Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 277, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1919 — THE SANITY OF THE FARMERS. [ARTICLE]

THE SANITY OF THE FARMERS.

One of the reassuring forces in the present period of industrial uncertainty is the sanity of the farmers’ organizations. Among ’ all the producers, itis apparent, according to the resolutions adopted by their conventions, that none realizes better than the farmer the importance of hard and persistent work to put the country back on its basis of substantial prosperity. At Chicago farmers denounced, as well they might, strikes and lockouts “as bringing unnecessary loss and suffering on the many while bringing ' benefits, if any, to the few,” and [and they resented “the implication that the farmers of this country be yoked up with greed and lawlessness, whether capitalistic, laboristic or Bolshevistic.” At the Grand Rapids meeting of the National Grange the grandmaster; declared I that the demand for* shorter hours ! on the part of certain classes of - labor was indefensible. There can be no doubt of the farmer’s right to speak as a man who works, even if he is not regarded as a “workingman” in the sense in which the term is ordinarily used. His working hours are irregular and variable, depending on the season and the weather. He puts in full time, whatever it may be, without watching the clock, for part of his work is a daily task that can not be postponed and part of it must be done as seasonal opportunity offers. That such labor is inevitable if the food production business is to reach its necessary output he realizes and accepts without objection. If, in spite of his skill as a. cultivator, the weather causes him losses, he accepts them as part of his business routine, and goes ahead with his work. He makes such 1 profits as he can, but between him and the enormous cost of food stands many a charge that brings him no return. On the other hand he must pay for manufactured producU the high charges that result from slackened production, high wages and the general greed that probably has as much influence on make the things that he has to buy cost more without increasing the Drice of the things that he sells — h° prctty T will evidently be np Joining of the farmers in any movement to reduce production and increase wages, and the country is fortunate in having J conservative force of such‘ aligned in favor of a sane rehabilitation of the .people’s affairs.—lndi anapolis News.