grown at a terrific 

 rate among European countries. 

 Practically all of these nations have 

 set up tariffs, import quotas, mill- 

 ing and mixing regulations, and li- 

 censing systems which have prac- 

 tically shut off the normal export 

 flow of our farm products. 



Yet we in this country have gone 

 along producing for a market which 

 has ceased to exist. We will cut our 

 production, however, within the 

 next few years either voluntarily 

 or involuntarily. In fact the point 

 has been reached now where the 

 actual cash outlay for production on 

 large areas of land is greater than 

 the value of the crops. Production 

 this year was largely maintained 

 by subsidy, out of borrowed or ac- 

 cumulated capital. When that capi- 

 tal is used up, great tracts of land 

 will be allowed to lie idle until con- 

 sumption catches up. Then and not 

 until then will there be a rise in 

 prices unless we carry out a plan 

 of orderly acreage reduction. We 

 can take our choice of managing 

 production or allowing the law of 

 the survival of the fittest to do it 

 for us. Incidentally the more mon- 

 ey is loaned by the government and 

 others to continue surplus agricul- 

 tural production, the greater will 

 be the sum lost and the longer the 

 time required for the inevitable ad- 

 justment. 



If, and when, the domestic allot- 

 ment plan or some modification of 

 it is enacted into law, it will drive 

 into the open and expose the folly 

 of investing accumulated capital 

 into the production of surplus com- 

 modities for a market which will not 

 or cannot pay their cost. — E. G. T. 



Why Depression Continues 



(Continued from page 13) 



but the census figures showing the 

 principal occupational divisions of 

 the gainfully employed population, 

 which were given in this publica- 

 tion last month, indicate what may 

 be expected of this policy. 



In 1930, of a population of 122,- 

 775,000 there were 98,723,000 pOT- 

 sons ten years of age or older and 

 of these 48,830,000 in the language 

 of the Census were "gainfully em- 

 ployed." Of these, 10,472,000 were 

 employed in agriculture, of whom 

 6,079,000 were owners, tenants or 

 managers, 2,733,000 were hired em- 

 ployes and 1,600,000 were unpaid 

 members of the resident families. 

 There were 9,550,000 operatives and 

 laborers employed for hire in all 

 the manufacturing establishments 

 and 1,072,000 on the steam railroads, 

 these two groups together number- 

 ing about the same as the "gaia- 

 fuUy" employed upon farms. Forty- 

 four per cent of the entire popula- 

 tion lived either outside of incor- 

 porated towns and eities or in towns 

 of less than 2,500 people, where all 

 incomes are largely dependent up- 

 on farm prosperity. 



The total number of employes en- 

 gaged in operating steam railroad 

 trains, was 456,000 and the total 

 membership of the American Fed- 

 eration of Labor is less than 

 3,000,000. Any one can make his 

 own estimate of how many of 

 the members of these groups, and 

 how many of the remaining gain- 

 fully employed, would be likely to 

 have their incomes increased as the 

 result of even the most effective 

 wage-lifting movement that eould 

 be organized under present condi- 

 tions. It is then to be considered 

 that whatever might be thus added 

 to the purchasing power of the re- 

 cipients must be subtracted from 

 the purchasing power of the whole 

 population, including the farmers 

 and all others whose purchasing 

 power is already below normal, after 

 which he may draw his own con- 

 clusions. For there is no way of in- 

 creasing the income of any section 

 of the population except either 

 through an increased production of 

 wealth within itself or by a transfer 

 of income from other sections of the 

 population. . . . 



The conclusion appears to be in- 

 evitable that the wage-paying in- 

 dustries are on an artificial and un- 

 economic basis, suffering an enor- 

 mous waste in the idleness of both 

 labor and capital, causing living 

 costs to be 35 per cent above the 

 1913 level, while wage scales which 

 are nominally very high in com- 

 parison with those of 1913 produce 

 a smaller aggregate of actual wage 

 payments. The explanation is to be 

 found in the unbalanced state of 

 industry, which prevents the normal 

 flow of trade. 



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