•Pn RURAL NEW-YORKER 
?S53 
Discussion of Two Political Platforms 
DISAPPOINTING RESULTS—To men past the 
meridian of life, who hope to see the farm on an 
economic footing with other business enterprises 
within their time, the platforms of the recent. New 
York State political conventions are disappointing 
and discouraging. The truth is that there is noth¬ 
ing to show that the boss of either party and his 
immediate advisers know anything of the real needs 
of the farm or that they care anything for it except 
to retain the normal farm vote for their respective 
parties. Each platform lays blame on the other 
party for its failure to do anything to help the 
farm situation. If farmers are willing to accept 
this apology for failure both parties must be satis¬ 
fied. Those who know realize that each of them 
tells considerable truth about the other, but neither 
of them is frank enough to admit its own past 
faults. If it did there might be some hope, but in 
their self laudations we find no encouragement for 
changes for the better from either of them. 
A PARTIAL STATEMENT.—The Democratic 
platform contents itself with showing that the farm 
and markets law put the control of the Department 
completely in the hands of the Republicans, and 
that the Legislature refused to accept Governor 
Smith’s suggestion last Winter for a revision of 
the law, and that the Governor of the State, under 
the present law, is entirely without authority over 
the Agricultural Department and consequently can¬ 
not be held responsible for it. Rut. their platform 
does not reveal the fact that the law was passed by 
Democratic votes on a deal with the opposition for 
a part, of the patronage which it duly received at 
the expense of the taxpayers of the State. Neither 
does it reveal the fact that during his first cam¬ 
paign for Governor, Mr. Smith promised publicly 
and privately to correct the abuses in the Agricul¬ 
tural Department; but after swapping patronage 
with the legislative leaders, concluded that the men 
who brought the department to the deplorable con¬ 
dition which he privately and correctly described, 
could be trusted to reform it. If Governor Smith 
had gone straight to farmers the first year and of¬ 
ficially revealed the true condition of the depart¬ 
ment as he found it, changes would have been made, 
and there would be no need of an excuse or apology 
now. The opposition knew that he possessed this 
power; but instead of using it for the interest of 
agriculture as he promised to do, he traded it for 
city patronage for his organization. When the pact 
expired and a new election approached, farmers had 
lost confidence, and his suggestion for halfway 
changes fell on deaf ears. Neither the platform 
nor the record afford any substantial or definite 
promise that, if restored to power, the Democratic 
party will change the State policy towards agricul¬ 
ture for the better. Its one encouraging sentence is 
an indorsement of the need of terminal markets, 
but it makes no definite pledge to provide them. 
THE OTHER SIDE.—To the casual reader the 
Republican platform promises more, but taken with 
its past performance and its non-committal language, 
it is hard to enthuse over it. The agricultural record 
of the Republican party at Albany is its platform 
and no well-informed farmer of the State is proud 
of it. The platform recounts with sickening insin¬ 
cerity the old pretense that the farms and markets 
law is designed to take the Agricultural Department 
out of politics. We all know that it was designed 
for nothing of the kind. It was designed to pay a 
political debt in the shape of a large cash campaign 
contribution, and to please the food distribution 
trusts by putting a stop to effective State aid to co¬ 
operative distribution. In the last it was successful, 
and in the flrst the intent of the framers of the law 
was defeated by the protest of farmers. If the half 
dozen political leaders who framed this platform 
were sincere friends of the farm, we would have the 
most perfect Agricultural Department, in the world. 
It is completely in their hands. It could not be more 
completely partisan than it is now. It never was 
so before under either party. Every appointment of 
any importance is political, and to say that it. has 
taken politics out of the department is to insult the 
intelligence of the people of the State. Farmers do 
not care so much whether Republicans or Democrats 
hold the positions, but they do expect the millions 
that go to the Department to be used in the service 
of agriculture, and not for mere political favors and 
the building of a political machine. 
THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT.—The plat¬ 
form now assumes a paternal kinship with co-opera¬ 
tion in the State. The truth is that while the Re¬ 
publicans had an unbroken control of the State Gov¬ 
ernment for twenty-odd years, farmers were unable 
to get any support for co-operation or any measure 
of regulation of commission dealers in the State. 
