American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man ”—Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
Volume 112 For the Week Ending October 27, 1923 Number 17 
The Real Trouble With Agriculture 
A WEAF and American Agriculturist Wednesday Evening Radio Talk 
M UCH is being said these days about 
helping agriculture out of the diffi¬ 
culty it is in these last years. The 
implication seems to be that the 
trouble is only temporary and that if some 
adjustment can be made to relieve the pres¬ 
ent situation, all will be well. 
This is a very superficial view of the mat¬ 
ter. The real trouble with agriculture lies 
very much deeper and will take definite and 
comprehensive changes in some general poli¬ 
cies to put agriculture back on its feet again. 
This will influence the young people who 
know the business 
by growing up in it 
to choose it as a 
life work and en¬ 
able those who are 
now farmers to go 
on the markets and 
buy the labor 
needed to reduce 
the working hours 
on the farm to 
what is customary 
in other callings. 
Ever since the 
Civil War, this 
country has given 
its most earnest 
thought to the de¬ 
velopment of its in¬ 
dustries and the 
laws of the last half 
century, State and 
national, have in a 
large measure 
tended to encourage 
industry. 
For instance, in 
Pennsylvania near¬ 
ly a half century 
ago we made a tax 
system which gave 
to the capital stock 
o f manufacturing 
corporations an exemption of several bil¬ 
lions of dollars of property, well able to 
pay its full share, of tax, a privileged class. 
Whenever one class of property is exempted 
from participation in the cost of govern¬ 
ment the other classes, or the one selected 
as the goat, must assume the load taken 
off the privileged class. Many States have 
done as Pennsylvania in varying degrees. 
Our tariff schedules in all tariff bills have 
given advantage to industry at the expense 
of agriculture. Agriculture cannot on the 
main staples take advantage of a tariff, be¬ 
cause we constantly export and sell our sur¬ 
plus in the world market. The balance of 
the crop brings what the surplus will sell 
for, plus the cost of transportation. 
During the latter part of fhe last century 
when we had many undeveloped industries, 
there was some argument to giving advant¬ 
age to those who labored to build up produc¬ 
tion in industry even though Agriculture 
did suffer somewhat as a result. Since 1900, 
this argument has been destroyed because no 
one will claim that our giant combinations 
By JOHN A. McSPARREN 
Master of the Pennsylvania State Grange 
and corporations need any longer any special 
privileges. On the other hand, the imposi¬ 
tion, which as a result of this policy has been 
heaped on agriculture, is sapping its life 
blood to such great extent that armies of 
farmers are leaving the farms and few young 
people are choosing the business as a life 
work. The time is here when we must en¬ 
courage agriculture. 
No one expects other business to suffer 
disadvantages in order that agriculture 
should again flourish, but it certainly can 
be expected of an intelligent people that to 
encourage a business that is essential to the 
welfare of every other occupation, everybody 
would be willing to accord it a square deal 
and an equal chance with other lines of work. 
What built up our industry was not the 
super-intelligence or super-thrift of those 
who engaged in manufacturing, but the gov¬ 
ernment, by means of tariff laws, enabled the 
manufacturer to sell his surplus, if he had 
any, at the world’s price and to sell the bal¬ 
ance of his output in a home market which 
was stimulated by the amount of the tariff 
imposed on the importation of the commod¬ 
ity he manufactured. The farmer was the 
big buyer of those artificially priced ma¬ 
terials and suffered by that much in his pur¬ 
chases. Simple fairness now requires that 
if we are to continue the policy of stimulat¬ 
ing the market of the manufacturer by arti¬ 
ficial means, then we should do the same 
thing with the farmer and give him, not an 
import duty which means nothing to him 
on the staples, but an export bounty. He 
can then sell his surplus on the world[s 
market at the world’s price and sell what, is 
needed for home. consumption at a price 
stimulated by the amount of the export 
bounty. I believe a better way to get the 
equality needed would be to make the people 
who manufacture the things the farmer has 
to buy, sell on the same market he has to 
sell on, namely, the world’s market. 
The wheat and cotton farmer sells these 
world staples at the world’s price and buys 
shoes and clothes in a market absurdly stim¬ 
ulated. The farm¬ 
er could clothe his 
family much finer 
for the money spent 
if he could buy in 
the same kind of 
market in which he 
is compelled to sell. 
Big business is 
urging very strong¬ 
ly these days for the 
government to get 
out of business and 
stay out. I shout 
“Amen” if the gov¬ 
ernment will stop 
making artificial 
markets for the 
very people who are 
asking the govern¬ 
ment to get out of 
business. Will these 
people actually 
agree for the gov¬ 
ernment to get out 
of business. The 
last tariff bill does 
not indicate that 
they have made any 
such demand. It 
will be a glorious 
day for agriculture 
when the govern¬ 
ment does what government was originally 
supposed to do, give every one an equal op¬ 
portunity before the law. 
Some of our bankers have joined the cry 
for the government to get out of business. 
But how about the government allowing the 
banker to take a United States bond and 
draw his interest the same as any other 
holder of a government bond and then take 
it to the Treasury of the United States and 
deposit it and carry away one hundred cents 
on the dollar less the cost of printing in new 
money. , Now he is allowed the same priv¬ 
ilege with commercial paper. Will the 
banker agree that the government shall get 
out of business and have the fiat money we 
need to keep the circulating medium up to 
the just standard issued, not by him, but by 
the government in lieu of taxes ? I doubt it. 
It seems to be a general trouble in the 
States to have all kinds of property pay their 
just share of the cost of government. Agri¬ 
culture has suffered in this particular, tre¬ 
mendously because real estate is never 
(Continued* on page 290) 
Here is one reason for the present situation in the wheat belt, wheat as far as the eye can see, more 
than the world demands, millions of bushels that were dumped on the market at the same time creat¬ 
ing a market glut 
