EDITORIAL 



I 



It Must Not Happen Again 



N HIS recent message to Congress on reconversion, 

 President Truman made this statement: 



"One of the most magnificent production jobs in the 

 war has been done by the farmers of the United States. 

 They have met the unprecedented demands of the war . . . 

 No other group in America labored longer or harder to 

 meet the war demands put upon them . . . 



"The Government now must be prepared to carry out 

 the Nation's responsibility to aid farmers in making their 

 necessary readjustments from a wartime to a peacetime 

 basis . . . 



"After the first World War farm prices dropped more 

 than 50 per cent from the spriog of 1920 to the spring of 

 1921. We do not intend to permit a repetition of the dis- 

 aster that followed the first World War. The Secretary of 

 Agriculture has assured me that he will use all means now 

 authorized by the Q)ngress to carry out price-support com- 

 mitments." 



President Truman also declared that there was need 

 for additional measures to strengthen the machinery for car- 

 rying out price-support commitments, and for laying the 

 basis for broader peacetime markets for agricultural prod- 

 ucts. 



President Truman's statement in regard to agriculture 

 is reassuring to farmers. It gives recognition to the re- 

 sponsibility of the Nation for placing agriculture in a posi- 

 tion so that it can make its full contribution to a prosperous 

 economy in the postwar world. 



The Farm Labor Problem 



FARM LABOR is harder to get today than it was during 

 the war. In spite of the fact that the end of the war has 

 resulted in wide-scale layoffs in war plants, farmers are 

 finding it almost impossible to get help for the fall harvest. 



As a matter of fact, V-J day instead of easing the la- 

 bor situation has made it more critical. Some farm workers 

 who considered themselves more or less "frozen " to their 

 jobs during the war quit when the Japs were defeated. In 

 one county 18 hired men left in the first two weeks after 

 V-J day. Similar reports have come in from other counties. 

 One hired man told his employer that he was quittmg and 

 going to town to get some of "that soft money" that others 

 had been getting during the war. Another said he was 

 quitting because there was too much work on the farm. 



Also contributing to the scarcity of farm labor is the 

 reluctance of displaced war workers with farm experience 

 to return to the farm. Unemployment compensation, orig- 

 inally intended to aid workers while they were finding 

 new jobs, has caused some to be Jess inclined to seek em- 



ployment when they first find themselves unemployed. 

 In some cases the unemployment compensation payments 

 amount to nearly as much as a worker would receive in 

 cash as a farm laborer, although farm wages have increased 

 considerably during the war. , 



Agriculural processing plants also have reported diflFi- 

 culty in securing help. A com processing plant in Illinois 

 had this experience. An interviewer called at the doors of 

 500 women laid off from a war plant and tried to get them 

 to work at the canning factory. Of this number, only three 

 women took jobs. 



These incidents reveal something of the farm labor 

 picture in the state. The farmer finds himself in tlie same 

 position as he did during the war when he had to compete 

 with the attractive offers made by war industries. With war 

 industries operating on a cost-plus basis, it was in a power- 

 ful bargaining position in the labor market. Agriculture 

 could not meet this wage competition as prices of its 

 products were limited by ceilings. Farmers did the job 

 with old men, boys and women. Every member of the 

 farm family worked hours that taxed the limit of human 

 endurance. : : 



As we enter the reconversion period, industry is talk- 

 ing about higher prices for its products and labor is asking 

 an increase in hourly wage rates to make up for the loss of 

 overtime pay caused by the return to a shorter work week. 

 At the same time, non-agricultural interests are assuming 

 as a matter of course that agricultural prices will decline. 

 All this does not make for an encouraging! outlook. 



What will 1946 bring to the farm labor picture? It 

 is expected that the prisoners of war and foreign laborers 

 will be returned to their respective countries. Without 

 questioning the wisdom of this action, it nevertheless will 

 reduce the farm labor supply considerably. According to 

 the September farm labor report of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, prisoners of war working on 

 Illinois farms number 2,802. Mexicans, Jamaicans and 

 Bahamans employed in Illinois agriculture number 1,201. 

 This makes a total of 4,003. The number of foreign 

 workers does not tell the full story of their productive 

 capacity. They have been used as a mobile force and 

 shifted about the state to meet demands in critically short 

 labor areas. Regular farm laborers cannot be used in this 

 manner of following the harvests around the state. 



Farmers can only hope that the present farm labor 

 situation is of a temporary nature. One factor which 

 would ease the labor pinch would be the return of farm 

 workers from the armed services. Many farm boys went 

 directly from the farm to the services of their country. 

 These boys, for the most part, will want to return to the 

 farm. It is to be hoped that officials of government will 

 make a realistic approach to the demobilization of men 

 from the armed forces. 



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L A. A. RECORD 