It was not until the scandals in the party drove the 
people to the Democrats that these measures were 
adopted under Governor Dix; and as soon as the 
Legislature became Republican the appropriation for 
the Co-operative Bureau in the Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment was cut out of the appropriation bill at the 
demand of the Feed Dealers’ Association, and the 
bureau ceased to function for want of funds. The 
Foods and Markets Department was also organized 
under the Democratic administration of Governor 
Glynn, but the Republican platform may have justly 
taken some credit for it, as they had a majority 
in the Assembly at the time. Instead of supporting 
and developing it, however, as farmers demanded, 
the next Republican administration refused it any 
adequate appropriation, and finally, under pretense 
of enlarging it. and of reforming the Agricultural 
Department, put a complete stop to the work it was 
originally designed to do. 
INSINCERE CHARGES.—With this record behind 
it the platform charges Governor Smith with re¬ 
sponsibility for want of results because be reduced 
the appropriation to the markets division. No doubt 
he did. Probably the money was needed, but this 
division now has something like $250,000, and before 
it was completely under the control of the men who 
wrote the platform they considered .$15,000 ample for 
its needs. If Governor Smith is blamable for cutting 
a small item out of a liberal appropriation, how do 
these same men explain their own refusal to support 
the department when individual farmers and farm 
organizations of the whole State indorsed the work 
it was doing and requested adequate support for it? 
POLITICAL CONTROL.—There are men and 
women in the rank and file of both parties who are 
discouraged and disgusted with these conditions and 
these hollow pretenses, but a half dozen professional 
politicians control each party, and the rank and file 
have no chance but to vote for one or the other. 
When there is a division of authority as we have 
now, they get together and divide the patronage 
among themselves. 
THE GREAT OBSTACLE.—If there were any 
sincere desire in either leadership the agricultural 
platform would be simply and plainly written. There 
need he no complaint against the opposition. It need 
not even apologize for past neglect of its own. It 
would simply say that the people must have food, 
and to get it they would have to pay the cost of 
production on the farm in addition to the costs of 
distribution. It would point to the fact that right 
now, while the city people and shop workers com¬ 
plain of the high costs of food, tons of the finest 
food products in the world are sold for the farmer 
at a loss, or remain on the ground to rot. It would 
toll us that this condition is due to a system of dis¬ 
tribution that has grown up under State laws, and 
State patronage; and that the men who develop 
the system and profit by it can always he depended 
upon for campaign contributions to both parties and 
they demand the privilege of taking heavy toll and 
profits out of the food as it passes through their 
hands to repay themselves and to keep them in line 
for future contributions. With this preamble the 
platform would say that the food speculators had 
misused their privileges; that their system is wast¬ 
ing food, swindling city consumers and robbing 
faVms of the wealth they produce, and for the fu¬ 
ture that if put in power by the votes of a majority 
of the people, this particular political party would 
use the power of the State to see that food he dis¬ 
tributed without waste, without speculation and 
wiithout manipulation in an open market under the 
free play of the law of supply and demand. 
THE FARMERS’ ATTITUDE.—Probably few 
farmers would believe either party if it wrote such 
a platform, but if convinced of its sincerity, farmers 
would take a chance on the other things needed, and 
put them in power on this promise alone. As it 
stands, no matter which side wins there is little pros¬ 
pect. for any real change for the better this year. A 
show will no doubt he made in matters of minor 
importance; but nothing will be done to curb the 
speculator or the food trusts. A skilled dairyman 
will still work for 3S.2 cents an hour, and the un¬ 
skilled driver of a city milk wagon will get SO cents 
an hour or more, and labor of skilled artisans 
as high as $1.25 an hour. No platform promises to 
correct these inequalities of exchange, and never 
will until farmers help write the platforms. All 
we can do this year is to send some real farmers to 
the Legislature. They can do little directly, but 
they will help develop a farm policy, and they will be 
preparing themselves for the positions of responsi¬ 
bility in the State that fanners are yet destined to 
occupy and adorn. 
