The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 20, 1918, Page 11

_','.,,‘,.,W o 4 wsosmsrggallifon oo wmsouplifs £x3 e . i =R T \ -.on . this: problem because of indif- & position to do almost anything it cares to with - ‘last two years many of these have been . brushed aside. think of us-if we o _or the cost can be met ,tl_u'oug’h -American needs. In August, 1915, he was the first in this country to point out, in a press interview, that our railroad system should be immediately put in condition to meet the requirements of war. He urged that the government direct this reorgani- zation and rebuilding, as a military measure. “The government did a great job when it created the federal reserve system,” said Vrooman to your correspondent the other day. “That was the great- est piece of financial preparedness that the world ever saw. Of almost equal importance was the creation in the interest of agricultural prepared- ness of the system of agricultural county agents, giving to each county in the United States a sort of deputy secretary of agriculture. As a result of this and other agricultural preparedness meas- ures the farmers of the country last year increased their food production 1,000,000,000 bushels, and this year, if the weather conditions are favorable, they ought to double this increase. “Creation of the federal trade commission was a preparedness measure,- for without it the work of the government’s price-fixing boards would have been long delayed or would have been done by guess instead of by scientific investigation. “The establishment of the shipping board was another vitally important preparedness measure. If it had been created when the McAdoo ship pur- chase bill was first brought forward by the admin- istration, instead of being held up for two fateful years by an opposition filibuster, we would now have millions of tons more of available shipping, which would have meant at least the doubling of our military effectiveness in the last year. “The recent nationalization of the railways un- der a single head as a result of the complete break- down of our transportation system under the stu- pendous burdens of war shows another weak link in the chain of our national efficiency that might advantageously have been taken care of while we were still at peace. “Even the most ardent pre-war advocates of pre- paredness had only a vague, half-baked notion of what real national preparedness consists of. They demanded more soldiers, more cannon, more battle- ships, and in these demands they were right, as events have proved. But the things that have ac: tually been crippling us during the past year have not been a lack of these things, but a lack of trans- portation and ships. CLEARLY AN ARMY CAN BE IMPROVISED FASTER THAN AN EFFI- CIENT NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL ORGANI- ZATION.” Let’s Have Low Fares for Harvest Hands Government Now Operates the Railroads and Can Take Men Out on the Land as Cheaply as It Wishes BY A. B. GILBERT HE Baer bill, appropriating :$2,500,000 to be used by the secretary of agriculture in paying railway fares for farm labor, where necessary, in or- der to expedite the movement of seasonal workers to the jobs, passed the house of represen- tatives by a vote of 250 to 67. It is now up to the senate to do its duty by the farmers as quickly as possible that there may be time to make the appropriation effective. The re- vised Baer bill also carries an appropriation of $7,500,000 as loans to needy farmers to buy seed, but obviously- congress has now delayed so long that this provision can not aid our 1918 food pro- duction. It must not be too late with the aid for farm labor or some of the crop which we already have in the ground may be lost. Never was the farm labor situation so acute as at present. Nation-wide constructive meas- ures must be undertaken to relieve it, and at best we can not have complete success. Normally there are about 5,000,000 hired farm hands in the United States—far from enough, for shortage of farm help has been a big farm problem for years. Yet in the drawn away by higher wages in other in- : dustries; the farmers’ sons have been likewise at- tracted; and within the last year, of course, both sons and hired men have joined the army and navy in large numbers. In fact, the problem of secur- ing seasonable labor for the coming har- vest, is now beyond the individual farmer. He is helpless before these conditions, and only nation-wide constructive plans can offer any real help. Our need of every pound of possible farm products also makes the. problem a problem of society. The nation can not afford to let the farmer fail to secure the help needed at . harvest time. Even if we are inclined to follow the old. policy: of letting the farmer sink or swim, our war needs now demand that | every - obstacle to: state and national aid in securing farm help be What -would “the 'allies were to fall down - ference, delay, @i prejudice or wor- ‘ ship of some time- : worn theory of the limits of state action? = The only matter of