The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 22, 1921, Page 9

S Y S S A b e AEREECEUERT Three Billions That People Could Save What Would Happen if Distribution-of Food Products in America Was Even as Efficient as It Is in Some European Countries BY ALBERT F. COYLE Acting secretary All-American Co- Operative commission, Washington -]N THE newspapers the other morning, separated by only three inches of type, appeared two items, one from Maine and the other from Cali- fornia, telling the same’story of con- ditions that prevail clear across the continent. In Hayward, Cal., farmers are giving ripe cherries away rather than sell them to the canneries at:a loss. The big canning corporations are offering the farmers 4 cents per pound for cherries delivered at the vannery door. It costs the farmers 3 cents a pound to pick the cherries, and from 2 cents to 3 cents more to handle and haul them to the cannery. At the corner store I asked the price of cherries. “Twenty-eight cents .a pound, sir. There are not many of them on the market.” The other dispatch was from Aroos- took county, Maine, where the farm- ers are plowing under 45,000 barrels of potatoes because they can obtain only 40 cents a. barrel for them. And the same day the retail price of pota- toes in New York was from $3.25 to $5 a barrel. The newspapers have been cluttered recently with such news items. And for every one that appears in print, hundreds if not thousands go unnoticed. Here is a news notice from New Orleans of a farmer who kicks because he gets only 2 cents-a bushel for sweet potatoes, for which the consumer pays $2.60, the difference going to the commission agent and the transportation companies. A few weeks ago some Middle West farmers’ organiza- tions started a movement to burn corn for fuel, since corn 'was: so cheap and coal so dear that the farmers might better burn.their corn than sell it. Several thousand crates of lemons were recently dumped out of the crates along the railroad tracks at a southwestern shipping point because the com- mission agents would not offer the producers enough to pay the cost of the crates. Yet here in Washington lemons retail for 5 cents each. A year ago one of the best tomato crops ever grown in southern New Jersey brought 8 to 10 cents a basket delivered to the Baltimere wharves—ac- tually less than the cost of picking and hauling. No wonder the disgruntled farmers dumped their cost of production. What is . the trouble? FARMERS BANKRUPT; BANK MAKES 154 PER CENT The New York Federal Reserve bank has just issued its quar- terly statement, showing a net profit of 77 per cent for the past six months, or at the rate of 154 per cent for the year on its $27,000,000 capitalization. There is money in handling the people’s money—not for the people who own the money, but for the few who manipulate it. eral reserve bank is the “bankers’ bank,” which borrows the people’s money from the United States government at a low rate of interest and lends it out to its member banks to reloan at a profit to the people. ‘There is plenty of money for the speculators and big business, whose huge profits enable them to pay a high rate of interest. There is no money, only shabby, time-worn excuses, for the hundreds of thousands of American farmers who are going bankrupt because the bankers will not lend them the money to market their crops at a profit, or even Yet the farmers have the best security in the world—essential food commodities of universal demand. Are we to.conclude that our present banking system is run for the benefit of the stock ex- change and the speculator rather than for the producers? . loads’into ditches and returned home to plow under their tomato crop. Out at Lodi, Cal., I have seen hogs turned into some of the finest grape vineyards in the world, because the price of grapes was less than the-cost of picking them. Our shamefully wasteful system of distribution is both-an-economic and a social crime. Farmers who have invested their labor and expended good money for plants and seeds and fertilizer find themselves compelled to sell at:a: ruinous loss or else unable to sell. at all. They are in'a worse position than the idiot who worked for nothing and boarded himself. On the other hand, consumers-are compelled to pay extravagant prices for the very foods the farmers can not sell. And while-American farmers are de- stroying unsalable foods and covenanting with each other to plant less next year so as to bring up prices, hunger and starvation have Europe by the .throat, and famine is stalking across large sections of Asia. ‘In a recent.interview in the New York World, United States Senator Ladd of North Dakota, a Nonpartisan leaguer, lays bare' the reason for. the waste that is squeezing the farmer-producer at one end and bleeding the consumer at the other. Of every dollar which -the consumer pays for food, the senator states.that 30 cents goes to the men who For remember that the fed- produce the food .and 70 cents is lifted by the middlemen who control -its distribution. “In several European countries,” he’ adds, “this ratio is reversed. There 70 cents goes to the