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Show "oam and gall at ilie task. WTieh legislatures "cut a melon" for labor they hand the farmer a lemon. The farmers of the United States are not financially able to carry "dead heads" on their payrolls. Our own hired hands are not paid unless we have something for them to do and we are not willing to carry the hired help of dependent industries unless there is work for them. We must therefore insist upon the most rigid economy. Legislative House-Cleaning Needed. While the war is on and there is a lull in business, we want all legislative legisla-tive bodies to take an inventory of the statute books and wipe off all extravagant and useless laws A good house-cleaning is needed and economies econo-mies can be instituted here and there that will patch the clothes of indigent children, rest tired mothers and lift mortgages from despondent homes. Unnecessary workmen taken off and useless expenses chopped down all along the line will add to the prosperity pros-perity of the farmer and encourage bim in his mighty effort to feed and clothe the world. If any of these industries have surplus sur-plus employes we can use ttiem on the farm. We have no regular schedule of wages, but we pay good farm hands on an average of $1.50 per day of thirteen hours when they board themselves; work usually run 3 about nine months of the year and the three months dead time, they can do the chores for their board. If they I prefer to farm on their owa account, there are more than 14,000,000,000 acres of Mle land on the earth's sur- face awaiting the magic touch of the plow. The compensation is easily obtainable ob-tainable from Federal Agricultural Department statistics. Tho total average annual sales of a farm in the continental United States amounts to $516.00; the cost of operation is ?340. CO; leaving the farmer $176 per annum to live on and educate his family. There is no occasion for the legislatures legis-latures making a position for surplus employes of industry- Let them come ' "back to the soil" and share with us , the prosperity of the farm. |