The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 26, 1925, Page 7

~ _.. Reaceud proche “The idea becomes power when It pene- trates the masses.” Karl Marx. SPECIAL MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT THE DAILY WORKER. SATURDAY, SEPT. 26, 1925 pe 290 SECOND SECTION This magazine supple ment will appear every Saturday in The Daily Worker. Statistical Background of the Agrarian ~ Question in the United States By EARL R. BROWDER. First Article. HE toiling and exploited masses of the countrysi@e whom the ur- ban proletariat must lead into the struggle, or at least win over, are represented in all capitalist coun- tries by the following groups: “First, the agricultural proletariat, the hired laborers (by the day, by the year, and for the season) who have to earn their living by hiring themselves out to capitalist agricul- tural enterprises, and to industrial en- terprises connected therewith. “Second, semi-proletarians or semi- peasants, i. e. those, who earn their living partly by-~ hiring themselves out to capitalist agricultutal enter- prises and partly by working on_their own or rented plots of land which yield only part of the food stuffs nec- essary for the maintenance of the fam- ily. This group of the rural work- ing class population is very numer- ous in all capitalist countries. How- ever, the representatives of the bour- geoisie and the socialists adhering to , the Second International do theif ut- most. to ignore the existence of the position of this group of workers, partly deliberately deceiving the workers and partly submitting. blind- ly to customary petty bourgeois views and merging this group with the gen- Sea men of RageNniY. _“Third, the small peasants, 1. e. “those who own or lease small plots of land, which are just sufficient to meet their requirements and elimin- ate the necessity of employing hired labor. This section of the rural pop- ulation certainly stands to gain from the victory of the proletariat. “These three groups taken together form in all countries the majority of the rural population. Therefore, the ultimate success of the proletarian revolution is guaranteed not only in the towns, but also in the country.” “(Lenin; Theses Second. Congress, Comintern.) * #6 r isthe purpose ‘of these articles to examine and analyze the stat- istical:information available on agri- culture in the United States, in the light of. the thesis of" Lenin, in an effort to fill out the exact American details of the picture so far as pos- sible. “Each country,” said Lenin, “develops prominently some particu- lar feature or.group.of features.” The analysis of class relations in the ru- ral districts is particularly difficult and requires: particular care. This is all the more true ‘in the United States, which presents so many. dif- ~ ferences from the fest of the world,. 'and im which the statistical informa- tipn is. not designed to bring out the “facts which we seek. . Loose . generalizations and hasty |: ‘conclusions about agriculture’ in the ‘US. have been particularly habitual in the revolutionary. movement, These inaccurate and even false conceptions which are current do not contribute to the formulation of a sound pro- am for establishing the leadership of‘the urban workers over the rural masses. Examples of h looseness and inaccuracy may, texan, be found in the recent resolution of the Parity Commission of the W. P., and in a report on America at the recent sessions of the BE. C. C. L, reported in Inprekorr Vol. 5, No. 35, e 463. Among the examples may be men- tioned the statements: “Today more than 70 per cent of all improved land is operated by tenants”’—almost 100 per cent from the truth—“two million agricultural workers are disfranchis- ed because they are migratory’—a | question in the U. S., wild exaggeration—‘the same bankers <nd manufacturers who own the mines actories, railroads, etc., are in the nain the owners of the land used ay the farmers”—a distortion of fact out of All.proportion; that, with ten million farmers now on the land, “six and a half million farmers migrated to the cities within the last ten years” —an extremely exaggerated picture of a real situation, etc., etc. The above items are cited, not for purpose of controversy, but merely to tion. While the absolute number of | population, both rural and urban, has increased at each census period, the relative development, in pereentage of total population, has been as follows: 1890 1900 1910 1920 Rurat. 64.6 60.0 54.2 48.6 Urban ........ 35.4 40.0 45.8 51.4 Proceeding a step further, we find the census classification of “persons engaged in gainful occupations,” !which shows the following compari- 40 per cent, it will be seen that the true extent of the preponderance of industry is obscured: ; Pct. of Year of 1919 In mill. whole Net value of all a r products .... Net value products .... Value added by all manufactures Total .. 40 Year of 1909 Net value of all Ge dvareectogl ee products i selferercrsso SGhTOR = 42 WHAT PRICE GLORY! | establish the need of careful and exact inquiry. And for this purpose we shall, in these articles, give a com- parative analysis of figures of the 1910 and-1920 census (with occasion- al excursions farther back, and to ether sources), establish the approxi- mate relation of class forces, the tend- enciés of developmént, and thereby lay a foundation for judgment as to what the exact present status may be. Relation of Rural to Urban Population. ROM a Predominantly agrarian country, the United States trans- formed itself, in the period which wit- nessed its emergence as a—and finally the—world power of first importance, into a land of capitalist industrial pro- duction. This process, which is basic to an understanding of the agrarian is ‘most broadiy reflected in the movement of popula- AMERICAN AVIATORS son between agriculture, mining, and mechanical industries: Percentage of “Gainfully Occupied” 1910 1920 Agriculture, her at and animal husba 26.3 Extraction of iboats, 2.6 Manufacturing and mec! industries 30.8 Ratio of Agricultural industrial Production. N interesting and valuable compa- rison is given between the pro- duction values, expressed in market prices, in the figures of B. M. Ander- son, Jr., economist of the Chase Na- tional Bank of N. -Y., in his pamphlet “A World Afraid of Production.” The comparative value of these figures, as regards agricultural produetion for 1919, must be considerably discount- ed; in view of the fact that agricul- tural prices in 1919-20 were at the peak of post-war inflation, and in the following~-year dropped by about 1 IN MOROCCO <riesees Net value of all mineral DEOGUCEE — 02.-.ocercovescsses eocouapgenesenecss 1,016 a Value added by all MANULACtUTeS manner $,529 he eee ee $16,247 “00 Not only has’ agriculture been com tinuously falling back in relation te industry, but also, between 1910 and 1920, there was for the first time in America a positive decrease in the umber of those “gainfully occupied” in agriculture, the exact figures of the two periods being 12,659,082 and 10,953,158. Volume of production has increased tremendously, but not, when the 1920 deflation is taken into ac- count, to nearly the extent to which industry has grown. Strata of Rufal Population. F the total of 10,953,158 “gainfully occupied” in agriculture in 1920, (Continued on page 5)