OCR Text |
Show Existing Agricultural Depression Matter of Vital Importance to Nation j By CHARLES NAGEL, Ex-Secretary of Commerce and Labor. A general agricultural depression exists and calls for consideration as a national economic question. The evidence which has been given is practically unanimous upon the fact of depression, but is varied, and at times contradictory both as to cause and to remedies. Some of the difficulties difficul-ties are regional and, it is hoped, ephemeral. Those who have been consulted con-sulted practically agree that the country's heritage of fertile land is being be-ing impaired and that for some, if not many, years we have been liv- ing on our agricultural capital. Some rural sections of the country, we are told, are virtually bankrupt bank-rupt as communities and are for the time carried by the more prosperous prosper-ous urban areas of the state in which they are located. Even the most efficient effi-cient farmers seem of recent years to have done little bettor than hold their own by cutting their expenditures below their accustomed stad-ard. |