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Show National Topics Interpreted AM ifffilffiib by William Bruckart Spff ords roveal that farmers' gross Income In-come In 1923 was Just above eleven billion dollars. Labor' wage, as shown or measured by factory pay rolls, was slightly under that figure. Both of these totals shriveled a little bit during the succeeding years until each was between nine and ten billions bil-lions In 1D30. There was a further decline In each In 1931 and the totals were about seven billions. Last year, as nearly as accurate records can be obtained, gross farm Income was about five billions and labor's wage through factory pay rolls was Just about the same. From these statistics, compiled year after year, the government has developed what the statisticians call an Index. It Is a yardstick, a basis, for measurement From this Index I learn that gross farm Income Is Just about half what can properly be called normal (an Index figure of 100), while labor Is receiving a total only about 53 per cent of that normal nor-mal amount. Washington. With the farm strikers strik-ers still threatening mischief and with some labor Urge agitators contlnu- Patience ln& to make d,s' turbing motions, officials of the government, wherever wher-ever they can contact people, are counseling patience more than they ever have since the gloom of the depression de-pression settled over us. It Is undoubtedly un-doubtedly true that the great bulk of the American people want to see a proper and final solution accomplished accom-plished for the economic troubles in which the nation, and the world, too, finds Itself. But It does no good to hide one's head as an ostrich os-trich does and Insist that there are no conflicting Interests that are dangerous. They exist and they are virile and they may cause serious se-rious trouble. Hence, the government's govern-ment's policy of asking those who want to help to be patient. As nearly a3 I have been able to arrive at the base of the present crop of conflicting Interests, I believe be-lieve much of the current trouble results from a lack of understanding understand-ing of the basic problems. It seems to be undeniably true, also, that there are certain Individuals or groups of Individuals who do not want to understand the situation. They want to use the bad conditions condi-tions to further selfish ends of their own and they are of the type who will deliberately and carefully plan to mislead whosoever they can enlist as followers. Unfortunately, my research re-search discloses that there are many following such leadership who are doing so blindly. But to get back to those conflicting conflict-ing interests. Everybody who makes anything or grows Recovery a anything, In short. Slow Process eYT Producer, wants to get as high a price as he can for anything he sells. It applies to those who work with their hands and sell their services. Those who sell want as high a price as they can get and those who buy want as low a price as they can force. Ilence, labor Is making much noise that Its wage Is not high enough and that Its hours are too lesg, while In the same breath labor is saying retail prices are too high. Farmers get wrought up at this. They say that retail prices are high as compared with the returns they receive, but the attitude at-titude of the farmer also includes a sideswipe at labor for demanding so much. So it seems to me that there Is need for the patience which Is now being urged. In the first Instance, this thing called recovery admittedly admitted-ly cannot be made an accomplished fact overnight. It Is a slow process, and It seems slower than It Is. It appears to take such a long time for benefits to reach the man In the street after there has been improvement improve-ment In basic conditions and among the so-called key Industries. But It Is to bo remembered thit when the depression took hold, there was a shrinkage In income of those who had put their money Into the great factories or had Invested them lv stocks and bonds or tangible prop-erty prop-erty quite a while before the shock was felt by the man In the street. . There seems to be scarcely a single official of the government but who holds the view that such leadership lead-ership will accomplish anything but self-destruction of a majority of the followers of those cure-all doctrines. doc-trines. That sort of thing never has accomplished anything in all history, his-tory, and there seems to be no ground for believing there will be any other result this time. Unfortunately as It may be, in our rush to get back to what we call prosperity, some groups have become Jealous of other groups and Interests. This Jealousy has been translated into action in numerous instances. I- do not say that Jealousy Jeal-ousy is the cause of all of the troubles, trou-bles, but Inbred selfishness of one kind or another together with personal per-sonal motives of an ulterior character charac-ter can surely be said to be the general gen-eral