176 
American Agriculturist, February 23, 1924 
Editorial Page of the American Agriculturist 
American 
Agriculturist 
or not YOU are interested enough in helping 
yourself to work with us in this tax job we are 
determined to do to help YOU. 
Founded 1842 
Henry Morgenthau, Jr 
E. R. Eastman 
Fred W. Ohm . 
Gabrielle Elliot 
Birge Kinne . 
E. C. Weatherby. 
Publisher 
Editor 
Associate Editor 
Household Editor 
Advertising Manager 
. Circulation Manager 
Sentiment Changing Toward 
School Bill 
CONTRIBUTING STAFF 
Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., G. T. Hughes, H. E. Babcock 
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Published W 7 eekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, INC. 
Address all correspondence for editorial, advertising, or subscription de¬ 
partments to 
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Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 1922, at the Post Office 
at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
Subscription price, payable in advance, $1 a year. Canadian 
and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. 113 
February 23, 1924 
No. 8 
One Hundred Dollars for Rent, 
Sixty for Taxes 
T HE day before this editorial was written, 
w r e were talking to a farmer about taxes. 
He made the statement that should he start out 
to rent his small hill farm for the coming year, if 
he could rent it at all, it would be impossible to 
tret a cent over a hundred dollars cash rent for it. 
“And,” he said, “MY TOTAL TAXES ON THIS 
PROPERTY FOR 1923 WERE OVER SIXTY 
DOLLARS!” 
There in a nut-shell you have a clear statement 
of the biggest farm problem. Because this 
farmer’s experience is general, you have the 
reason WHY DIRECT PROPERTY TAXES 
MUST BE ABOLISHED, and you have the 
reason why American Agriculturist is com¬ 
mitted to the proposition that whatever else we 
do, we are going to stick to this tax question until 
farmers get some relief. Maybe we will be able 
to do something this year. We know that we 
can have some effect in years to come. We know 
this because back of us are 130,000 farm families 
who are absolutely a unit on this problem of 
reduction of taxes. 
Did you ever think of the fact, when you are 
talking about organizations, that the organiza¬ 
tion back of a great farm paper is one of the most 
effective? Particularly is this so when farmers 
respond as they are now responding to this tax 
suggestion of ours, to our plea that we must work 
together. We ought to have at least 100,000 
signers to the petition which is printed on 
the front page of this issue. If you think your 
taxes are all right, don’t do anything. But if you 
think they are all wrong, here is a chance to do 
something effective. First, sign the petition, 
get vour friends to sign it and send it in. Second, 
CALL A MEETING IN YOUR NEIGHBOR¬ 
HOOD, read these articles in recent issues of 
American Agriculturist on the tax situation 
out loud in the meeting, discuss the situation, and 
all sign the petition and forward it to us, together 
with any other suggestions which you may have. 
Publicity, when used rightly, is one of the great¬ 
est powers in the world. It is especially effective 
when backed by its readers. We will use all of 
this power and we will use all of our influence in 
the State capitals, where it will count, and the 
importance of this influence and the amount of 
what we are able to do will depend upon whether 
T HE attitude of many farm people toward the 
Downing-Porter Rural School Bill, now in 
the New York State Legislature, is rapidly chang¬ 
ing. We have had many letters during the past 
week from people stating that they were originally 
opposed simply because they had been told that 
there were certain things in the bill which they 
later found on study were not there at all. 
At the annual meeting of the New York State 
Grange, several of the delegates have spoken of 
the remarkable change of sentiment which took 
place during the week. Many of the delegates who 
went to the meeting were opposed, but later, 
after they got the real facts, changed their minds. 
If it had not been for the fact that many delegates 
were absolutely instructed before they came to 
cast their vote against any support of the bill, 
it surely would have received a resolution of 
endorsement. AS IT WAS, PRACTICALLY 
ALL OF THE MAIN PRINCIPLES WERE 
ENDORSED. 
Constructive resolutions were adopted com¬ 
mending rural school improvement, a larger tax 
and control or administrative unit, larger State 
aid, and no consolidation except by vote of the 
people in the district or districts affected. ALL 
OF THESE PROVISIONS ARE DEFINITELY 
AND STRONGLY WRITTEN INTO THE 
DOWNING-PORTER BILL. Therefore, the 
delegates who went to the Grange strongly in 
favor of this bill for the improvement of rural 
schools, came away much encouraged by the 
endorsement of the main principles by their great 
organization. 
The people are certainly beginning to see what 
this proposed legislation will mean to them. But, 
unfortunately, so much propaganda and misin¬ 
formation have been circulated that there is 
danger that they will not realize it in time to get 
the legislation passed. The sad thing about this 
is that if it does not pass this year, it never will, 
AND NOT IN MANY YEARS WILL THERE 
AGAIN BE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR FARM 
PEOPLE TO GET THE LARGE AMOUNT OF 
STATE AID TO HELP THEM IN REDUCING 
THEIR SCHOOL TAXES THAT IS PROVID¬ 
ED FOR IN THE DOWNING-PORTER BILL. 
