American Agriculturist, March 1 ,1934 
Editorial Page of the American Agriculturist 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1842 
Henry Morgenthau, Jr .Publisher 
E. R. Eastman . Editor 
Fred W. Ohm . Associate Editor 
Gabrielle Elliot .Household Editor 
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E. C. Weatherby . • Circulation Manager 
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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. 
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VOL. 113 March 1, 1924 No. 9 
Albert Manning 
I N the years that it has been my privilege to 
discuss with you the perplexing problems of 
farm affairs, no sadder task "has come to my hand 
than to have to record the passing of your friend 
and my friend, Albert Manning. Probably no 
man in the East was better known among farm 
people or more beloved. 
Mr. Manning was first of all a farmer, with all 
of that calm, philosophical outlook on men and 
affairs that seems to come to many men who have 
had long association with the soil. Because he 
was a farmer, he knew the burden farmers have 
to carry, and early in life a vision came to him of a 
New Day in agriculture and a way by which 
farmers themselves through cooperation might 
bring that New Day to pass. From the time that 
he conceived his vision of farm organization to 
his death, that vision never faded. If he ever 
grew tired or discouraged in all the long years, of 
work and sacrifice to make that vision a reality 
for his brother farmers, no one ever knew it. 
Probably more than any other man Mr. 
Manning should have the credit for being the 
founder of the Dairymen’s League. When men 
said that farmers could not stick together, Mr. 
Manning said that they could, and he believed it 
so thoroughly that he neglected his own work 
and paid his own expenses to help organize 
dairymen in Orange County and later, as the 
movement grew, throughout the entire territory. 
All of the weary time from 1907, when the 
League was organized, until 1916, he kept his 
faith, while the members joined a few at a time 
until the great strike started in 1916. Then it 
was his privilege to see the League grow in leaps 
and bounds from 13,000 half-hearted, discouraged 
dairymen to over 100,000 members imbued with 
a resistless spirit of determination. 
Mr. Manning was the League’s first and only 
secretary • 
NeVer will I forget early in 1917, shortly after 
the first great strike, when he came to Ithaca .to 
ask me to come to New York to work with him 
in the League. At first I refused; I did not want 
to go to New York, nor did I want to leave the 
work I was doing. But finally I came, because I 
had faith in Albert Manning, and in all the 
nearly five years that I worked at his shoulder, 
I never lost that faith. Honorable in small as 
well as in large things, philosophical, humorous, 
courageous, he was always to be depended upon, 
always a friend, always a man. 
No farmer ever worked harder on the farm than 
Mr. Manning worked for farmers in the office. 
Nothing was too hard for him to attempt if he 
thought it would advance his ideal of a New Day 
upon the farm. During the strike of 1919, when 
many farmers were not sticking and when, un¬ 
organized milk was being poured into New York, 
when all we had worked for seemed to be lost. 
Albert Manning kept smiling, and in his steadfast¬ 
ness and absolute belief in farmers and in the 
ultimate triumph of right, we all found new 
courage. 
In addition to his great work with the League, 
he always found time*to be a good Granger. So 
good, in fact, that his brothers and sisters in that 
Order elected him State Master, where he served 
until his last illness. 
Mr. Manning was also chairman of the New 
York State Conference Board of Farm Organiza¬ 
tions, and was taken ill while attending one of the 
Conference Board meetings. I was with him at 
Albany at the meeting only a few short weeks ago 
when he came into the meeting shaking with a 
chill. After a little while, he said: “I don’t 
want any of you men to think that I am sick. 
I never felt better in my life.’' That remark 
showed the courage and unselfishness of the man. 
More than any one that I have ever known, 
Mr. Manning was too busy thinking of others and 
what he might do for them to think of himself. 
He came from a long lived race but he died at the 
early age of sixty. Had he thought less of others 
and more of himself, he could still be working, 
living and getting some enjoyment from life at 
his farm at Otisville. 
As truly as any man ever did, Albert Manning 
died for a great cause. For twenty years he 
worked early and late as a leader through this 
great critical period of agriculture and gave 
unstintingly of himself, his time and his energy; 
and for nearly twenty years he received in return 
misunderstanding, criticism and the abuse com¬ 
mon to those who attempt to follow a vision 
through new trails. 
