OCR Text |
Show TROUBLE IN THE FARM BELT There's trouble in the farm belt. There have been strikes and violence and threats. Farmers have refused to pay taxes tax-es and debts. Strikers have prevented, pre-vented, through force of arms, the movement of farm products from producers to distributor. The cause lies in the fact that the agricultural income, as a whole has been declining while urban income, in-come, which controls the cost of living, has been going up. The exchange value of farm products recently touched one of the lowest points of depression. One can sympathize with farmers farm-ers facing this condition. But the thing they should attack is the actual cause of the condition - - instead in-stead of titling at windmills. Violence Vio-lence never cured an economic ill, and it never will. The great difficulty dif-ficulty faced by those seeking to aid the farmer, is lack of organization. organ-ization. Millions of producers are unorganized, with no one who is controlled by their desires, to speak for them. It has been too much of every man for himself, with the result that few have prospered. Certain groups of farmers have shown how to change all this.' The cotton growers of the South, for example, are in a sounder position posi-tion than in a long time - - because they have an established, well supported cooperation with which to fight their battles. The milk producers of New York are in a similar position, and when violence vio-lence broke out there among nonorganized non-organized farmers, it was the cooperation co-operation which did most to restore re-store order and point out the futility fut-ility of dumping milk shipments and blocking highways and waving wav-ing guns. Other cooperative groups in other parts of the country, have equally impressive records. It is these organized farmers who are getting somewhere by standing solidly behind their cooperatives. co-operatives. And that means real agricultural progress. |