390 
Editorial Page of the American 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1842 
Henry Morgenthau. Jr . Publisher 
E. R. Eastman . Editor 
Fred W. Ohm . Associate Editor 
Gabrielle Elliot . Household Editor 
Birge Kinne . Advertising Manager 
E. C. Weatherby. . . . . . . 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 
treatment 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. 
Published Weekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, INC. 
Address all correspondence for editorial, advertising, or subscription de¬ 
partments to 
461 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
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 April 19, 1924 No. 16 
What The Farmer Thinks 
“I enclose a petition which has been circulated around 
this neighborhood. Your anti-tax movement is absolutely 
the best plan that was ever started by any farm paper. Every¬ 
one who sees the petition and reads the editorials is most 
profoundly interested. As a matter of fact, taxes and interest 
are the most important factors in the farmer’s problem. If 
they could be eliminated, he could stand the low milk prices 
and the other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. 
“In your leading editorial on the question this week you 
put your finger right on the very worst taxing graft, which is 
the improved highway. I want to say without qualification 
that no more good roads ought to be built while the burden 
of taxation lies as heavily as it does now. Good roads are a 
thorn in my side. I and thousands of other farmers like me 
who live back in these hills cannot use them and yet we 
must pay for them. ‘Taxation without representation.’ My 
share of building and keeping up the good roads which I do 
not use costs me about $30 a year. They build a number of 
new strips in this county every season, and build them so 
poorly that their upkeep in the next five years will cost as 
much as the original outlay.” 
OUCH letters are coming to American Agri- 
^ culturist by the hundreds every week. 
When we started this tax campaign we knew the 
situation was bad, but we have been absolutely 
astounded by the way farmers feel. Many of the 
letters would bring tears to your eyes to read 
them. Low prices of farm products coupled with 
the high taxes and interest are bringing stark 
ruin to hundreds of farm people. 
Meanwhile, Congress and our State legislatures 
meet and continue to make the same heavy ap¬ 
propriations and hold investigations, and quarrel 
among themselves to gain political advantage. 
Speaking very charitably, it is difficult for any 
man to see how either Congress or the New York 
State Legislature has accomplished any con¬ 
structive work during the present sessions. In¬ 
stead of passing upon questions of merit, making 
decisions on right and wrong and on need of legis¬ 
lation, the decisions are made on political expe¬ 
diency—not how much good it will do the peo¬ 
ple, but how much good it will do the party. It 
makes no difference which party is in power. 
They are both guilty. In the meantime, of 
course, the people pay thousands of dollars a day 
to keep these useless sessions and politicians 
going. 
We are not an alarmist and we hope we are 
constructive, but there are certain conditions. 
in this country that have got to be and are going 
to be corrected. One of them is this tax situa¬ 
tion, including the graft and inefficiency in na¬ 
tional, state and local governments, which keep 
the taxes high. Abraham Lincoln once said: 
“With public sentiment nothing can fail”; and 
we say that public sentiment must be aroused 
and organized in America to put honest and capa¬ 
ble men in office to cut down inefficiency and put 
an end to the present reckless wave of spending 
the public money. 
Therefore, American Agriculturist in¬ 
tends to follow Lincoln’s advice, and arouse 
public sentiment, particularly among the farm 
people, and to do our part toward organizing 
this sentiment and making it count in the right 
places on this tax reduction program. With your 
help, we believe we can save farmers hundreds 
of thousands of dollars, but we cannot do it 
alone. We ask you to study and discuss this 
question in your Grange and other farm meetings, 
and in your homes. Read everything you can 
find on the tax problem. In particular, study 
the records of the men who are running for office 
during the coming fall. See them personally, or 
write them letters asking how they stand on the 
tax problem. Let them know how you feel about 
it. Are these candidates good business men? 
Especially note the business ability and the re¬ 
cord of your own supervisor, for town and county 
expenses make your largest taxes. 
Don’t forget either to sign the tax petition 
which we are printing in every issue of American 
Agriculturist, and line up in our great organ¬ 
ized army for a square deal for the taxpayer. 
Over 12,000 farm people have already signed. 
Blank petitions will be furnished upon request. 
What Caused Low Milk Prices ? 
A LETTER from a dairyman states that milk 
prices now, in his opinion, are no better 
comparatively speaking than they were before the 
war. Nearly every one, both in the milk organi¬ 
zations and out, is spending considerable energy 
trying to place the blame for this ruinous situation 
on somebody else, but we have seen little discus¬ 
sion of the real fundamental cause for most of the 
present trouble, WHICH IS TOO MUCH MILK. 
During the several years since the war, milk 
has paid better than almost any other farm 
product. This does not mean that these prices 
have been good, but that prices of other farm 
products have been so low. The result has been 
that those farmers who were not dairymen have 
gone into dairying. This has been especially so 
in certain sections of the West where the one-drop 
farmer has been advised to diversify. Those who 
already had cows have added more, and have fed 
more grain. During the last decade dairying in 
Canada has increased to an alarming extent, that 
is, alarming from a competitive standpoint. 
