The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 6, 1926, Page 12

THE MAROONED FARMERS By JOEL SHOMAKER. HIE harvest moon shines on many western farmers who do not see the stars of prosperity. They are maroonéd on the land. They are objects of pity. They are like unto slaves on islands of loneliness. They surrounded by sea the attempt to fly thru the They do not possess cannot sail away for they are of capitalism. They dare not air for it is owned by monopolists. suitable vehicles for highway traflic. Old ideas of riches on the farm are giving way to the more popular thoughts of existence in the city. The iong ago boast that more than one-half of the people of this nation lived on the farms is not in modern favor. ‘The treking from the farm to the city goes on wherever the farmers are able to let loose on the land and become wanderers in qu&t of jobs. There are reasons for the poverty that falls like a cloud on the farmers. Politics has opened new. rays of light on modern farming. The western farmers are finding out that they have been turning wheels of theory. The various bills introduced in congress, for the relief of the farm- ers, have set the people to thinking. The rejecting of those remedial measures, by anti-farming politicians, hes brought about a new era that means continuous abandonment of the farms. That means a complete ehange of agriculutra] conditions. The new echoo! politicians demand a system of tax- ation that will lower the cost of government. One wing of the party in power in the state of Washing- ton is fighting for a change. Among the assertions made by campaign orators are some facts that would got be accepted from any authorities but the old parti- gans. They tell why the farmers are marooned on the land. The tax collectors demand more than the land produces. ‘ Here are some of the things the politicians- are tell- ing. In the White River Valley, one of the richest and best farming districts of western Washington, the an- nual tax bills range from sixteen dollars to eighteen dollars per acre. That is more than the value of some @raps, “when the cost of production and marketing is = ucted. @ result is very apparent. The old set- have \ Bod their lands to Italian dairynyen ana‘ Fa ah truckfarmers because the farms ceased to pay, profits. F The Yakima Valley of central Washington is one of the famous fruit growing sections of the irrigated west. Political speakers, of the old party in power, state that the tax calls on the farmers of that district range about twenty-five dollars per acre. These claims come one a year and are subject to twelve per cent an- nual interest if not paid promptly. So the Yakima Valley farmers, who tire of paying out more than the yearly income, have joined the forces of home run- aways, of expect to enlist just as soon as they see some | way out of the difficulty. va “We bave not had butter in our house for three years,” @ the confession of a woman who manages a dairy farm in Eastern Washintgon. ‘We live on bread and milk. Our meat consists of chickens ‘we cannot find a market for. Why, Mister Writer, I will tell you that I have eaten eo much chicken, in the last three years, that I can fairly crow. As for getting away from the farm, that is entirely out of the question, at least for the present.” Why is this woman held as a prisoner on the farm? Why are children brought up under such unfavorable conditions? Let her tell the story. It is just like many others in the same locality. It applies, in many de tafls, to several western states. It reveals the real condition. It does not hide. under the smoke screen theory... Short es it is the story is full of human and reveals an appalling situation. :“The folks insisted on my hokling a farm gale, as . dion were doing, get enough money together and Kalinin, president of the Soviet nUion, addressing a Group of Young Peasants. =” |Reflections on O N America Sherwood Anderson laments the passing of the artisan, and, groans under the realization that “Coal and.the industrial power that has come from coal and the coal mines is king.” The machinery of modern civilization repels and ter- rifies him. The very idea of a factory drives him to despair. In. Russia the new poet, unaffrighted by machinery and undismayed by the collectivization of labor that it incurs, writes of work with joy and of its meaning with inspiration. The faetory whistle becomes a symbol of necessity made beautiful by changing culture and freshened life. His words: “The sirens sound the morning hymn of unity,” echo the spirit of a new age. While Sherwood Anderson, in an intuitive way, ap- preciates the importance of economics in our life, in all life, he protests and despairs, but does not see the destiny of it all. In other words, like the artist, he feels the situation but cannot socialogize’it; bi senses the change but cannot analyze it. In passages like these, called