268 
American Agriculturist, March 15, 1924 
Editorial Page of the American Agriculturist 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 184*2 
Henry Morgenthau, Jr .Publisher 
E. R. Eastman . Editor 
Fred W. Ohm . Associate Editor 
Gabrielle Elliot .Household Editor 
Birge Kinne .Advertising Manager 
E. C. WeXtherby .Circulation Manager 
CONTRIBUTING STAFF 
Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., G. T. Hughes, H. E. Babcock 
OUR ADVERTISEMENTS GUARANTEED 
The American Agriculturist accepts only advertising 
which it believes to be thoroughly honest. 
We positively guarantee to our readers fair and honest treat¬ 
ment in dealing with our advertisers. 
We guarantee to refund the price of goods purchased by 
our subscribers from any advertiser who fails to make good 
when the article purchased is found not to be as advertised. 
To benefit by this guarantee subscribers must say: “I saw 
your ad in the American Agriculturist” when ordering 
from our advertisers. 
Not only is this possible, but we go as far as to 
say that unless they do get together before long, 
the dairymen of this section may as well quit 
business. The present situation is unbearable and 
intolerable. We do not care who it is that does 
it, this traveling around the country trying to lay 
the blame on fellow dairymen is a dead wrong, 
destructive policy. It takes money from every 
producer’s pocket. Neither will it do any good 
for farmers to blame their leaders for the present 
situation, for it is just as much the members’ 
responsibility as it is the officers’. 
We have had years now of quarreling among 
ourselves and our organizations and we have seen 
what it does to our business. Is it not time that 
all farmers do as the Herkimer County dairymen 
did, and call for something constructive? Is it 
not time that we got down to brass tacks and de¬ 
manded a constructive policy and some real 
cooperation among our milk organizations? 
Farmers Do Their Own Thinking 
Published Weekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, INC. 
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partments to 
461 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 19*2'2, at the Post Office 
at New York, N. Y.„ under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
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and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. 113 
March 15, 1924 
No. 11 
A Remedy for the Milk Situation 
W E call especial attention of dairymen to 
the resolution of the Herkimer dairymen, 
petitioning the different milk organizations in this 
territory to get together and stop cutting one 
another’s throats by carrying on a milk price war. 
Three milk meetings were held in Herkimer 
County, New York, where the non-pool organiza¬ 
tion, the Eastern States Producers, and the 
Dairymen’s League Cooperative Association, 
through their representatives outlined their plans 
and programs, after which the resolution was 
adopted. 
No dairyman cares who started the price war 
which resulted in the present ruinous prices. 
What he wants to know is WHEN IS IT GOING 
TO STOP. THIS CONSTANT FIGHTING 
AMONG DAIRY ORGANIZATIONS IS FAST 
RUINING THE DAIRY INDUSTRY. For 
many years individual farmers quarrelled among 
themselves over marketing conditions. When 
they made half-hearted attempts to organize, 
they did not stick together and the organizations 
failed, all to the constant advantage of the 
middleman. Finally the absurdity and foolish¬ 
ness of this policy was seen, and dairymen at last 
got together in organization. The recent very 
small cancellation of contracts in the Dairymen’s 
League Cooperative Association is proof that 
farmers can stick together even in the worst of 
times. . 
But cooperation of individuals is only the first 
step, for while farmers have proven that they can 
work together, their organizations cannot and are 
quarrelling and fighting among themselves just 
as the individual dairyman used to, and with 
exactly the same results starvation prices for 
their products. 
What is the answer? If all dairymen would 
join in one organization, the problem would of 
course be solved. But this does not seem possible. 
Instead, there have been developed at least four 
sales organizations in this same territory. 
Therefore, if we cannot have one big organiza¬ 
tion, WE SHOULD AT LEAST HAVE 
HARMONY AMONG THE DIFFERENT 
SMALLER ONES. This is both possible and 
practicable. If dealers, whose every interest con¬ 
flicts, can work together in a Conference Board, 
then certainly producers’ organizations, whose in¬ 
terests are much the same, should be able to do so. 
S OMETIMES when some big problem is up 
which concerns farm people, we wonder how 
farmers can have any confidence in anything or 
anybody. For example, for some time now there 
has been a bitter controversy between different 
groups of dairymen in this section and each group 
is constantly issuing statements which directly 
and flatly contradict the statements made by the 
other one. With these contradicting statements 
before him, coming from sources, both of which 
should be his friends, how is the average man going 
to come to know what is the truth? 
The same principle applies to the arguments on 
the New York State Rural School Bill. State¬ 
ments after statement has been issued by those 
for the bill and those against the bill which do 
not agree in any particular. For instance, posi¬ 
tive statements are constantly appearing that the 
School Bill is a consolidation measure, that it will 
take away local control of the schools, that it will 
increase school taxes, and so on. And just as 
equally emphatic, another set of statements claim 
that the School Bill is not a consolidation measure 
unless the people vote for it, that local control is 
really increased instead of decreased, and that 
more state aid will bring down the rural tax bill 
in the great majority of districts. 
