Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 255, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1917 — SPEAKS FOR THE FARMER [ARTICLE]

SPEAKS FOR THE FARMER

B. W. SNOW RESENTS CRITICISM OF FARMERS’ WAR ATTITUDE. The following article from the Chicago Daily Tribune speaks for the farmer from an entirely different viewpoint. B. W. Snow, crop expert and erstwhile seventh ward aiderman, takes exception to much of the recent criticism leveled at the farm community. His acquaintance with rural life in all parts of the country, covering a long period of intimate association with farmers, gives him an insight into the agricultural situation that is not enjoyed by many eity men. “Now that the drive for the second Liberty loan is over and tension of men’s nerves is relieved by its magnificent - success,” says this farmer champion, “and the belated returns are all telling the story of liberal bond purchases outside of the cities, it is time to call, attention to some of the misstatements and positive wrongs which are being, piled UP. against the American farmer. “So grievous have been some of these that certain estimable and wellmeaning gentlemen are due to apol<* gize for strictures, unwarranted, which they have passed against a whole class in epigrammatic statement that ‘the farmer will neither pay taxes, buy bonds, nor fight’. The question of whether the farmers are paying their full share of taxes is one which well can be left to th’ internal revenue department, and which wiU not be settled either pro c. con by epigrammatic dialectics. “One thing is cer'. —a, ho "ever, and that is that there is widespread misinformation in the public, mmd concerning the p ofits which the farmers are making. City consumers under the pressi~re of spar’.ig prices, and entirely in haze as to cc.uses, are inched to trike blindly at the producer. A. 3 a matter-of- " there is no business in this country that pays a smaller percentage of profit up ithe capital inverted than is the case with the general farmer.

‘lt is true that the price of farm products are high, higher in the city markets than elsewhere, but it is equally true that along with the rise in prices has gone equal, if not greater rise, in the cost of producing crops. Hired farm labor has becortie almost entirely extinct, and wages have advanced to figures unheard of in the farm community, without producing any addition supply of labor or indeed maintaining the previous volume of labor. ’ ‘.‘Last spring metropolitan editors who do not know whether Holsteins are a. breed of cattle or of chicken, and lawyers, doctors and successful merchants joined in an anvil chorus demanding that farmers cultivate more land.

“When these self-appointed mentors went through the country last spring, preaching the gospel of more acres, they left the impression intentionally that if the farmers would only seed the crops there would be an army erf city labor available to harvest them. Farmers did seed over their heads, but the labor for cultivation and harvesting never appeared. Indeed, in place of influx of labor to keep the contract, the government called the young men from the farms as well as from the city street corners, and an enormous volume of the youth and muscle of the farm is in the training camps preparing to fight for our ideals in France. “As a result the farm work is woefully backward, crops are not yet gathered in full, potatoes are freezing and rotting in the ground through lack of ability to get them dug, and fall plowing which is the basis of crop results next year, is so backward that unless the season holds open until Christmas the amount of land prepared for next year’s crops will show a decrease instead of the increase demanded. , , , A good increase has been seeded to winter wheat, but unless there - is some change in the labor situation for the rural community before next June, acres of grain will go down and be lost by reason of inability to garner it-* “These men are now struggling to keep production at a normal figure in - spite of the drafts which have been made upon them, and are doing it without articulate complaint. It is because of this added strain upon the "older man who are left on the farms that wheat and oats and farm products generally are not being rushed to the market as rapidly as is desirable. They are not hoarding these crops because, as in the case of wheat, the value is fixed for a year, and in the case of the other crops, the present prices are most attractive. But they are delaying movement simply because they cannot be on the road hauling to the railway and in the field turning the furrowfor next, year’s crop at the same time,. and they are choosing -to do that which is most essential, making sure of next year’s crop while it yet may be done. “In our effort to gather our resources and conserve our strength for the terrible situation that hes ahead of America, we have made a moderate success in bringing about compulsory military service. But. If the men we place in the fields of France are not adequately supported by men placed in the fields of America to feed and clothe them, and to feed and clothe our own people and

our allies, • our whole effort will be a failure. ~ “What the farmer needs is help, and not abuse, and unless help in the shape of available labor is provided before next spring, our volume-of agricultural production next year will be smaller than this year, and we will lose our battle for human rights through our inability to see those things which lie directly outside our windows.” In answer to the recent accusation that the farmers are failing to do their duty in the buying of Liberty bonds there comes word from Kendall county, through Judge Clarence S. Williams of the probate court and head of the local exemption board, that the farmers of that district have oversubscribed their allotted share in the Liberty loan. The judge also pointed out that out of the 280 men who were examined for the draft, 127 were accepted. Out of the 127 only four appeals for exemption were filed with the board of appeals.