The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 8, 1918, Page 9

— “raise more hell and less corn” . up the pieces. Russia was not ““out claws. (Applause). I don't come out, they will come out “and I just took this on incidentally, thinking to myself that somebody was going to make some money, and I might spend it better than the other v fellow. (Applause.) - Now I want to speak for a moment about the land credit system. We are working out farm - loans by the government. They are valuable; they- help, but they are utterly inadequate; they don’t get at the real symptoms. If a man has land worth - $150 an acre, he can borrow $75 an acre ‘on it, but he doesn’t need the $75 as much as the poor fellow that has to make his land worth something needs help. I'indulged in land speculation in North. Carolina.. There were two neighbors within a short distance of where I bought. One of them was from Ohio, who knew nothing of North Carolina, but had a good deal of money and .lots of nerve; and the people down there said he had no sense. He bought -land at $6 an acre, cleared it, which cost him about $8 an acre,.and although everybody said it couldn’t be done, he planted and raised a tre- mendous quantity of tobacco of good quality. He paid for his land, the clearing of it and the grow- ing of the crop, in one crop. That was $5 land, I suppose it might have cost him $75 to get the crop, but he got it. That is the sort of thing-we must - work out in this country. We must work out a . plan whereby a. man will be staked up to the point where he can make a crop. That can’t be done generously and freely out of Uncle Sam’s pocket —that would be-too much “like money from home.” The man might forget to raise = - . the crop. " It should be done as. it has been done in Denmark, by co-operative agencies, by mutu- . ally guaranteeing. PRICE REGULATION NEEDED DOWN LINE In California we are trying a most important experiment. The state has bought about 8,000 acres of undeveloped but good fertile land, and Dr. Elwood Mead, the greatest authority in the world on that problem, is working out his theory of put- ting that land into a crop-rais- ing condition, so that the settler can by his products pay for it. We must recognize the fact in all our relations that the pur- chasing power of gold in terms of gold dollars has been steadily decreasing. I just put this in here in an aside, as something you must take into consider- ation. Approximately a gold dollar isn’t worth more than 65 per cent as much as it was eight or ten years ago. You must remember that in all your trans- actions. 2 Going back: again to produc- fion, we can’t afford, at the present time, to take the advice of Mary Ellen Lease of Kansas and of sacred memory and —we must raise more corn and less hell, and do more solid, sub- stantial constructive = thinking. We can’t afford to tear down anything ‘without building up. That is what they did in Russia. - They tore things down, and tore them to pieces and then burned nonpartisan; ' Russia was too multitudinously partisan—there were too many parties, or-Rus- sia might be alive today. Some- how, when I think of Russia be-' ing cut off from the sea, and being isolated from all help, all through partisan folly, I think ; ) of Russia as a cat in hell with- know where they are going to -great preliminary difficulties. In his speech.to a Leéglie audie! “I shall go back from here to Washington carrying from you what I have seen’ and heard here—the message that you ARE LOYAL, and that you ‘WILL STICK.””—Wi illiam Kent, United States tariff commissioner by appointment of President Wilson, to organized farmers and workers at ‘great St. Paul. rally. will be.: Going back to the cat, and the distempers of the cat, brings to my mind the fact that many great men have been victims of epilepsy, and per- haps it would be unfair to judge Russia now, as it would be to judge a cat in the midst of a fit. When we think about price regulation, we are getting into a .desperate, complicated game, an interference with the entire existing order, inter- ference with the supposed sanctity of supply and demand. . It is a great deal like throwing a monkey wrench into'the works, but it must be worked out, and we must have more interference—more regu- lation, before we get through. (Applause). - They are working it out in England pretty well, after You people are cor- rect in saying that if your products are to be regulated down to a point where the price relates to the cost, an average cost of production, plus a reasonable margin of profit, upon which you can live, you have a:right to ask that the things you buy are treated in the same way. (Great applause). FOR BAER BILL ~ TO AID FARMERS One of the great - problems before you, as you men know as well as' any one can know, is this question of seasonal labor—migratory labor. That matter must be met; there must be a great move- ment here-to organize and dignify seasonal labor, _to give extremely low railroad rates so that the men won’t become bums from getting in the habit * LABORING UNDER DIFFICULTIES Pl W% PAGE NINE - . ~—Drawn especially for the Leader by W. C. Morris" nce, reproduced on this page, William Kent, United States tariff commissioner, referred to financial conditions that hamper the farmers; - He indorsed ‘the Baer bill to aid drouth-stricken farmers and mentioned the experiment . eventually, but the good Lord in California, under which the state is buying land and throwing it open to settlers under "+ only knows how:long eventually cenditions which will prevent the settlers from falling into the web of the money lenders. o~ BT m® ek of stealing rides in side-door pullmans or riding i We must remember to recognize that © the rods. these men are necessary by treating them in such!® a way that they will not be subject to uncertainty ? of employment or evil conditions of living. We. " have had some awful experiences in California with € from personal knowledge. You are doing everlastingly the right thing, you amongst yourselves, working through local com-: munity forces, and then going to your states. Uncle Sam can do some things well. But I have had the experience in Washington, and I well know' how impossible it is to get full wisdom on local * affairs from such a crowd of wrangling district representatives, and such a bunch of dignified. senatorial ambassadors from. sovereign states as is provided in our Constitution. & I alluded to the Baer bill. Needless to say, I. am for it. I was only sorry I didn’t know enough? about it to get in and be of service. I am surprised,_;? or perhaps not surprised, but grieved, at Secretary Houston’s opposition. Now to go back to some more of these generali- ties. We must get back to simpler things. We are;: getting altggether too much tied to tin cans. Wel want canned fruits, canned vegetables, canned: corned beef, -canned ‘this, and canned that, and it all means centralization, waste and' extortionate’ costs. It seems to me that you people out in the' country would remember the: good old corned beef that used' to happen years ago, and the: dried beef. behind the stove—I: hope that some day we willi shake the sugar refining trust: loose so that we can get brown sugar again. Do you know they have knocked brown sugar out’ of the market because other-i wise there would be a chance for the Hawaiian or the Louis-: iana sugar grower to sell it to: you directly. But if they forcel: the refining of all of it they can| levy toll on the entire consump-}|: tion. I heard from a friend of| how he visited a great flour mill} center, and he was asked to} make a speech suggesting means} to help win the war. He told} his audience that he thought} that possibly it might be a good} scheme if they would put 15} per cent more wheat into thef flour, that he understood that} would add to its nutriment and] would be a great saving. After| the meeting was over, he found| that he was in hot water.- He] was informed that the millers) made their money out of their] trade marks and out of their| "so-called good will, and that to} reduce it from an extremelyi --that any .common_ ordinaryi miller could make would be to? sacrifice their good will and} would kill their business, and that his suggestion was heresy:. || is in accordance with fact thel government 'should establish ap p}ain standard for the benefit} of all. ~ i PAYS “COMPLIMENTS” , TO THE PACKERS There is another thing.” Yo have got to get down to loca abattoirs and do your own neighborhood killing - of live. stock. I have three big boys Nevada. He is doing good service; he'is running his own ‘place, and without him there " wouldn’t be any place. That boy} - —he is a boy of draft age—is: i white sort to a common kind{{ : I will leave that to you. If thisi} ~the abuses of seasonal labor, so I can speak of thisf: r are doing a splendid thing, in first co-operating . * ‘%