The RURAL NEW.yo p*' 
141 I 
The Result of the Referendum Vote 
9 
T HE FIGURES.—The referendum vote to show 
farm preference for a candidate for Governor 
is closed, and we now give* the result of the indi¬ 
vidual vote, including the family and meeting place. 
represented as follows: 
Liberty Hyde Bailey, Tompkins. 1.290 
Frank M. Bradley, Niagara. 13S 
Seth ,T. T. Bush. Monroe. 9S 
Israel T. Deyo, Broome. 144 
Samuel Fraser, Livingston. GO 
Elon H. Hooker, Monroe. 1.104 
Wesley O. Howard. Monroe,. 840 
Francis M. Hugo, Jefferson. 1.272 
Nathan L. Miller, Onondaga. 120 
Ogden L. Mills, New York. GO 
John Lord O’Brian. Erie. 150 
William Church Osborne, Putnam.. 150 
Eugene II. Porter, Broome. 156 
Henry M. Sage. Albany. GO 
Alfred E. Smith, New York. 210 
Silas L. Strivings. Wyoming. 2,418 
Thaddeus C. Sweet. Oswego.. 480 
William Boyce Thompson. Westchester. 24 
George F. Thompson. Orleans. 1,456 
George F. Warren. Tompkins. 462 
PREFERENCE EXPRESSED.—It will be remem¬ 
bered that we first asked readers to give their prefer¬ 
ence for candidates. With one exception all the 
names suggested were put on the ballot, together 
with the names that had been publicly suggested 
by political favorites. A blank space was provided 
so that anyone could express his or her choice if it 
did not appear in the list. The. votes written in 
the blank line were as follows: 
S. J. Lowell. 162 
John J. Dillon. 1,512 
H. W. Collingwood. 126 
John Arfman . 6 
There were scattering votes for O. W. Mapes, IT. 
E. Babcock. C. S. Wilson, II. E. Cook and Charles 
H. Porter. 
The preference for holding a general meeting to 
select a candidate and to formulate farm policies 
was S,4G0, and only G4 against the suggestion. 
CONDITIONS OF THE VOTE.—As a whole the 
vote was not as large as we had hoped that it might 
be. There were several reasons for this. The form 
of voting was inconvenient. Farmers were short 
of help and busy with their work. The political 
conventions came in early, and when the parties 
made their designations there was not much use of 
expressing a different choice, except for mere senti¬ 
ment, and quite a large element felt that this year 
they wanted to maintain the political alignments. 
The vote, however, and many frank letters that 
accompanied the ballots, shows that a large number 
of farmers and farm women in the State are dissatis¬ 
fied with the regime of the old parties, and desire 
either to work a reform in them, or if that fails, ulti¬ 
mately to turn to a new party. This sentiment 
represents not only the normally independent vote, 
but many who have heretofore followed partisan 
lines pretty closely. They have observed the swing 
of the State from one party to another as the people 
expressed their protest against the party and men 
in power; but they have found no changes to im¬ 
prove conditions materially on the farm or in State 
affairs generally. At all events, agricultural progress 
has not kept pace with the development in other 
industries. The fact is the farm does not pay for 
the labor expended on it, nor is the profit from the 
use of capital and management in it anything like 
the reward from other business enterprises. For 
this reason the farms and the farm homes cannot 
be properly equipped and developed. The farms 
produce the wealth, and the farm family now fully 
realizes that the failure to make the farm pay is 
due to the fact that the middlemen get two-tliirds of 
the proceeds, to say nothing of the waste that results 
from our present system of distribution. With only 
one-third of the value of the products returning to 
the farm, and two-thirds remaining in the city, it is 
evident enough that the farm cannot keep pace In 
improvements with the city. In consequence a large 
number of women and children must assist at the 
work of the farm, and most of them must and do 
assist without pay. It is true that the percentage 
ot women who work in the fields is small, but the 
percentage of those who assist at the milking and 
" ash the dairy utensils, and cook for the hired man, 
•is well as for the family, is large. City women 
have modern conveniences in the homes of clerks 
and laborers. Cold and hot water run in the house; 
light comes from the touch of a button, and the 
rooms are heated by steam. The farm wife is ask¬ 
ing herself why she cannot have these conveniences. 
Young women say no farm life for them until the 
conveniences are provided, and the young man 
follows the young woman to the city. 
