Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1933. "NOT YET OUT OF THE WOODS"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 143, 14 December 1933, Page 8

Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1933. "NOT YET OUT OF THE WOODS"

Nobody is likely to accuse President Roosevelt of having overdone the "ballyhoo" business in the message to the annual"convention "of the American Farm Bureau Federation which was reported from Chicago yesterday. Referring particularly to the measures already undertaken for the relief of the farmer, he says: "We seem to be on the way, but we are not yet out of the woods." It is indeed a carefully and almost ironically guarded understatement. The President does not even go so far as to say' that, though there is still a long way to travel, we are at any rate moving in the right direction. "We seem to be on the way," but we cannot be quite sure even of that. The possibility is even suggested of the terrible experience which befell Dante when Midway upon the.journey of our life— I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. In the darkness which overshadows everybody in these strange times Mr Roosevelt may indeed be driven even more than most of us to "believing where we cannot prove," but to "stretch lame hands of faith, and grope" is certainly no part of his programme. .He admits that the way is both long and dark, and everybody knows that he is physically lame. But, for all that, weariness is not on his brow, lameness is not in his soul, and like the lame poet of ancient Greece whose war-songs were worth an army to his State, he continues to inspire his countrymen. On October 21 the desperate farmers of the North-west proclaimed a nation-wide farm strike. On the very next day the President announced by radio the new gold policy by which he hoped to restore peace, and added an encouraging survey of the whole position. ■ The address of the President, said the "Springfield Republican," covered briefly other phases of his recovery plans. His courage and optimism are most heartening. ... As in other radio addresses on the great theme, he has on. this occasion an ingenuous way of blunting the edge of criticism and opposition. He reminds us in. closing that he "pledged no miracles," but that he "would do his best," and so he has. The distress of the farmers, the failure of the immense programme which he had organised for their relief, and the desperate remedy to which they were now resorting might well have troubled the stoutest heart. But the President's only notice of the news on the day it reached him was an appeal for "the spirit of co-opera-tion" of the old colonial days in accepting an honorary degree from a Maryland college! And next day it was followed up by that radio address to which we haye referred. The strike which was called for noon on October 21 was extraordinary and probably unique in several ways. Writing from Madison, Wisconsin, on "The Farmers in Revolt" to the New York "Nation" of November 22, Mr. B. H. Hibbard says that the question, "What would the city people do if we stopped sending them food?" had been not infrequently heard in farm gatherings during the last twelve years, but that till lately no one had taken it seriously. Farmers, he says, have not been on a strike, in any large sense, in centuries. True enough, they have developed a remarkable movement through, such organisations as the Grange, the Alliance, and the Farmers' Union. These have made demands, have controlled Legislatures, and have frightened Congress, but not until 1932 did they go so far aa to lay siege to the cities, the centres of wealth and population, and demand a surrender on peril of starvation. In many States now, variously leported as' from six to sixteen, the fanners are in a fighting mood. Their leaders in one breath connsel moderation and "peaceful picketing." In another breath they threaten vigorous measures. There is not so often the open declaration of militant programmes to bo ca.rried out with the exercise of the required force as there is the exercise of force without a declaration ol intent to kill or destroy. In other words, the situation is in the mob stage, and results cannot be predicted Or controlled. This strike had been called by the directors of the strangely entitled "National Farm Holiday Association" in order "to increase prices by drying up the channels through which produce flows to market," and "to compel the Washington Administration to formulate and put into effect a National Recovery Act code for agriculture." The directors claimed to represent seven or eight States, and expected to extend the strike to twenty-four States altoiggtbej .. with 9 , membership _ of

2,000,000 farmers. The ultimatum drawn up by the directors was in part as follows: — We will pay no taxes or interest until we have first cared for our families. We will pay no interest-bearing debts until we receive the cost «f production. We will buy only that which complete necessity demands. We will stay in the homes which we now occupy. We will not sell our products unless wo reccivo the cost of production, but will exchange our products with labour and unemployed for things we need on the farm on a basis of cost of production for both parties. There was a sting in the tail of the ultimatum for the Administration which was declared to be still dominated by the moneyed interests of the country and to have forfeited the confidence of the farmers. In view of what President Roosevelt has done for the farmers, and of; the enmity that he has incurred on their behalf from the moneyed interests, this may seem a cruel and unjust charge, but in view of what the farmers have nevertheless suffered it is not surprising that the charge should be made. Nor can it be said that in proclaiming "the farmers' fundamental right to ask for and receive the cost of production" they are making an extravagant demand. Whether the strike can do them any good is, of course, another matter. It may indeed be that they are not striking, nor even taking, "holiday." Writing on November 9, Mr. Hibbard says: The majority of the farmers of the Middle West are not striking; they do. not want to strike. They feel deeply, however, that the N.E.A. is not, as General Johnson asserts, tlio Siamese twin to the A.A.A. To the farmer the N.B.A. is the antidote for the A.A.A. Some of Mr. Hibbard's examples are a good deal more impressive than large-scale statistics. The farmer, he says, Tef.uses to understand why he should be asked to pay-I—for the most part he isn't buying—l 96 dollars for a grain Binder such as he bought, in 1917 for 120 dollars, even though the same binder has been Teduced 15 per cent, within a few years. He can't see why the price of shoes should have increased 10 or 20 per cent, within three months when hides are so cheap that he can't take them off dead animals at five cents an hour and make anything doing it. He can't understand why flouv has more than doubled in value recently. But a farmer has no difficulty in understanding how a one-sided N.R.A. is working against him. A farmer asked a' plumber a few days ago, says Mr. Hib,bard, for a price on a. repair item, some 15 dollars. Said the plumber: "Sorry you didn't think of that a few weeks ago. On account of the N.JJ.A. these items have doubled in price." Higher prices will start business up again, you know. But not in this case. The farmer doesn't buy. He curses. No, tho farmer does not want pre-war prices. He wants cost of production. This may be a vague concept in the mind of the economist, but to the farmer who produces at a loss it is vivid. * Like our own farmers, the farmers of America are not always reasonable, but it is for those who are accustomed to getting something better than the cost of production to consider whether under similar conditions they would be models of reason themselves.