foundation for all of them. But the natural question is: why should the situation be one permitting permit-ting existence of such difficulties as the farm strike and labor troubles? The answer seems to me to He In a law with which none of us had anything to do, namely, the age-old law of supply and demand. Just as none of us had anything to do with framing that law, none of us Is going go-ing to be able to amend it or change It. Farm strikes, labor strikes, capital cap-ital shirking, hoarding of money, none of these things can accomplish accom-plish the purpose. Indeed, the only way that we can get back to something some-thing like normal conditions Is by pulling together. That Is why the government is urging everyone to be patient within reason. Sometime in the future when the next generation has grown to maturity, ma-turity, the users CCC Doing of lumber, and Useful Work th,at 13 aut, a" of us, will look about them and observe fine growing grow-ing timber awaiting the ax of the woodsman. The picture before them will be the matured result of a program pro-gram about which President Frank-lln Frank-lln D. Roosevelt dreamed before he was elevated to the highest office In the land. Whether one agrees with the expenditure of public funds In this manner or not, none can say that hl3 reforestation program will not produce lumber for the future, and none can say that It will not be sadly needed by the time the saplings sap-lings now being planted have developed devel-oped to the point where they aro ready for use. Mr. Roosevelt started out In execution ex-ecution of his reforestation program as a means of alleviating unemployment unemploy-ment He proposed that congress create the civilian conservation corps so that upwards of three hundred hun-dred thousand unemployed men might be given work that was of a character of which they would not be ashamed. He believed the money paid to them would reduce suffering suffer-ing among their families and. If not among their families, would take that number of men off of relief rolls or lift them from the almshouses. alms-houses. And such It has proved to be to the extent of some two hundred hun-dred thousand families and about one hundred thousand individual men. They are working; they are clothed well and they are fed well Their morale Is high, according to all persons who have visited tho conservation camps. The men feel that they are not a burden on so- ! clety, for the work they are doing Is .useful. Consequently, It is the view of those with whom I have discussed dis-cussed the corps that these men feel i life to be worthwhile. I I was reminded of the scope of j the conservation program, the tree planting plan, the other day when J one of the numerous boards and , commissions around Washington an- j nounccd approval of purchase of land for use of the conservation corps. Tho commission approved j recommendations for the purchase of 04.C532 acres, scattered through twenty states. The lands being ac- t quired will be added to the govern- ment holdings in the thirty-six na- j tlonal forests and units set aside for timber growth. . 1933, Western Nowopapcr Union. I am Indebted to Secretary Wallace Wal-lace of the Department of Agriculture, Agricul-ture, for an expres-Must expres-Must Pull slon that seems Together ct th P,ctur better than any I have heard. He describes the condition con-dition as one requiring a two-horse team to pull us forward. By that phase, he means that producer and laborer must pull together. If one of them balks or is unhitched, the load simply stops. That Is all there Is to it. Let us analyze the necessity for pulling together which the government govern-ment so strongly urges upon us. If all" of the cobwebs are swept off of the picture, It seems to me to be fairly clear, and surely there Is no point in becoming more confused as to what the need Is or what may be done about It or why things move slowly. After some research Into the field of figures, i cannot escape the conclusion con-clusion that there Is an absolute and positive relationship existing between be-tween the money paid to labor and the money received by the farmers. There Is therefore a necessity for the farmer and laboring man to keep In step. If one gets a step ahead, the team is not pulling and conditions grow worse. It really does not matter whether It Is the labor-horse or the farmer-horse that moves too fast ; the result all through the history of modern economics has been precisely the same, nnd, thus, too much selfishness on either side causes trouble. The government has collected statistics that provide a most Interesting Inter-esting proof of the statement I made above that there must be absolute team-work. For example, those figures fig-ures show that gross income of agriculture ag-riculture and pay rolls of factories have been rising together or falling together as conditions are good or poor. And in the last ten years, it happens, they have been In just about the same amount The rec- |