To those of you who knew and loved Mr. 
Manning, and I know that this number is legion, 
I leave the hope that his death may help farmers 
to forget the hatreds which seem to be increasing 
among us at present and to consecrate us all anew 
to Albert Manning’s great ideal that all his 
brother farmers might work and live together in 
sympathy, understanding and cooperation. 
E. R. Eastman. 
Grange Elects School Bill Supporter 
N O better evidence of how sentiment is chang¬ 
ing toward the Downing-Porter Rural 
School Bill can be given than the fact that S. L. 
Strivings was elected Master of the New \ork 
State Grange at the annual meeting in Buffalo the 
other day. Mr. Strivings is a strong and fearless 
supporter of the Rural School Bill. His chief 
Albert Manning 
opponent for the mastership bitterly opposed the 
bill and received only a few scattered votes from 
the large convention. 
Does it seem possible that a man like Master \ 
Strivings would, after a lifetime of service for .| 
farmers and farming, wilfully mislead them on a 
great issue of this kind? The overwhelming 
vote his brother and sister Grangers gave him 
at Buffalo is the answer. When men like Striv¬ 
ings stand up and in the face of prejudice and 
misunderstanding clearly state their belief in 
these fundamental principles for the schools and 
that the passage of the school bill will mean better 
schools and lower taxes for farm people, then men 
begin to do real thinking. 
The only trouble is that unless this thinking 
results in immediate petitions and letters to 
Assemblymen in Albany, the bill will likely be 
defeated, for these Assemblymen have heard 
loud noise from a comparatively few, and some of 
them at least believe that .this few stand for the 
majority. 
In making a study of the leading policies of 
American Agriculturist for more than eighty 
years that it has been fighting for a square deal 
for the American farmer and in looking back to 
see how those policies later worked out, we cannot 
find a single instance when it has been on the 
wrong side of a vital problem concerning the 
farmer’s welfare. With this in mind, we are 
saying to you with all the strength that we can 
put into the English language, that we firmly and 
sincerely believe that the passage of the proposed ; 
Downing-Porter Rural School Bill will bring you 
better schools and, in the great majority of cases, 
much lower school taxes; so we urge you to study 
the facts, and write your Assemblymen immedi¬ 
ately. NO MORE IMPORTANT ISSUE WILL 
COME AGAIN FOR DECISION IN THIS 
GENERATION. 
Abolish the Property Tax 
AX experts agree that the principle of tax on 
PROPERTY instead of INCOME is eco¬ 
nomically wrong. Tax experts say that this is 
about the only country in the world where direct 
tax on property prevails. In spite of this fact, 
New York State is now contemplating reducing 
the income taxes without giving the farmers any 
relief from their ruinous property taxes. 
State, county, town and city government ex¬ 
penses are constantly increasing. If income taxes 
are lowered, who, think you, will hold the bag? 
Answer: The farmer. Why? Answer: Because 
other classes wall not stand for it, and taxes must 
be paid by someone, somehow. One farmer 
writes: “ If property taxes.are reduced, how about 
the rich property owners in the cities?” To 
which, we answer: Property in the cities pays big 
rents. Rent is income. If such property does not 
pay an income, it should not be taxed. Farm 
property does not return an income of any size, 
therefore the answer is, keep up the income taxes 
and lower the property taxes, and everybody both 
in the country and in the city will pay his proper 
share of the taxes. 
No matter what happens this year in the Legis¬ 
lature, American Agriculturist is in this fight 
to stay, if it takes ten years. We know you are 
with u k s, for you cannot be a farmer and feel other¬ 
wise. But mere passive agreement “butters no 
parsnips” and there should be at least 100,000 
Eastern farmers to join our army for economy m 
government and for tax reduction. With such 
an army back of us, we can make your wishes 
count. Therefore, before laying down this paper, 
will you not sign the petition on the opposite page 
and get your neighbors to sign it, and send it to 
us immediately. It will cost you nothing. It may 
do you some good. Blank petitions will be fur¬ 
nished upon request. 
DO IT NOW! 
Cooperation, like charity, must begin at home 
if it is to be permanently effective. 
Men’s prosperity is in their own hands and no 
form of government is of the least use.— Ruskm- 
