A Daily Paper Tells the Truth 
r 
A Clear Statement of the Farmer’s Position 
S OMEHOW, that statement from the Post Office 
Department about the 40.000 farmers who told 
the truth about their business, has stirred up the 
daily papers as nothing has done before. It. is true 
that the farm papers have, for years, been pointing 
out and proving just what these 40,000 farmers stat¬ 
ed. but the city papers have been more concerned 
with other things. Here in New York they have 
been fighting over the kind of drink they can get, 
without regard to the fact that they may find them¬ 
selves without food if the present conditions prevail. 
Now every daily paper is trying to size up the situa- 
ing public the sooner agricultural production will re¬ 
ceive the attention due it by the American people. The 
plain fact is that in the case of the manufacturer the 
public has been willing to pay the bill and has been will¬ 
ing to sustain a giddy spiral of higher wages, higher 
prices and still higher wages. The public has consented 
to play the goat with everyone except the farmer. The 
Post Office questionaires have given the agriculturist 
an opportunity to register his complaint, and apparently 
he has done it with considerable effect. 
The farmer climbed out of bed yesterday morning 
(sweet day of rest for practically every man in every 
industry which the farmer has to patronize) to greet 
the five o'clock temperature of 20° below. lie spent at 
least five hours attending to the needs of his live stock, 
working most of the time under conditions which would 
involve a strike in any organized factory in the country 
of this State even went so far as to hire men from the 
jails, paying them free-labor wages, transporting them 
to and from the jails, accepting responsibility for their 
safe keeping and feeding them all the wholesome food 
they could eat. What was the result? The authorities 
withdrew this needed labor from agricultural production 
at a time when the world was begging for food, because 
of a contract with a chair-making concern which paid 
the men a few cents a day. leaving them to be fed and 
watched at the State’s expense. 
Yet the products of the farm are under the strictest 
supervision by the local and national authorities. What 
woman can buy wool cloth today of the quality which 
pertained five years ago, no matter what the price? Yet 
the milk which that woman buys is protected from adul¬ 
teration by the strictest laws, and the farmers them¬ 
selves are taxed to pay for the enforcement of those 
A Bunch of Good Jerseys at Fair view Farm, Ohio. Fig. 95 
tion and. not knowing anything about it. they make 
a sorry showing. 
A few daily papers have the vision to see what is 
coming, and they talk freely and sensibly about the 
situation. It is quite essential in these times that 
the farmers should stand by and encourage their # 
friends among the daily papers. These papers influ¬ 
ence the thought of consumers, and we need that 
thought on our side. One of our readers sends a copy 
of the Evening Herald of Manchester, Conn., with 
the following note: 
I enclose a section of an issue of the Manchester 
Evening Herald, published at Manchester. Conn. This 
issue contains an editorial which may be of interest to 
you. Manchester, as you are no doubt aware, is the 
home of probably the greatest silk mill in the country— 
that of Cheney Bros.—besides several other mills and 
factories, employing several thousand workers. A great 
manv Hartford business men and employees make their 
homes in Manchester and commute daily. 
A great deal of the food consumed in this town comes 
from the surrounding farms. There is no farmers' mar¬ 
ket. but the farmers sell partly direct at the doors of the 
consumers and partly to retail stores, most ot the latter 
being progressive, fair and honest, and willing to pay 
the price to the farmer as far as competition will allow. 
An editorial such as the accompanying one. in a paper 
the subscription list of which contains principally con¬ 
sumers of farmers’ produce, is certainly remarkable, in 
view of the attitude of other city papers. it. A. 
The article follows. We consider it the best state¬ 
ment of the case that we have seen in a daily paper: 
Of course there is no denying the truth of this com¬ 
plaint. a ud the better that is appreciated by the cons uni- 
- a strike which the public would pay for in the end. 
When everything was done about the barn, and wood 
and water provided for the house, the chances are that 
the farmer glanced over the Sunday edition of the New 
York Times to read there a smug editorial upon the re¬ 
sults of the Post Office questionaire. The Times admits 
that the farmers’ complaint is based on justice and goes 
so far as to say that similar answers might have been 
obtained “for a hundred years.” “Nevertheless,” writes 
the metropolitan editor, “somehow we have lived 
through it.” Then follows that old stuff about the 
farmer being “the very bone and sinew of good citizen¬ 
ship. of good Americanism.” We are told that the farm¬ 
ers know they are “going to got good prices.” that they 
“believe in the doctrine of production, always more pro¬ 
duction. They are willing to work, they have a pride in 
their work.” 
Now. who ever heard of a bricklayer, a shoe manufac¬ 
turer. a coal miner, or a steel worker tolerating any¬ 
thing because of a pride iu their work? True, the farm¬ 
er is "the very bone and sinew of good citizenship, of 
good Americanism.” but is it fair for the American pub¬ 
lic to trade on those qualities? Take a glance about any 
farming community and see how many farms are passing 
out of the hands of the men who have carried them on 
for generations. Connecticut is dotted with ancestral 
homesteads which men. whose fathers and grandfathers 
did comprise the “sinew of good citizenship.” have aban¬ 
doned to ruin or to those who have not been iu this 
country long enough to know the language. 
The American farmer has been patted on the back by 
every sleek pated politician who ever hungered for a 
vote, lie has been serenaded by every writer of economic 
claptrap who wanted to stand pat with the city employer 
or employee. He has been made the idol of fiction and 
no biography is complete whose hero was not at one 
time a “poor boy on the farm.” But all the while the 
farmer has been forced to buy in a protected market and 
sell in a free trade market. He has been forced to em¬ 
ploy men who were not good enough to get a job at 
higher wages iu the cities. During the war the farmers 
laws What man can buy a pair of gloves of old-time 
quality, even at 50 per cent more than they used to cost? 
Yet the farmer who shaved a little off from each pound 
of butter would soon find himself iu court being prose¬ 
cuted by the agent of outraged society. Who is able to 
purchase flour which measures up to former standards, 
though paying anywhere from 75 to 100 per cent more a 
barrel? But with what promptness do we pounce upon 
the farmer who mixes his wheat with some cheaper seed 
to make it heavier or more bulky! Who has not seen 
spools of thread which appear to the eye the same as 
those of several years ago. but which actually measure 
from “0 to 50 yards shorter, selling today for more than 
the old, full-measure ones? But what would happen to 
the farmer who was apprehended using a basket smaller 
than the standard size from which to sell potatoes'? 
The American people are not buying a manufactured 
article, from automobiles to carpet tacks, which is not 
cheaper in quality and higher in price than it was five 
years ago, but the farmer is required by law to meet 
higher and higher standards every year and the increase 
in price of his products is not commensurate with the 
increasing costs of production. The farmer has a real 
grievance against the manufacturer and the middlemen, 
who have, economically speaking, ridden rough shod over 
him for years. What is needed is a real understanding 
on the part of the public of the difficulties which attend 
agricultural production today, and the elimination of 
those industrial parasites known as middlemen. This 
may sound like a simple solution, but if it were to be 
practically applied it would mean an economic revolution. 
Dollar for dollar, the consumer gets more iu labor 
value today from the American farmer thau from any 
other industrial worker with whom he does business. 
The farmer is trading his laboi and his soil production 
for a dollar which will not buy back the same amount of 
factory labor or mill production. He is working under 
a handicap w hich in the end works hardship on the ulti¬ 
mate consumer, but the ultimate consumer is alone re¬ 
sponsible. Some day we hope to see the public educated 
up to au appreciation of the farmer: 