A Genuine Farmers* Picnic 
It is only a short time since we reported with 
some show of pride ,35 automobiles at a farmers’ 
meeting in New York State. At the recent farmers’ 
picnic at Mexico Point in Oswego County, it was esti¬ 
mated that 1.200 ears were on the grounds, and 
probably not less than 5,000 people. For this occa¬ 
sion the Farm Bureau, the Grange and the Dairy¬ 
men’s League joined in the day’s outing. Families 
brought their most tempting articles of food, and 
there was no lack of cheer and appetite for the dis¬ 
patch of it, and yet the remnants would have fed to 
satiety another picnic of equal numbers. This picnic 
was notable in that it represented the whole farm 
family, from infancy to mature age. These meet¬ 
ings consolidate the gains made in the battle for 
farm recognition in organization work, and pave the 
way for further successes. It is a wise policy to 
bring the children and the more mature boys and 
girls along. The older people can never hope to see 
the farm organization work completely perfected. It 
would not long remain so if they did without the 
work of those who are to follow them. In prepar¬ 
ing the young for this duty the older members are 
safeguarding the future of farm co-operative enter¬ 
prise. Oswego County is not alone in this work, but 
it furnishes an inspiring example of farm com¬ 
munity spirit, worthy the emulation of communities 
which have so far neglected the annual Summer 
picnic. 
Who are the Game Trespassers? 
I have read, with a great deal of concern, the articles 
which have appeared from time to time in Tiie R. N.-Y. 
respecting criticisms and suggested changes in the game 
laws. A reading of these articles suggests a terrible 
antagonism that many land-owners seem to have for a 
sportsman, when these people ought to be united for the 
preservation of our game. Writing then, in the interests 
of the land-owner and the sportsmen alike, I venture a 
suggestion which has not heretofore come to my atten¬ 
tion, and which is certain to go a long way towards re¬ 
moving the antipathy between the land-owner and the 
American sportsmen. ■ 
Is it true that the land-owners have a justified and 
deep-seated grievance against sportsmen, as such? I 
think not. I believe that the majority of land-owners 
of the State will agree with me that the average Amer¬ 
ican sportsman is a self-respectiug and law-abiding citi¬ 
zen. Of course, there are exceptions, but this we must 
expect. However, the experience of this section of the 
State, if my observations are correct, shows fairly con¬ 
clusively that the harassing depredations wrought upon 
the land-owner are the work of lawless, marauding, un¬ 
naturalized, foreign-born residents who are alike igno¬ 
rant of our laws and customs, and who in many cases 
cannot even speak the English language. These people 
rove our fields in apparent heedless, if not criminal, dis¬ 
regard of the rights of property and person alike. In the 
Fall of 1013, in Wayne County, a game protector, while 
attempting to arrest a foreigner, who was apparently 
hunting illegally, was shot and died a few hours later. 
A similar catastrophe occurred iu an adjoining county 
except, I believe, that it was not fatal to the officer. 
Both so-called sportsmen ascaped. Instances may be 
multiplied. Under the laws of the State of New Y'ork, 
what protection has the land-owner against such lawless 
marauders, with uo respect for the law and less regard 
for human life, and who shoot upon the least provoca¬ 
tion? To approach one illegally hunting upon posted 
property would be sheer suicide, indeed. 
The people iu the State of Pennsylvania a few years 
ago had the experience we in New York are having now. 
The Legislature promptly enacted a law which I quote, 
iu part: 
“Section 1. Upon and after the passage of this act, 
it shall be unlawful for any unnaturalized foreign-born 
resident to hunt for or capture or kill iu this Common¬ 
wealth, any wild bird or animal, either game or other¬ 
wise, of any description, excepting in defense of person 
or property; and to that end it shall be unlawful for any 
unnaturalized foreign-born resident, within this Com¬ 
monwealth to either own or be possessed - of a shotgun or 
rifle of any make.” 
Under this law an unnaturalized foreign-born resident 
was convicted for having in his possession a double- 
barreled shotgun. The conviction was affirmed in the 
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and also affirmed in 
the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme 
Court of the United States held that the enactmci. of 
the law was a valid exercise of the police power. If 
the laud-owners and sportsmen in the State of New York 
desire such a law they have only to seek itt-s passage. 
Monroe Co , N. Y. LEON a. plumh. 
II. N.-Y.—What do our farmers think? Are all the 
offensive “sports” foreign-born? Are there any Amer¬ 
icans who abuse their privilege? 