Faced with the contradicting arguments, com¬ 
ing from what should be reliable sources, what is 
the farmer going to do? The answer is, that he 
is going to use his common sense. 
Lincoln once said: “You can fool some of the 
people all of the time, all of the people some of 
the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all 
of the time.” We do not believe that very many 
farm people, in particular, can be fooled for any 
great length of time. They have been used for 
too many generations to doing their own thinking 
and reaching their own conclusions. A farmer 
jury is the best and most just of any in the world. 
American Agriculturist is m favor of the 
School Bill because we believe it will gradually 
give farm children some better educational op¬ 
portunities and because it makes the cities pay 
some of the rural school taxes. But we are fair 
enough to say that we do not ask you to believe 
these statements because we say they are so in 
spite of the fact that the American Agricul¬ 
turist has had an honorable record of service 
to its farmers since that long ago day in 1842 
when it started. 
A statement is never necessarily true because 
someone says it. It takes proof. Just as a sug¬ 
gestion, we ask you to suggest to the opponents 
of this bill that they produce a little actual proof 
that the things they are saying against the bill 
are true. Let them turn to the bill and find 
where it provides for consolidation, or where it 
provides for taking away any real local control, 
or where taxes are increased. On the other hand, 
we have printed statements signed by such people 
as the late Albert Manning, past master of the 
New York State Grange, S. L. Strivings, now 
master of the Grange, Enos Lee, president of the 
New York State Farm Bureau Federation, Mrs. 
Mabel G. Feint, representing the New York State 
Federation of Home Bureaus, and many others. 
giving ACTUAL PROOF that consolidation 
could only be brought about by actual vote of the 
people in the districts to be consolidated, that the 
new bill provides many new features of local con¬ 
trol that rural patrons of schools do not now have, 
and time and again in this paper we have printed 
actual figures showing how school taxes would be 
reduced were the bill in operation now. Right 
on this point, turn to page 270 where we are giving 
more examples as actual proof of how the bill 
would operate to reduce rural school taxes. 
In other words, we have tried to back our state¬ 
ments in regard to this important measure by 
proof. The best proof of all is the bill itself. 
The supply of copies is limited, but we are quite 
sure if you wrote your Assemblyman or Senator 
for a copy not only for your own personal use but 
to circulate in your neighborhood or to use at 
a farm meeting, he would try very hard to get 
you one so that you could determine the facts 
first hand for yourself without taking ours, or 
anybody else’s, word for it. 
Anyway, we are perfectly willing to leave the 
result to you, because we know that farmers 
have never yet failed to be just to themselves, 
to their children, and to others if they had time to 
study the situation. If, after you know the facts 
in regard to the rural school legislation, you do not 
want it passed, we do not think that it should be. 
A List of Your Representatives 
O N PAGE 271 we have listed the names of the 
Assemblymen and Senators with the dis¬ 
tricts which they represent. KEEP THIS LIST. 
YOU MAY WANT TO USE IT. You can tell 
by the list which of these men represent you. 
All of them may be addressed at the Assembly or 
Senate Chamber, Albany. A two-cent stamp and 
a few minutes time in writing to your Assembly- 
man for the Downing-Porter Rural School Bill 
may save you a good many dollars in reducing 
school taxes. See how the bill would operate to 
reduce taxes in Herkimer and Warren Counties, 
examples of which are given on page 270. 
"Announcement 
B Y special arrangement with WEAF, we are 
able to announce a series of talks to be broad¬ 
cast from that station on cooperative marketing 
by Mr. Aaron Sapiro. Probably no single person 
in the United States is talked about more in con¬ 
nection with cooperative marketing than is Mr. 
Sapiro. There are few farmers in the whole 
country who do not know of him afid what lie is 
trying to do. Many of the leading farmers' co¬ 
operative organizations in the West and in the 
South are organized on principles outlined and 
taught by Mr. Sapiro. 
The series of talks by Mr. Sapiro is as follows: 
March 18, 7.15 P. M.: The A-B-C of Marketing Farm 
Products Through Cooperation. 
March 19, 6.45 P. M.: What Farmers’ Cooperation m 
the Sale of Farm Products Means to the Consumer. 
March 20, 6.45 P. M.: Self-Help by Cooperative Mar¬ 
keting is the only Cure for the Farm Problem, 
It goes without saying that the problem of 
marketing is about the biggest one we have. If we 
can get decent prices for our products, we can 
solve the rest of our problems. We are sure you 
will not want to miss what Mr. Sapiro has to say. 
Therefore, we suggest that you fix tjiese dates in 
mind and make certain to listen in either on your 
own or a neighbor’s radio, to hear these talks that 
we have taken special effort to arrange for you. 
Eastman’s Chestnuts 
I T is said, and I think it the truth, that a jury 
composed of farmers is the hardest to fool, and^J 
the most just of any in the world. . 
But the exception which proves the rule is the 
farm jury who took only two minutes to reach 
a verdict against a lawyer who had addressed 
them in a summing-up speech as follows: 
“Gentlemen of the jury, there were just thirty- 
ax logs in that drove. Please remember that 
fact. Thirty-six hogs. Just exactly three times 
as many as there are in the jury box! ” 
