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Show Senator Gore on the President's Presi-dent's Wheat Veto In discussing the president's veto of the $2.40 wheat amendment the blind senator froin Oklahoma deals in fine sarcasm. Fanners will at least, be interested in the following: The President in his veto message declared that an over whelming majority of the farmers regard the administrative ad-ministrative price upon wheat as fair and liberal; that an overwhelming majority of the farmers regard the reduction re-duction of the price of wheat from $3 a bushel to $2.20 a bushel as fair and liberal. I have often thought that the farmer is the only class of our citizenship who has occasion to feel that his luck is high when he happens to get justice. In his veto message ofr December last the President declared, with truth, that the farmers complain, com-plain, with justice, that they are; obliged to sell in a re-8ricted,market re-8ricted,market and are obliged to buy in an unrestricted markets ? i - - Mr. President, when did the farmer come to regard a situation fraughtwith injustice as fair and liberal? How could, the farmers complain with justice of a system or of a situation which they regard as fair and as liberal? liber-al? Such a thing is little short of a moral miracle. It is a moral miracle unless something has happened to change the situation, unless something has happened to reconcile the farmers to injustice or rather to remove the injustice. What has happened to convert a system and a situation, situa-tion, admittedly charatcevized with injustice, into a system sys-tem and a situation now hailed as fair and liberal by its victims? Since December last tire cost of living has greatly increased; the cost of production lias greatly in creased; the wages of farm labor have greatly increased; th price of farm implements have greatly increased. The $2 and less which the farmer actually receives for his wheat today will buy 25 per cent less than it would buy in December' last, when the farmer complained with justice that he was obliged to sell in a restricted and to buy in an unrestricted market. The farmers strength seems to increase with his burden. The farmer is developing ajJLenthusiasuwfor--adversity which "passeth all understanding." The farmer far-mer is a good deal like the old man in the Latin fable, who was borne down with the weight of years and infirmities. in-firmities. His burden was too grievous to be borne. He cried out in a loug voice for Death to come and relieve his burdens. Death responded to the invitation, but upon up-on his arrival the old man told him that he called him merely to push his burden a little farther up on his shoulders. shoul-ders. In the light of this fable I can understand how the American farmer has come to regard an unjust system sys-tem as being characterized with fairness and with liberality. lib-erality. Mr. President, of course I am obliged to believe, and Senators are obliged to -believe ,that an overwhelmingly majority of the actual farmers, the farmers who produce pro-duce wheat, the farmers who eat their bread in the sweat of Jjheir own faces, who have conferred with the President upon this subject, have assured him that the administrative price upon wheat was both fair and liberal; lib-eral; I am obliged to believe that an overwhelmingly majority of the actual farmers who have communicated with the President upon this subject have assured him that the 80-cent per bushel reduction on wheat was eminently em-inently fair and liberal. I have no choice but to believe. Indeed, I could believe without proof that all the political farmers who have conferred or communicated with the President upon the subject have assured him that this 30 per cent reduction below the market price was a realization real-ization of poetic justice and of the highest ideals of fairness fair-ness and of liberality. I mean the agricultural courtiers, whose chief delight is to stir and fan the incense in not unseen censers; I will not say censers swung by sycophants syco-phants whose footfalls tinkle on the tufted floor. It is no fault of rulers; it is rather their misfortune that they are oftimes surrounded by courtiers and by flatterer who speak to them what they imagine will be pleasing to the ear and do not speak the plain unvarnished truth, I can imagine a conversation between one of these courtier cour-tier farmers ant the President upon the administrative price of wheat. I imagine it would run a good deal like a conversation between the Prince of Denmark and the chief of his courtiers. Hamlet said: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost In sbaps of a caniel? Polonius answers: - r By the mass, and It Is like a camel, indeed. JJAMLET: Methlnks It Is like a weasel. POLONIUS: It Is backed like a weasel. HAMLET: (Without breaking the sontence). Or like a whale? POLONIUS: Very llko a whalo. If Hamlet has suggested that the cloud resemble'd a rose, I have no doubt Polonius would have answered: "Mighty lak' a rose." I imagine that such were the honest responses of these agricultural courtiers to each and every suggestion of the President as to the administrative price upon wheat. H Mr. President, I shall not cumber the Record byad- ! H ducing testimony here to show that at least a respect- H able minority of the farmers would prefer $3 per bush- , H el for wheat to $2.20 a bushel for wheat, contrary as H that may seem to the first principles of human nature. ' H The President may have greater facilities for ascertain- H ing the views and sentiments of the wheat farmers than , m have the Senators and Representatives from the wheat , jH producing stales; he may have better facilities for as- , HI cerlaining their views and sentiments than have Sena- , H tors and Representatives from non-wheat-producing H states, who, with enlightened vision, voted for $2.50 and fflBi $2.40 wheat. The President may have greater facilities gag for ascertaining the views and sentiments of farmers &. than has the National Grange. A committee of Nation- gM al Grange which met in Utica last April and adopted X&te strong resolutions indorsing the proposition to advance . p'jp the price of wheat. That was before injustice has re- $& solved itself in fairness and-liberality. The leaders and ,W officials of the farmers' organizations in the great J$ wheat belt have declared their wish and the wish oi their f g& constituencies to have the price of wheat advanced in M& the direction of the market price. I do not know wheth- wm er they represent the views and sentiments of the wheat zjEM farmers or not. I have here now a letter from the far- WM mors' national headquarters, situated here in the city of E Washington, sent to me on Saturday last, the day the jM President' message was published, in which theyr with H respect and with propriety, review and refute the'ai'gu- H nients and the conclusions of the President. Evidently K this now moral regime has not yet brought these farmers , ' within the pale of its jurisdiction. ' 1sbbI 'lBH |