POLITICS AND INDUSTRY.—What has politics 
to do with all this? Everything. Agriculture was 
once our greatest industry. In point of importance 
it is yet; hut politics, acting through the power of 
government, has favored other industries. This 
power built up the strong middleman system that 
takes to itself 65 cents out of every dollar of wealth 
produced on the farm. Politics not only built up 
this robber system, but politics and the power of 
government foster and maintain this system. Our 
correspondence and this vote shows that farmers 
begin to realize the situation.. The women folks 
realize it more fully than the men. They are more 
determined to show their resentment of it than the 
men. All they require is an opportunity to act with 
effect. The city women to a large extent share this 
resentment, because they, too, realize that they are 
victims of the food trusts in common with country 
women. When these city and country women once 
get acting together in a common cause, the profes¬ 
sional politicians will have a harder time of it than 
they have ever had with men. 
OTHER CONDITIONS.—We made a mistake in 
opening the referendum too late. At the time it 
seemed early enough, hut when the suggestions were 
all in for candidates, and the candidates had time 
to express themselves on farm subjects, there was 
little time left to record a full vote before the party 
conventions. .Still, there was enough to indicate 
the farm sentiment, and this, together with the 
result of the previous referendum vote on farm 
policies, was presented to both political conventions 
at Saratoga. The Republicans contented themselves 
by expressing some of the farm demands in vague 
and general terms, which may mean anything or 
nothing, and the Democrats responded by putting a 
farmer on the ticket in a position where even if 
elected he could do nothing. It was, however, the 
first time that, demands straight from the people at 
the farm were ever put up to the State political con¬ 
ventions. It fell short of what we had a right to 
expect, and yet it had more effect than the results 
indicate. It did not control the politicians, but it 
did worry them, and when we find the opportunity 
to give them a good lesson on farm strength and 
farm sentiment, we will have them coming to us. 
instead of our present practice of appealing to them. 
It was not possible this year, because Governor 
Smith has made the issue, and few farmers want to 
lose the opportunity to rebuke him for it. 
A REPRESENTATIVE VOTE.—The vote has, 
however, served its purpose. It represents the cream 
of the farm community, and it shows that if left to 
themselves the farm people would never consent to 
the candidates whom the politicians select for them. 
It is evident that the type of official they want is 
very different from the class that pleases the poli¬ 
ticians. To show this fact alone is worth many 
times the cost and trouble of the vote. If a ballot 
had been put into the hands of every voter on the 
farms, a large percentage would have voted, but the 
proportions would in all probability have been the 
same. It clearly indicates a desire to get away 
from the professional politician and to select of¬ 
ficials for their assumed fitness rather than accept 
those who for their own ends seek the place. The 
demand for a general meeting to formulate farm 
policies and to express preference for candidates 
was almost unanimous by those who voted in the 
referendum. The little opposition seemed to come 
for the most part, from those close to party influ¬ 
ences. In this the wishes of progressive farmers 
are now known, and when the opportunity presents 
itself again a meeting can be called on this authority; 
and preferences for policies and candidates cau he 
formally expressed at party conventions. For this 
year wo have no choice but to accept the candidates 
offered us by the politicians. The conditions are 
peculiar, and with the control of party organizations 
in their hands, the selfish professional politicians 
made the most of their opportunities; but at another 
time conditions are pretty sure to be different. 
Farmers are not in a majority in New York State, 
but they do have the balance of power, and if they 
use it wisely they can dissolve the partnership that 
now exists betweeu the government and the middle¬ 
men. This is essential to any plan to put the farm 
on a paying basis, Short of this temporary con¬ 
cessions will be granted them at times of special 
revolt, hut no full and permanent relief can come to 
the farm while middlemen control the functions of 
government and insist on two-thirds of the farm 
wealth as their share for the distribution of it. 
The Wonderful Possibilities of 
Co-operation 
The following extracts are taken from a recent 
editorial in the New York Sun and Herald. For 
years The R. N.-Y. has been showing the advan¬ 
tages and possibilities of co-operative work by 
farmers: 
We are, none of us, of economic consequence except 
as we build with and upon the elemental and essential 
yield of the soil. Our national wealth, our national 
prosperity, our very national existence, hang upon the 
never ending flow to our mills and factories, terminals 
and ports, storehouses and markets, of the breadstuffs 
and live stock, the cotton and wool, the sugar and dairy 
food—all the farm products which have made this the 
greatest and richest country on earth. 