Better methods of refrigeration and of transpor¬ 
tation have opened our American markets to 
importations of dairy products from Europe and 
from the Argentine. During and since the war, 
the increased demand and higher prices for fluid 
milk led those producers who had previously made 
milk only for butter or cheese to improve their 
quality so as to sell it in fluid form. There can be 
but one answer to all this and that is over-supply. 
The demand has increased in the cities, but not 
half fast enough. Over-production makes a 
lower price. This condition will go on until the 
low prices lessen production, which will in turn 
give the demand a chance to catch up, and then 
the prices will rise again. The little old law of 
supply and demand is right on the job all of the 
time working just as surely as night follows day. 
All right, you lay; if this is true, what is the 
use of having any organization? The answer to 
this is that the strongest and best organization in 
the world cannot long keep the prices up if there 
is more to sell than the market can absorb, but 
right organization can market in an orderly 
manner; it can prevent temporary gluts, and it 
can insure the farmer his just share of whatever 
the demand is. In the days before organization 
when the demand increased, the dealer and not 
the farmer got the benefit of it. When the demand 
decreased, the farmer and not the dealer lost. 
Unfortunately, this is just the situation which 
dairymen of this section face now. We have 
organizations, but they are quarrelling like cats 
and dogs among themselves, and with the un- 
Amencan Agricunurisi, April iv, 1924 
Agriculturist 
organized farmer. There is bitter competition 
among them, and cutting prices. While they 
quarrel, Rome burns. Organization is not en¬ 
tirely to blame for the present trouble, but it is 
unfortunate that at the very time when farmers 
need help the most both organized and unor¬ 
ganized dairymen are making their troubles worse 
by trying to cut one another’s throat. Is it not 
time for some cooperation that cooperates? 
As we go to press, the story of the action of the 
Montgomery County, New York, dairymen comes 
to us. It is on page 395 under the heading 
“Getting Together At Last.” The action of 
these men is just what American Agriculturist 
has urged repeatedly: that the dairy organiza¬ 
tions cooperate. Dairymen throughout the pro¬ 
ducing area may well follow. 
Courage Does Not Change 
I T has been one hundred and forty-nine years, 
a long century and a half, since the Ameri¬ 
cans met the British Regulars at the bridge 
at Concord and on the village green at Lexing¬ 
ton. (See cover picture.) 
During that time the world has moved more 
rapidly than ever before in history. It has been 
a time of tremendous change of material things. 
But in spiritual things, in courage, steadfastness 
straight thinking and the ability to hew to the 
line and see through hypocrisy and sham, the 
great mass of American farmers have never 
changed. Today they stand just as solidly 
shoulder to shoulder for those things which they 
think right as they did on that April day long ago 
so well described by Longfellow, when he wrote: 
You know the rest. In the books you have read, 
How the British Regulars fired and fled,— 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farmyard wall, 
Chasing the redcoats down the lane, 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road. 
And only pausing to fire and load. 
Eastman’s Chestnut 
» 
'T'HE other night I had a strange dream. I 
* thought I died and went up and tried to get 
into heaven. The gatekeeper met me at the gate 
and said: 
“ I am sorry but before we can admit you, there 
are certain preliminaries—a sort of examination, 
as it were.” 
“Well,” I said, “I’ll try anything once. What 
do I have to do?” 
“You take this chalk, go through the gate, and 
climb three flights of golden stairs. At the top 
you will find a room and in the room a big black¬ 
board. You must then write on this blackboard 
all of your sins and particularly all of the lies 
you have ever told. By and by I’ll come and look 
them over, and see whether we want to let you 
go any further or not.” 
I said, “That’s all right. That’s easy. Who 
ever heard of an editor telling a lie?” 
So I started up the stairs but had not gone 
very far before I heard a terrific noise up ahead 
of me. Around the corner suddenly there came 
a man jumping down the stairs five or more steps 
at a time. When he got closer, I was very much 
surprised, and pleased to see that it was my old 
friend, Charlie Taylor, who had once been assist¬ 
ant county agent leader down in York State. 
I said: “Hello there, Charlie! Hold on a min¬ 
ute. How are you? Where are you going?” 
But Charlie did not slow up. 
“Get out of my way,” he said. “I’m in an 
awful hurry.” 
But Charlie was an old friend in a strange 
place, and I wanted to see him and talk with him, 
so I tried again to stop him. fl 
“Why, Charlie, hold on, I want to talk with 
you. What’s the matter?” 
But Charlie never paused. Instead, he yelled 
at me as he went by: 
“Can’t stop—awful hurry—GOING AFTER 
MORE CHALK! ” 
Post Mortem: My great-great-great-grandpa 
used to tell this! 