from his notebook,. his interest in the workman, in proletarian labor, is im- mediately manifest: “What a day it will be—the day I mean when all workmen come to a certain decision—that they ° no longer put their hands to cheap material or do cheap, hurried work—for their manhood’s sake. “The dominant note in American life today is the factory hand.” Equally striking are these confessions: “I got on a train and went to another town, where I slept in a workingmen’s hotel. The furniture was ugly, and I did not like chat, but I had got back among people to whom I belonged. “I belong.to men who work with their hands, to Negroes, to poor ywomen—the wives of. workers, heavy with child, with work-weary faces. Often I think them more lovely than any aristocrat, any man or woman of jeisure, I have ever seen. That they do not understand what I féel and do not know their own beauty when it flashes forth does not matter. I belong to them whether they will have me or not.” Se att BIW . we pe culture that Sherwood Anderson expresses is a culture that is antagonistic to his soul. The culture that the revolutionary Russian expresses is one that is part of his soul. ; In America the cynicism and mysticism that have crept into our philosophy, are elements detested by the Russian realists and revolutionists. Theirs is a task demanding of energy and deserving of sacrifice. Men- tal fireworks are non-essential to their existence. As Bertrand Russell said in a recent review of Bukharin’s Historical Materialism, there is something intensely practical and realistic in the fact that here is a phi- losophy worked out in the very bone and tissue of so- cial life, a philosophy that breathes not of the cabinet retreat but of the great heart of cities and the im- mense vitality of the plains. ference and strife exist, they are motivated by deep issues. It is the social problem that determines dift- ferences, sharpens ‘conflict, intensifies struggle. Atti- tudes are not anaemfc and tepid, but dynamic, horta- tory, aggressive. In America protest is muddled and mystical. Our literary radicals are obsessed with the bizaars, fascin- ated by the tinsel of the grotesque. The smell of re- bellion has not become familiar to their nostrils. The challenge of social revolution to them is but a dead echo, disenchanting and dull. . The candor of Blok’s Twelve, or of this fragment from the poem: The city’s roar Is far away, - Black silence broods on Neva’s brink. No more. police! We can be. gay, Comrades, without a drop to drink. leave the farm,” the woman oontinued. “I attended many sales. My neighbors were in the same fix as myself and family. They wanted to get away so far that they would never see the country again. Well, the ales did not raise money. ’ Horses sold for one dolar each. Cows were knocked down for about fifteen dollars. Farm machinery simply had no value. “We cannot eash in on anything at this time of the year. Our hay cost ten dollars per ton to mature, harvest and put in the barn. We have been offered four dollars for it. My cows are as good as any in the country. The best offer the butcher would make was fourteen dollars apiece. My pian is to live here this winter, feed the hay to the cows and try to sell in the spring.” Is it necessary for any reader to ask more about why farmers are marooned and unable to flee to the imaginary cities of refuge where they are not wanted, not needed and will become burdens? Altho intellectual dif-} A boorzhooy, a lonely mourner, His nose tucked in his ragged fur, Stands lost and idle on the corner, | Tagged by a cringing, mangy cur. The boorzhooy like a hungry mongrel, A-silent question stands and begs} The old world like a kinless mongrel * Stands there, its tail between Its legs. is almost alien to American ears. The spirited ary of Marienhof’s poem October, in celebration of the revo- lution when the Soviets seized power, is also expres- sive of the quickened pulse-beat in the new Rumela: Drawing by SUVANTO. We trample filial obedience, We have gone and sat down sauclly, Keeping our hats on, Our feet on the table. " You don’t like us, since we guffaw with blood, Since we don’t wash rags washed miflions of times, Since we suddenly dared, ! Ear-splittingly, to bark: Wow! © ; t4 ba ee Yes, sir, the spine * f Is as straight as a telephone pole, ‘ , Not my spine only, but the spines of all Russians, For centuries ie SRD. You ask—And then? And then dancing centuries, We shall knock at all doors ohh And no one will say: meegunyen) se out! Wel We! We are buteyiahianast, Before the fgotlights, in the center of we stage, Not softy lyricists, But flaming buffoons. Pile rubbish, all the rubbish in a heap, - And like Savonarola, to the sound of hymns, Into the fire with it . . , Whom should we fear? ' When the mundicull of puny souls have become worttn, eeeetTEsee PERECHESERUBGEEF®? pposite Cultures Ey E\ Ww TI Ar Yi Dr Is By a Ei I 4