As more information is being circulated about 
this proposed legislation, and city. people are 
learning what it will mean to them, in having to 
pay so much toward the support of country 
schools, there is a distinct tendency toward a 
change of sentiment on their part, against the 
passage of this law. They are looking for an 
excuse to get around it. This feeling. is not 
developed enough so far to interfere with the 
cities’ support of the bill this year, but we have 
made a study of the situation, and we are con¬ 
vinced that while some kind of school legislation 
will be passed eventually, there will never be 
another chance for farm people to get so much 
help in reducing their school taxes from the cities. 
Therefore, we are devoting considerable space to 
the actual examples showing how the bill would 
work. 
B.ut there is always chance for error and for 
mistakes. Therefore, we have repeatedly stated 
not to take our word for it. Get all of the informa¬ 
tion that you can from all sources, weigh it care¬ 
fully, and then because of its very great impor¬ 
tance to you and yours, see that your assembly- 
man has your wishes in writing immediately. 
tremendous strides forward. It was on the whole 
a very inspiring gathering. The cotton, tobacco, 
vegetable, fruit, potato and cabbage people were 
all well represented. 
They are working out the marketing problems 
of the farmers in an orderly manner. In the case 
of the vegetable people, they have been able to 
largely stop the dumping of 75 per cent, of the 
crops of their members in the New York market 
and have diverted it to smaller consuming centers 
with the result that their members can receive a 
large increase in their returns. Commodity co¬ 
operative marketing has proven itself to be the 
right way to get the most money for the farmer 
rather than the old method of community pooling. 
We have examples in our own State of New 
York of three or four cooperative milk organiza¬ 
tions fighting one another in the disposal of the 
farmers’ milk because they can not get together. 
If all of the dairymen in New York would follow 
the example of the cotton growers of the South 
and have one central selling organization cover¬ 
ing the whole Atlantic Slope, it would be safe to 
prophesy that they would receive 25 per cent, 
more for their milk than they do now. If the 
dairymen or any other group of farmers ex¬ 
pect to sell their commodity to the best ad¬ 
vantage, they must cooperate on a national 
basis. It is perfectly within bounds of reason 
to look forward several years to the time when 
all of the dairymen of the United States will be 
organized into one large commodity marketing 
association, w r hose object would be to sell the 
milk of its members for the highest price and 
stop the competition of the dairymen against one 
another, not only within the State boundaries, 
but the East against the West. 
The following organizations have demonstrated 
what could be done on a nation-wide basis in 
commodity marketing: # . 
1 . The Burley Tobacco Growers’ Association. 
2. American Cotton Growers’ Exchange. 
3. Dark Tobacco Growers’ Association. 
4. Federated Fruit and Vegetable Growers, 
Inc. 
Looking even one step further, is it not possible 
that some day not only will the farmers of the 
United States be organized on a nation-wide 
basis, but can not the farmers of the world be 
organized, and through this world-wide organiza¬ 
tion, bring peace and prosperity to mankind? 
Eastman’s Chestnuts 
Progress In National Organization 
T HE National Council of Farmers’ Coopera¬ 
tive Marketing Associations held their second 
annual meeting in Washington last week. During 
the short period that this organization and its 
members have been functioning as a farmers 
marketing association, they certainly have made 
I T is strange how customs and fashions come 
and go. A half century or more ago at least 
one or two old “grandfather’s clocks” could be 
found in every neighborhood. Many of them 
were handed down from generation to generation, 
and around them were often gathered the affec¬ 
tions and traditions of family life. As a boy i 
have spent hours on my rare visits to grandpa’s 
house watching one of those awe-inspiring clocks, 
so tall as to almost touch the ceiling, with its 
great hands and slowly swinging pendulum. The 
clock is almost human anyway. It is the grimly 
associated partner of old Father Time himseli. 
But after a time the grandfather clocks dis¬ 
appeared from country communities until in 
recent years they have become quite a curiosity. 
Now they are coming back again, but mostly to 
the homes of the rich in the cities. . 
The story goes that one of these city men had a 
grandfather’s clock of which he was very proud. 
When it became necessary for him to move, he 
would not trust the clock to the moving man, but 
instead started to carry it in his arms down the 
street to his new home. It was so heavy and 
awkward that he could only carry it a rod or so 
before having to put it down to rest. 
In one of these periods of rest, a stranger, a 
little the worse for too close association with old J 
John Barleycorn, came up and addressed the j 
clock owner. 
“Would ya m-m-mind if I—hie—asked a 
q-question?” . 
“No,” said the other; ‘ what is itr 
“W-WHY DON’T—hie—YOU B-BUL A 
WATCH? 
