Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1908 — Helping the Farmers, [ARTICLE]

Helping the Farmers,

The commission Appointed by the president to investigate the conditions surrounding farm life in this country will meet in Washington next week. It is reported that many letters have been received already? pointing out some of the under which farmers labor, and suggesting more or less novel remedies by legislation and otherwise. Among the farmers’ grievances are bad roads, excessive charges by middlemen, poor educational facilities, and scarcity of competent labor. Doubtless a few score additional drawbacks to perfect farm life will come to light as ths commission pursues its inquiries. The field of investigation regarding farm conditions is practically boundless. The commission could spend years in gathering information and devising improvements, without exhaystlng the possibilities of its task. The ramifications of the subject are innumerable, touching great matter* in transportation, immigration, legistion and sociology. The commission can merely touch upon general conditions, In the hope of gathering information that will be useful in defining the proper scope of the government’s activities' in relation to agriculture.

The paternalism involved In the plan to Improve farm life by the government has not escaped criticism, but when the work of the department of agriculture is considered, It is apparent that this criticism Is belated. The government assumed a paternal attitude toward farming long ago. Th* question nofr is how far It shall go, not whether it shall make a specialty ot improving farm conditions. Where shall the line be drawn? Is it right to assist fanners to procure good seed, improved stock, and protection from insect pests, and wrong to assist them to obtain ’ satisfactory domestic and farm labor? If It Is proper to teach farmers better method* of fanning, why is It improper to teach the farmers’ children? Th* government has not tried to do th* work of the states in building good farm roads, but It has done many other things which might have been left to individual or state Initiative. Little objection has been made to tbl* paternalism, and probably the state* would be glad to surrender more of their rights ia' excha&ge for go?tf. sized congressional appropriations. One subject, however, may be considered by the government with propriety—the marketing of agricultural products. The prices of American staples of agriculture are fixed i* many cases outside of the United States, and are subject to violent fluctuations artifically produced. Th* law of supply and demand does not freely operate, but is interfered with by speculators having' eontrol of the sources of information as to the world’s crops. It Is the alm of the International Institute of Agriculture to correct this state of affaire by gathering and publishing erop Information, just as the department of Agrici!’u:e reports on America* crops. Although the International institute was founded through the efforts of an American, the United States has been strangely Indifferent in its attitude toward it. Economists of other countries see in the institute a means of rescuing agriculturists from the rapacity of spe< ulaors In the world’s food supply, and are busily at work in behalf of the fanners of their respective countrie*, But the United States has done little toward the establishment of the world’s crop-reporting institution.— Washington Post.