Evening Star Newspaper, April 23, 1933, Page 70

’ THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTOR, P. &, XAPRIL 23, 193 FARMERS IN REVOLT— 1893 AND 1933 Forty Years Ago the Disgruntled Agricultur- ists Put Their Trust in a Third Party, the Populists; Today They Are Trying Direct Action; but Though Their Methods Dif fer, Their Grievances Are Much the Same. " BY HENRY W. LAWRENCE. HE farmers are down again, but not out. Today, as in the 1890s, they are desperately hard hit by their special brand of adversity. Now, as then, they are rising in revolt, to throw off the burdens unfairly imposed upon them, and to demand of their oppressors a square deal. The methods they are using in 1933, how- ever, seem strangely unlike the Populist tactics of 40 years ago. No longer do they put their trust in third-party politics, or any other kind of politics. They are trying direct action. They are using force. Their ultimatum is, “Relief or Resistance.” A few months ago. here in Washington, a delegation claiming to represent the majority of the farm population in 26 States put the matter squarely up to President Hoover in a man-to-man, face-to-face conversation, Their spokesman was & Quaker, and he opened up on the President as a fellow Quaker, with “How does thee do, Herbert?” Herbert admitted that he was feeling pretty well, and then he listened to the demands. “We farmers feel very strongly,” the other Quaker told him, “that we have done our full share, not only in creating the wealth of America and also the homes that we love so much, but also those higher spiritual things that go with liberty and the pursuit of happi- ness. We feel, therefore, that in asking for these things we are the real patriots and lovers of America, and that the interests are the traitors and enemies of the America we love. “Our power to be food producers is being taken from us. Does thee realize that this con- dition primarily rises from lack of markets?” HE President answered that he was doing everything that he could do to find foreign markets for farm produce. Then the other Quaker somewhat angrily got down to .the brass tacks of the situation. “We farmers are interested,” said he, “in the markets of the hungry unemployed. They could use all we produce. The acceptance of the surplus theory is not a fallacy, but a crime against humanity. “The reason for this unemployment is that too much money has been diverted from pur- chasing channels into those of profits. Cannot thee, as President of the United States, take immediate steps to relieve our condition?” President Hoover pleaded his own powerless- ness. Then came the ultimatum, delivered by this Quaker farmer with a calm and solemn finality. Said he: “But thee will still be President nearly three months, and the need is so immediate that de- lay might be fatal. We farmers earnestly hope this relief can come in an orderly manner from our duly constituted authorities instead of leaving it to confusion and chaos. I am serving notice upon thee that we farmers must have relief immediately or there will inevitably en- sue violence.” That this was no idle threat was soon after- ward demonstrated only too clearly. Scores of organizations such as the Committees of Action of the Nebraska Holiday Association, by show of force and threat of violence, unlawfully pre- vented the foreclosure of mortgages. When the law-abiding citizens protest to the sheriffs, they get such replies as, “We are absolutely power- less in the face of such organized outlawry.” The Populists of the 90s went about this business in a different way. Not outlawry, but law-making was their method. They set up a political party and elected many of their candi- dates, hoping thus to get relief from the unfair burdens which they so 'bitterly resented. the formidable political orator, Mrs. AID she: “Wall Street owns the country. The perties lie to us, and the political speakers mislead us. “We were told two years ago to go to work and raise a big crop and that was all we needed. We went to work and plowed and planted; the rains fell, the sun shone, nature smiled, and we raised the big crop that they told us to; and what came of it? Eight-cent corn, 10-cent oats, 2-cent beef and no price at all for butter and eggs—that's what came of it. “We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out. Land equal to a tract 30 miles wide and 90 miles long has been foreclosed and bought in by loan companies of Kansas in a year. The people are at bay; let the blood- hounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware!” The grievances sound familiar, though the remedies proposed are different in that they contemplate orderly political action rather than armed resistance to unjust laws. The planks in the Populist platform of 1892 demanded currency inflation, including the free and unlimited coinage of silver; a graduated income tax; economy in the administration of Government; postal savings banks; Government ownership and operation of the railway, tele- graph and telephone systems; the restriction of When farmers resort to violence . . . A pair of nooses dangling ominously in the doorway of the barn on a farm near Haskins, Ohio, where farmers united to thwart a foreclosure sale. undesirable immigration; the eight-hour day for governmental employes; a