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Show Farmer Thomas Campbell of Montana, Gives Pointers Concerning Farm Relief Problem Think more about economics and less about Politics. One disadvantage of being a Congressman Con-gressman is that you have to talk about one topic for months, years. On trains back to Washington last week, Congressman were still talking, talk-ing, after a decade of it, about farm relief. Politically if not economically, economic-ally, something-must-be-done. Insoluble though it seems, the economic ec-onomic aspect of the far mproblem is simple. The only large variable involved is weather. If weather is good, so are crops. Too-big crops made too-small prices. If weather is bad, prices are good but many a farmer farm-er will have no crop to sell. Intelligent Intelli-gent study of sound weather data will help stabilize his decision as to when to plant but the farmer still needs a gambler's instinct at planting plant-ing time. And thereafter his fortune is in the lap of winds, rains, frosts. Through his associations, the farmer farm-er is supposed to learn how much to plant so that there will not be a price-shrinking surplus. But most farmers are individualists. Far better bet-ter than an association do they like a free-for-all, where every man raises as much as he can. Aid in marketing a surplus continues to interest in-terest most farmers more than laws of supply and demand. , Being a gambler, the farmer is a skeptic and like all skeptics, he is willing to believe unpleasant things. Thus, for example, when politicians tell him, for their own purposes, that the tariff discriminates against him, he believes it. Similarly, ever since the Government fixed farm prices as a War measure, the farmer has been told, and he believes, be-lieves, there is no honest reason why the Government should not try - to stabilize farm prices permanently. The Federal Reserve Board stabilizes the money market. Why should a Federal board not stabilize the food market? So asks the farmer, and threatens with a ballot the answers who replies that food is less calculable calcul-able than money. Plans. The outstanding and controversial contro-versial features of farm-relief plans have been, a) Federal price-bolstering and b) tariff adjustment. Plans currently cur-rently urged contain these features as follows: 1) The Farm Bureau Federation clings to the equalization-fee of the aged McNary-Haugen Bill. By this plan, each farmer would pay some of his profits into a pot, held by the Government from which farmers with losses would draw compensation. How to compute such losses? By having the Government fix "a fair price" for all crops each year. Farmers forced (by the presence of a crop surplus) to sell below the U. S. price, would be considered losers. The National Grange urges a tariff upon corn imported to the U. S. from South America. 3) Senator Borah and others have proposed that the U. S. determine the cost of U. S. crops, buy surpluses and market them abroad. This is subsidy. What will come of these plans re-ntains re-ntains a political rebus. There probably prob-ably are votes enough in Congress to pass a McNary-Haugen Bill again. There probably is enough spine in President Coolidge to veto such a bill again. President Coolidge has announced an-nounced his own plan, which differs from McNary-Haugenism chiefly in omitting the equalization-fee and price fixing. The Administration favors establishing a Federal board to help the farmers market any surplus sur-plus which may be "clearly due to weather and seasonal conditions," and a revolving loan fund for emergency emer-gency financing. Of all the experts with whom he has talked farm relief, none has interested in-terested President Coolidge more than the biggest farmer of them all. Not every farmer can be a big one, but President Coolidge may well have wished that all farmers were as clearheaded clear-headed as Farmer Thomas Campbell of Montana, whom the President kept long after dinner at the White House lately. Farmer Compbell is to farming what Henry Ford was to motors. He cultivates 100,000 acres of wheat on dry benchlands in the Crow Indian Reservation near Hardin, Mont. No other "bonanza" farm even approaches approach-es his in size though a few notably the Adams and Gradin wheatlands in North Dakota, the Adams popcorn farms at Odebolt, Iowa, and the Aller-ton Aller-ton properties at Monticello, 111. approximate his methods. To Farmer Campbell, "farming is the best business busi-ness in the great 1 industrial group and will soon get the dignity to which it is entitled." He handles his 100,000 ploughed acres the way a factory fac-tory is handled as an engineering proposition. Half the Campbell acres lie fallow each year. From the other half, some 500,000 bushels of wheat are produced by a fleet of machinery efficiently adapted and an army of men especially trained and disciplined. disciplin-ed. Efficiency is the rule and bonuses reward its promotion. All is studied, all calculated, from the pitch of a ploughshare to the cost of lubricating lubrica-ting oil in the tractor that hauls the loaded wheat wagons to the fireproof fire-proof bins (100,000 bu. capacity.) Farmer Campbell, 1 a lithe, steel-grey steel-grey six-footer, son a giant Scotch-Canadian Scotch-Canadian lumberjack, trained for his "job by crowding an academic and a mechanical engineering course into five years at the University of North Dakota and running his father's Red River Valley farm at the same time. He thn, aged 23, went to Cornell for a master engineer's degree. As "biggest farmer," he is an authority au-thority on farm relief no less potent than the biggest steel man would be if there were a "steel relief" problem. prob-lem. ' Biggest-Farmer Compbell's farm-relief farm-relief suggestions, released by him last week, are as follows: 1 Do not reduce industrial tariffs or wages, but extend tariff protection to the farm industry. Restrict immigration im-migration to protect all industry. 2 Reduce farm taxes; adjust freight rates. 3 Let farmers think more about economics, less about politics. 4 Promote co-operative storage and use the selling machinery already - set up instead of duplicating it. 5 Teach farmers about boards of trade and marketing. Let the Government Govern-ment grade all crops and study carefully care-fully the regulations of crops delivered de-livered on future contracts. 6 "Capital does not believe in farming." This attitude must be changed. Let businessmen study the farm problem. 7 "All of these can be done without with-out any new acts of Congress or the expenditure of large sums. Our present pres-ent laws and flexible tariff can solve a great portion of its problem." 8 "Most of all, however, farming must be industrialized. . . The biggest big-gest industrial opportunity today is in agriculture. The largest field for 1 technical men today is in agricultural engineering. |