Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1920 — WONDERFUL CROP IF HELP CAN BE SECURED [ARTICLE]

WONDERFUL CROP IF HELP CAN BE SECURED

Chicago, June 24.—America's farmers are the one great • group that does not register a slump in individual output during the post-war srag. No diminished man-hour efficiency herei With crops coming along abooming, the supply of hired farm labor is 12 per cent less than :n 1919 and 28 per cent less than before the war, according to the latest estimates. The agricultural regions are rhr.eking louder than ever before for worker;., while to keep the country’s bread basket filled the farmers are turning right into day by aid of searchlights end are combatting the labor shortage by putting in longer hours themselves. - In Dekaltj, Peoria, and other Illinois counties tractors are kept going all night long. According to reports received by the Illinois Agricultural association, many a husbandman for weeks past has been makihg an eighteen or twenty hour day of it for himself. The fight to keep America’s larder stocked this year seems to be an even more epic struggle than it was in 1917 and 1918. Meanwhile the park benches in some cities are getting more occupants. The slowing down of some industrial lines because of reduced supplies and impeded transportation facilities is backing a tide of labor westward. For weeks, for example, Detroit’s parks have held many unemployed, due to reduced forces in the automobile industry. The jobless have been floating back to Chicago and points still further west. For a week contractors in the building trade, which is one of the best barometers, have reported plenty of labor. . In many lines there is a decreasing demand for men because of depleted supplies and an increasing supply of men, due to the influx from other municipalities. Many authorities believe that between the two tendencies the labor market situation has about come to a balance; that for every job available there is a‘ man somewhere to fill it. The automobile industry, one of the great enigmas of the perplexing economic situation, by all reportsis being tuned down as a factor. The connection between bread * and gas engines shows how closely the industrial body is knit. The phenomenal growth of the automobile factories drew men from the farms and from other -industries, including the railroads. It was one of many factors in the breakdown of transportation, which, in turn, slowed down movement of materials and caused plants to slow down. The transportation trouble likewise caused last year’s wheat to pile up in the elevators. The loans to finance it were, consequently, strung out, and to get money to move the coming crop the federal reserve banks began to cut down on loans to less essential industries. Two distinct developments are reported within recent weeks *in the automobile industry. One is a falling off in demand for both used and new cars. The other is the prompter deliveries offered by many makers Improved deliveries are attributed to the use of motor transportation. The federal reserve banks, by urging seasonal liquidation of paper based on automobile purchases, have apparently halted temporarily the absorption of capital, labor, and materials in pleasure car manufacturing.