constitutional amendment providing for a single term for the President and for popular election of Senators, and recommendation to the States that they adopt the initiative and referendum and the Australian ballot. These proposals were greeted by the con- servative press of the East as preposterous and as the work of unprincipled demagogues, ig- norantly threatening the downfall of the re- public. Most of them have since been adopted, without, however, either destroying the repub- lic or rescuing the farmers. Currency inflation, economy and Govern- ment ownership do, Indeed, still await a trial, but the farmer's plight today is so desperate that he is seeking immediate relief by resisting a bad political and economic system rather than by planning a better one. He is so fed up, and starved out, by the nu- merous governmental efforts to rescue him since the downfall of Populism that he seems almost ready to transfer his faith from orderly political methods to disorderly violence. The story of how he got that way is a familiar one. In the first place, his Populist party got swallowed up by the Bryanism of 1896 and died an early and unnatural death.” Its de- cease was hastened by a noticeable improve- ment in the farm situation after 1896. There was a rise in the price of agricultural staples, due to the failure of the Indian wheat crop of 4nother example of the direct-action measures which farmers have been using in the past years . . . Pickets blocking she road outside of Sioux City, Iowa, during the “farm holiday.” 1896 and the shortness of the Eurcpean wheat crop of 1897. The world’s production of gold increased rapidly, thanks to the starting of new mines in the Klondike and on the Rand in South Africa, and to the invention of the cyanide process for extracting gold from low-content ores. The volume ot. money in circulation also grew. HE banks were aided by the emission of new bond issues to finance the war with Spain and by the liberalization of the national bank act. Increases in immigration expanded the urban population greatly, making meore mouths to feed. Since much of -the farmer’s troubles grew out of his imability to obtain easily and at reasonable rates credit facilities, the admin- istration of Woodrow Wilson attempted to rem- edy this defect in our banking system. In the Pederal Reserve act of 1913, special provisions were made for the handling of ag- ricultural short-term paper, and the Federal farm loan act of 1916 was a real step forward in meeting the long-term credit difficulties of the farmers. Thanks to these and other causes, quite out- side the farmer's control, Americar agriculture enjoyed a gradually increasing prosperity in the years before the World War. And with the war came the farmer’s economic millennium, blissful but brief. From 1915 to 1920 he became rich, or at least made a promising start in that direction. The war furnished an unparalleled market at boom prices. The allies bought stupendous quantities of foodstuffs and cotton. The needs of our own armies had to be supplied, and later those of devastated Europe. Prices of farm products and of agricultural lands went up and up and up. American ag- riculture expanded into marginal and sub- marginal lands; lands in which irrigation and dry farming were needed to overcome inade- quate rainfall. Farm land which was worth $82 an acre in 1910 sold for $200 an acre in 1920. Spring wheat in 1913 sold for 93 cents a bushed. In 1919 it was selling for $2.76. In the same period corn jumped from 70 cents to $1.59; cotton from 13 to 38 cents. The American farmer hopefully prepared for bigger and better things ahead. enlarging and improving his equipment, often borrowing money on mortgage to do it. Then came deflation, sudden and devastating. Land values took a plunge; crop prices went along, often reaching the lowest levels known for a generation. But the mortgages remained. So did the high taxes to pay for public ime provements lavishly begun in the boom days< Between 1920 and December, 1932, taking the average level of prices between 1909 and 1914 as 100, grains fell from 231 to 33, fruits and vegetables from 249 to 59. cotton and cot- tonseed from 248 to 43 and meat animals from 173 to 52. F course, the farmer shares with the rest of the Nation the evil effects of our well- known depression, but most of his would-be helpers list several specific causes that have had a directly adverse effect on his fortunes. Such lists usually include the following: (1) Overexpansion of agricultural lands. (2) Ine creased productivity, through improved mane agement and machinery. (3) Greater com- petition in the markets of the world, especially from Canada, Australia, Argentina and Russia, (4) Unsettled political conditions and poverty among potential customer nations abroad. (5) Substitution of machines for draft animals. (6) A protective tariff which benefits industry at the expense of agriculture. (7) Increased charges for freight, storage and processing. (8) Increased taxation. (9) Excessive interest charges. (10) Unfair grain trading and ex- cessive profits for the middleman. To be sure, since 1920 the Government has made many efforts in the farmer’s behalf, but they have not worked, and today the farmer himself seems almost to have abandoned polit- ical efforts for his own rescue. v