The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 27, 1918, Page 4

BY A. B. GILBERT -~ HE rest of the United States gradually is admitting what the farmers of the West have been trying to impress for the last eight months: that unless we have un- usually favorable weather conditions, there will be a wheat shortage in the 1918 harvest. - As a nation we have done little or nothing of a constructive nature to increase this harvest, and we have allowed the destruc- tive forces practically a free hand. Unofficial reports show that the early optimistic returns on the condition of winter wheat are an overstatement by a good deal; the same severe winter which helped to tie up railroad operations also hit the winter wheat in Kansas and Nebraska. We have yet to hear, of course, of the possible drouths in the area below the frost belt. Crop experts are now placing the increase in spring wheat planting at only 2 to 10 per cent. Anti-farmer publications which ridiculed the Baer bill and depreciated not only the warning of the farmers but that of the food administration which favored the Baer bill, are now admitting the danger. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, the organ of high finance, declares: “As against a German vic- tory in France due to failure of food supply, wheat would be cheap at any price. Our principal aim now should be to enlarge the acreage and assist Canada to do the same.” Munsey’s magazine, Collier’'s weekly, the New Republie, express similar ideas. Their remedy is not that suggested by organized farm- ers who ought to be presumed to know something about wheat raising, just as a stock broker is supposed to know something about stocks, but they sug- gest a subsidy for ne.w acreage. . The organized farmers have asked for general price-fixing approximatel as severe as the price fixed on wheat that farm supplies may be cheaper and they have asked for special financial assistance on fair terms to needy farm- ers. They are asking for free transportation for seasonal farm labor. Yet the wise men of the East turn these propositions down in favor of a subsidy. And they are at least four months late even with that suggestion. THEIR ASSUMPTION IS THAT THE FARMER IS LIKE THE COPPER MAGNATE producing at 10 cents a pound, selling at 23% cents, and needing a few cents more to “stimulate” his production. A SUBSIDY WOULD BE OF LITTLE USE - The farmers have not worked for a subsidy because it would do nothing to relieve the two great problems of wheat raising: the great risk and lack of funds for operations. The greater part of our wheat is raised on land where the FARMERS EXPECT A LOSS OF AT LEAST ONE CROP IN FIVE. Wheat is essentially a new land crop and, contrary to current im- pression outside the wheat belts, a very speculative crop. The average loss of winter wheat acreage in Kansas is well over 20 per cent. The semi-arid wheat lands of Montana, Idaho, Colorado and Utah have a similar loss from. drouth. Western North Dakota and eastern Montana as well as Oklahoma and the wheat land of Texas would also probably do well to get by with a loss of one year’s production in five. If the farmer were a rich man, he could stay in this speculative game, but more often he is staking all on the one harvest. As a Kansas farmer wrote recently: “I have $6,500 in machinery. By making a great effort last fall, I put out 1,200 acres of wheat and at the present time I can not tell whether I shall be a rich man or a pauper this fall. “Wheat raising is a risky busi- ness. The. banks will not lend money on a wheat prospect, so it is all up with the farmer if he, does net get a crop. times for them. P Don’t Need Bribe to Produce Crops Wall Street’s Suggestion of a Subsidy for Wheat Growers No Help if Harvest Fails —State Insurance and Price-Fixing Best .before spring. The farmer quoted above, there- For the Sake of Our Children’s Land 'E HAVE been constant readers of the Leader since - last fall. The League surely is all it claims to be. It has waked up the people of Idaho. We are learn- ing more every day about the way the politicians and some of the middlemen are robbing us. 5 It encourages us in bringing up our boys and girls to be farmers, as the Nonpartisan program gives us hope-of better 1 When we get all our state-owned industries and all the other improvements, what a country this will be! Our glorious flag will wave over a free people, and not until then will life be what it was meant to be. ; : J - MRS. CHARLES BRENNEN, “There are thousands of acres producing nothing for the lack of help, money and ° faith, but if we had a government guarans tee (against crop failure), the West (the -richest land in Kansas) would be torn up in a short time.” It costs a Kansas farmer not less than $6 to put in the acre of winter wheat which has more than one chance in five of being killed fore, put up not less than $7,200 on a risk too great for a banker to touch, and if the crop fails, the banks, of course, will do nothing to help him start the next season’s operations. . The only way to remove this gamble is to institute a system of state crop Insurance by which, on the payment of a small premium, the farmer will be able to get back what he put into the crop in the case of failure. He will lose money, of course, but he will not go broke. This is what the Kansas farmer means by a government guarantee; HE WANTS HELP IN CASE OF LOSS, FOR IF THE CROP IS GOOD, HE WILL TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF. A SUBSIDY FOR NEW ACREAGE, ON THE OTHER HAND, WOULD MERE- LY INCREASE HIS RETURNS ON A GOOD CROP AND WOULD BE OF PRACTICALLY NO HELP IN CASE OF LOSS. CROP INSURANCE IS VERY BADLY NEEDED A guarantee is crop insurance without premiums and as such is objection- able except as a temporary measure, for the wheat price normally should bear all the costs of wheat raising. But it would have been a great help last fall for winter wheat and a great help this spring for the spring wheat. The banks would then have been willing to advance money even for unusual 1918 operations. THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN DOING JUST THIS THING FOR OTHER INDUSTRIES NO MORE ESSENTIAL THAN WHEAT RAIS- ING. Railroad earnings are guaranteed, ships are built, munitions are manu- - factured, cantonments are ‘constructed on the cost plus system. The risk is thus entirely removed. More than this, the government has a finance cor- poration to lend money to industries essential to the war on easy terms. There is thus sufficient precedent for taking some of the gamble out of farming by guaranteeing the farmers against loss, but it would be preferable to begin a permanent insurance policy such as other business has for unavoidable risks. The higher price for wheat, advocated seriously by many farmers and also by many of the big business representatives as a means of killing the demand for further price regulation, fails for the same reason that a subsidy fails. If there is a good crop the farmer can get by without it, but IF THERE IS A FAILURE, IT GIVES HIM NO HELP and in addition makes the next year's seed higher. If there were no prospect of general price-fixing, there would be reason for protesting the fixed wheat price, but there is some chance; and while there is, this prospect must be pushed to the utmost. The major part of the agitation for $2.50 wheat in the United States senate recently spranz from a desire, not to help the farmer, but TO HEAD OFF GENERAL PRICE- FIXING. The president in his speech, December 4, 1917, advocated general price-fixing. Mr. Hoover recently asked authority for the state to take over the distribution of food. | WHAT CONGRESS CAN DO TO MAKE SURE In addition to insurance against crop loss or government ‘guarantee - and’ general price-fixing, there are several other things we can do. to in- crease the wheat supply: ¢ 1. Temporary - loans to farmers for whom banks are not available and who must quit wheat raising; if not farming altogether, un'ess they get special help. - Such a measure would remove the worst effects of lack of crop insurance in the past. 2. Lower interest rates for those who have bank ‘security. It is not only unjust but foolish to expect that Filer, Idaho. A T 3 R R AT TR our wheat farmers can increase ‘the. 5. d e = g~ J + = S & . q 2 e = 4 [ { o el -8 2 . g et q