OCR Text |
Show IN DEFENSE OF THE FARMERS Statement That Agriculturists Turn Backs on ex-Service Men Is Attacked At-tacked by Writers. A statement that'the farmers of this country gained considerably as a result re-sult of the World war and now turn their backs on ex-service men has been challenged by numerous writers. The following 1s a good statement of the farmers' case, as one correspondent corre-spondent outlines it: "Sixty years of my life had rolled away when this country entered the war. I had four boys and tljey certainly cer-tainly all wore breeches, but none of them claimed exemption. Three of them enlisted shortly after war was declared. The youngest was a boy of eighteen. Myself, one of the boys, and my sixteen-year-old daughter were left to conduct a farm of more than 300 acres, and we had to work from 16 to 18 hours everyday. If we hired any help we had to pay munition muni-tion plant wages for an eight-hour day, and if we had any surplus cash, the Y. M. C. A., the Bed Cross, Jewish Welfare Board, Salvation Army and other meritorious war agencies ab-soibed ab-soibed it. I know that other farmers in this section were in the same condition. condi-tion. I also know that the states which have paid their ex-soldiers bonuses to date are almost exclusively exclusive-ly agricultural." |