Yet the difficulties of .the farmers to get labor, to keep 
their sons at home, to find trustworthy agents to sell 
their wares, to reach the most favorable markets and 
to gain the maximum of reward for their hard labor 
and necessary service to the nation are as familiar as 
bis A B Cs. 
But the truth is that in the hands of the farmers 
themselves lie at this moment the ways and means to 
do all that is required. The principal thing that is 
wanted of the Government is its moral support and 
technical guidance. The principal thing that is wanted 
of the public is its appreciation of the advantages to be 
derived for itself as well as for the farmer. The farmer 
can do the rest; the farmer will. 
Almost a single man like Herbert Hoover, with his 
capacity for organization, his daring for wide Hung 
team-work and his sweep of imagination, could rear in 
no time at all and out of the small givings of 10 million 
farmers a money power which would perfectly and 
irresistibly do the work which is to be done in this vast 
field of communities, States and groups of States. 
Charles Evans Hughes, with his matchless stroke of 
analysis and genius of co-ordination, could do it. Gen¬ 
eral Pershing could. Doubtless others could. 
Picture the magnitude of it, but behold the very sim¬ 
plicity of it! Think of a natural born leader, a leader 
possessed of all men’s confidence in his ability, his in¬ 
tegrity, character, vision—think of such a man asking 
the farmers to subscribe and pay in for themselves as 
shareholders in a national co-operative enterprise a 
single dollar for every month for one year. 
A single dollar, but 10 million farmers! Ten millions 
of dollars, maybe in 80 days! One hundred and twenty 
millions of dollars when the year was up! And then, 
with such a cash fund in hand and with such an 
economic force behind it, surely a credit power of half 
a billion of dollars. In one year! 
And in such a business—the very foundation of all 
industry, all commerce, all human endeavor, the very 
autocrat of human existence—the earning power of 
warehouses, of elevators, of carriage, of markets, of 
salesmanship from producer to consumer, would be 
millions on millions of dollars. 
It is no new thing in principle or practice. It has 
been tried in comparatively small areas, even in sparsely 
settled States, by charlatans, by Socialists, by incen¬ 
diaries, by nondescripts. But even then it has partly 
succeeded. It more succeeds on the whole than fails. 
Think of it done by the right men in the right way for 
the right cause. 
And somebody is thus going to do it. Why not now? It 
will be the irrefutable answer of brains and substance 
to the froth and frenzy of a type with bats in the belfry. 
It will be the power of sane, sober citizenship and the 
citadel of triumphant Americanism. 
Trouble on the Buffalo Markets 
There is trouble in the Buffalo produce markets. It 
has all grown out of the abuse of the license system 
and the sudden overplus of green stuff. The claim is 
made that because of a prohibitive license charge farm¬ 
ers are unable to dispose of their garden crops, and 
not a few of them, finding absolutely nobody who would 
buy at any price the stuff they brought in. had to take 
it home and dump it out as garbage. At the same time 
the city consumers of produce w’ere made to pay pretty 
nearly former prices for it. 
This state of things opens the way to charging that 
there is collusion between the city authorities and the 
produce dealers to keep prices up by keeping produce 
out of lmach of the consumers whenever it becomes so 
plenty that prices are in danger of going to pieces. One 
farmer is quoted as saying that if he had been allowed 
to dispose of his load off apples by peddling them from 
house to house he would not have been obliged to take 
them home and 1 throw them away. 
If a farmer undertakes to sell his produce on the 
city streets he is confronted by a license fee of $100, 
which is, of course, prohibitive, as it no doubt was 
intended to be. If any consumer complains of this he 
is told that something must be done to protect the deal¬ 
ers. They have to help pay the city taxes, and the 
farmers do not. There is nothing said about protecting 
the consumers, who also have to pay city taxes. 
The people have not. forgotten that an outcry was 
made against this state of things several years ago, 
when the City Housewives’ League joined the farmers 
in an effort to break down the license system, but what 
they got. as some one sarcastically remarks, was a 
rebuild of the Chippewa market at a cost of about 
8150.000. Then the dealers proceeded to make the 
city produce trade a close corporation affair by putting 
up their prices practically on a level with those of the 
groceries about town. So generally was this done 
that a great many consumers have been giving up the 
markets of late, as the benefits, for which they were 
paying taxes, were not very apparent. Led by such 
men as Theodore Krehbiel, former supervisor of the 
town of Clarence, the board of supervisors asked the 
city to repeal its license system as applied to produce, 
but it was refused. ,t. w. c . 