importance to them is food, and it should be the only matter of importance with us. We will be judged by results. : : WHY NOT CHEAP TRANSPORTATION? V As a means of «etting farm lagbor, cheap trans- portation or free transportation ‘is probably the ‘most important: possibility. - With practically full control of the railways now, the government is in them. The fares for the farm labor can be met by an'appropriation-guch as the Baer bill carries ' making ‘good to - the railroads, as the present control plan in fact calls for, any decrease in-earnings below the aver- age of the three war years. Contrary to the usual argument of the anti- farmer interests in the United States, there is nothing new or revolutionary about the plan. For many years several of the states of Australia have been giving reduced fares (one-fourth to one-third the normal fare) to seasonal farm labor. More than this, they advance these low fares to the laborer until he has drawn his pay. Since the be- ginning of the war Canada has been using this method of getting harvest labor. In St. Paul, for instance, the office of the Cana- : > dian Northern railway car- ries a large sign offering a ticket to Winnipeg, a dis- tance of almost 500 miles, for $8.87 and transportation to any point beyond at N TRt PR AR AN % % ® 3 L) AEwNABELY LY B £ ® " 1cent a mile to any one who is willing to work on farms in Western Canada. One cent a mile : is the regular charge, within the.Canadian border to any one desiring to work on a farm or to settle " . new land. - FARMERS FROM THE SOUTH . Nearly all Eurbpean ri\ilroads, whether stai:e or privately owned, furnish what is called third class ‘rates to workingmen the year round. Even our own railroads have made a practice of running immigrant trains from the East to the West on which the fare is much below first class. "Some of our western roads in the past have arranged through labor agencies to carry 'farm laborers without means to the farms, collecting the fare from the man’s pay later. Obviously our first class rates are too high to ‘enable the farm worker to travel profitably the distances demanded. - The ‘alternative is riding on - the brake beams. "By low fares or free fares the farmers will not only get more labor but better labor. Because of the difference in the crop harvesting PAGE ELEVEN Selay seasons, large numbers of the farmers as well as the hired men of the Southwest, after they have gotten in their own important crops, can come north to help with the later harvesting. Two-thirds of the southern farmers are not so prosperous but that the wages paid further north would make a strong appeal. The great barrier is the cost of transportation. With this barrier removed, sea- sonal labor will go south when needed and then both farmers and hired hands will move north in time to meet the need there. CITY HELP IS OVER-ESTIMATED The city newspapers have been making a great deal of fuss over organizing city men and even women to go out to work in the harvest fields. A similar to-do was made in the spring of 1917, but this campaign to aid the farmer absolutely fell down in the fall. Every farmer realizes that only carefully selected city men would be of any use on the farm. Farming is a skilled occupation, and at busy times the greenhorn simply gets in the way of men doing the work. If the state or federal government were to select men from the cities through pub- licly managed employment agencies (and a great deal of this is being done now), some valuable labor coul( be sent to the farm. But the propaganda and promises of the typical commercial club mean nothing.” CHEAPER FARM MACHINERY Next to solving the railroad fare problem, the most important aid that can be given the farmer is cheaper farm machinery. This has a most im- portant bearing on the supply of farm b labor, because the cheap- er the machinery, the more it can be substi- tuted for man labor. Farm- machinery is now " carrying not only the ° profiteering of the manu- ~facturers and jobbers but the profits of the raw material monopolists obtained in 1917.. The oil “trust is also overcharging consumers, among them - the farmers, :and is making more profits now in spite of war taxes than it made in 1916. The fed- eral government already has brought the twine manufacturers to an agreement on a price of 23% cents a pound in lots of 10,000 pounds and over, and if congress had given the president the neces- sary power, the prices of farm machinery undoubt- edly would have been fixed also. . As long ago as December 4, 1917, President Wilson said: “The farmers, for example, complain with a great deal of justice that, while the regu- lation of food prices restricts their income, no re- straints are placed upon the prices of most of the things they must purchase; and similar inequities obtain on all sides.” In the draft the government has made provision for exemption on agricultural grounds for the same reason that it has granted exemptions to those needed in other industries essential to the war, . This' policy undoubtedly made possible a~