farmer and it costs 30 cents for distribution. Let the farmers feed the people and they can reverse the ratio here. They can make production pay, and at the same time deliver food to your cities much . more cheaply than the speculators can do it.” Now, stop a moment and figure out just what such a saving would mean to the workers- of ' this country, who are the chief consumers of the food which the farmers produce. Suppose that we only attain the present stand- ard of efficiency of the best distribu- tion system of Europe, and pay 30 cents on each dollar for the cost of bringing the food to us. According to Professor Wilford I. King, expert on the staff of the national bureau .of economic research, the workers of the country receive annually approximate- ly :80: billion dollars™in ‘wages .and. salaries. One- fourth the income of the average worker’s family is expended for food, or an expenditure of $7,500,- 000,000 on the basis of present wage payments. Suppose the consumer :splits with:the farmer the difference between the 30 per cent cost of distribu- tion in Europe and the 70 per cent here. That would mean a saving of 40 per cent, or 20 per cent to producer and consumer. Translated into dollars, that means three billion dollars for both of them, or a billion and a half apiece. A great deal of industrial commotion is being occasioned by reductions in wage scales. 'What if every worker in the country were told tomorrow morning: “Here is a 5 per cent increase in pay for you, beginning just as soon as you have the energy and initiative to call for it.” "That, in cold figures, is just what a saving of $1,500,000,000 ‘means on a total wage payment of $30,000,000,000. Is it worth going after? . S America can and should work, out a system ;of food distribution that is more efficient than the best that Europe now knows. And direct trading be- tween producer and consumer is the first essential step in that program. It will eliminate: a tremen- dous amount of the economic waste in our present- system of distribution. - Grouping Farm Buildings for Convenience and Efficiency BY ORIN CROOKER N COMPARATIVELY few farms does one find the buildings: placed with-a view to the greatest: efficiency. Many times they appear to have been located quite by “happenstance.” Barns, stables and other outbuildings are scattered about with little or no idea of promoting system or convenience. Such unfortunate conditions are not easy to remedy. Frequently they are a heritage of: days-in which labor was abundant and little heed was given to such matters as saving time or steps. In some in- stances it is not possible to bring about any 'radical change. On the other hand, it is possible, frequently, fo so rearrange minor details such as lanes, fences and yards as to effect concider- able “improvement. The . location of buildings can not well be changed, but when new ones are planned or old ones that have been burned are:re- placed it is possible oftentirnes to overcome many ‘of the .deficiencies and handicaps with - ‘which ‘the - farm has been burdened. Essential to'the efficient ‘grouping of ‘farm structures ‘is:a dry, vwell- drained ' central yard—in city group- ing it would-be"dignified-as a “court” —about which .the :most .important barns and other buildings may stand. Such an ar- rangement as this separates the several units of the farm plant sufficiently. to reduce somewhat the fire hazard incident to close grouping. ‘At the same time buildings so situated serve to shelter the en- closure from the wind, no matter from what quarter ‘it may come. ‘In New England, in earlier days, quite the opposite plan was followed. - It is not un- ‘common in those states to find the barns and out- houses strung out one after the -other behind the farmhouse. Frequently, each building was attached A Wisconsin barnyard, showing ideal grouping of buildings. *PAGE"TEN to its neighbor-at either end. Such grouping neces- sitates many extra steps-in-doing “chores” and with the wind in the right quarter-it is impossible to keep ‘a fire from burning through from one end of the group to the other. This arrangement does not prevail to much-extent in the Central West; neither; however, is the plan-6f central grouping as common as. it- might well be. "Now and-then one happens across a grouping of farm structures that is quite ideal in.this regard. One such which the writer found in Wisconsin is shown in the illustration. As will be evident from the photograph, each barn and stable is reachéd directly from the central yard which: occupies the highest, best-drained spot: on: the farm. This yard is always dry,.and what is quite as important, it is never cluttered with manure. The wastes from each stable are handled -at one end of the building, well outside the confines of the central yard, which for the most part is almost-as clean as the space shown in the foreground of the photograph. ‘Such an arangement will -appeal to-any practical individual at all conversant with average barnyard - conditions. It is an easy matter, now .:and then, to.scrape :up the :droppings left by the' animals in such an: enclo- -sure.and keep it clean. i /