Show 1 1 0 national topics interpreted by william bruckart washington with the farm strikers still threatening mischief and with some labor aal urge gators continuing to patience make disturbing motions officials of the government wherever they can contact people are counseling patience more than they ever have since the gloom of 0 the depression settled over us it Is undoubtedly true that the great bulk of the american people want to see a proper and final solution accomplished for the economic troubles in which the nation and the world too finds itself but it does no good to hide bide ones head as an ostrich does and insist that there are no conflicting interests that are dangerous they exist and they are virile and they may cause serious trouble hence the government policy of asking those who want to help to be patient As nearly as I 1 have been able to arrive at the base of the present er crop op of conflicting interests I 1 believe much of the current trouble results from a lack of understanding of the basic problems it seems to be undeniably true also that there are certain individuals or groups of individuals who do 10 not want to understand the situation they want to use the bad conditions to further selfish ends of their own and they are of the type who will deliberately and carefully plan to mislead whosoever they can enlist as followers unfortunately my research discloses that there are many following such leadership who are doing so blindly there seems to be scarcely a single official of the government buta but w ho holds the view that such leadership will accomplish com anything but self destruction of a majority of the followers of those cure all doctrines that sort of thin thing never has accomplished anything in all history and there seems to be no nn ground tor for believing there will be any other result this time unfortunately as it may be in our rush to kt get back to what we call prosperity some groups have become jealous of other groups and interests this jealousy has been translated into action in numerous instances I 1 do not say that jealousy Is the rause cause of all of the troubles but inbred selfishness fish ness of one kind or another together with personal motives of an ulterior character can surely be said to be the general foundation for all of them cut but the natural question is why should the situation be one permitting existence of such difficulties as the farm strike and labor troubles the answer seems to me to lie ile in a law with which none of us had anything to do namely the age old law of supply and demand just as none of us had bad anything to do with framing that law none of us Is going to be able to amend it or change it farm strikes labor strikes capital sh liking hoarding of money none of these things things can accomplish com the purpose indeed the only way that we can get back to something like normal conditions is by pulling together that Is why ully the government Is urging everyone to be patient within reason I 1 am indebted to secretary Wal wallace lare of the department of agriculture for an expression that must pull seems to fit the pic Toe together ether ture better than tha any 6 I 1 have heard ile he de scribed ascribed the condition as one requiring a two horse borse team to pull us forward dy by that phrase he meant that producer and laborer must pull together it one of them balks or Is unhitched ched the load simply imply stops slops that Is all there is to it let us analyze the necessity for pulling together which the government so 50 strongly urges upon us if all of the cobwebs are swept ot off of the picture it seems to me to be fairly clear and surely there is no point in becoming more confused as to what the need Is or what may be done about it or w why by things moc mo 0 slowly after some research into the field id of figures I 1 cannot escape the conclusion that there Is an absolute and PO positive relationship existing between the money paid to labor and the money received by the farmers there Is t therefore he a necessity for the farmer an and d laboring man keeping in step it if one gets a step ahead the team Is not pulling end and conditions grow worse it really does not matter whether it Is the labor horse or the farmer horse borse that moves too fa fast st the result all through the history of modern economics has been precisely the same and thus too much selfishness on either side causes trouble the government has collected statistics that provide a most interesting proof of the statement I 1 made above that flint there must be absolute team work for example those figures show that gross income of agriculture and pay rolls of factories have hare been rising together or falling together as condi lions are arc good or poor and in the last ten years it happens they have been in just about the same game amount the records repeal recal that farmers gross income in 1923 1023 was just above eleven billion dollars labors wage as shown or measured by factory pay rolls was slightly under that figure aoth of these totals shriveled a little bit during the succeeding years henrs until each was between nine and ten billions in 1930 1030 there was a further decline in each in 1931 and the totals were about seven billions last year as nearly as accurate records can be obtained gross farm income was about five billions and labors wage through factory pay rolls was just about the same from these statistics compiled year after year the government has developed what the statisticians call an index it Is a yardstick a basis for measurement from this index I 1 learn that gross farm income Is just about halt half what can properly be called normal an index figure of while labor Is receiving a total only about 58 per cent of that normal amount 0 0 but to get back to those conflicting interests everybody who makes anything or grows any recovery a thing in short every slow process producer wants to get as high a price as he can for anything he sells it applies to those who work with their hands and sell their services those who A ho sell want as high a price as they can get and those who buy boy want as aa low a price as they can force hence labor Is making much noise that its wage Is not high enough and that its hours are too long while in the same breath labor Is saying retail prices are too high hl b farmers get wrought up at this they say that retail prices are high as compared with the returns they receive but the attitude of the farmer also includes a sideswipe at labor for demanding so much so it seems to me that there is need tor for the patience which Is now being urged in the first instance this thing called recovery admittedly cannot be made an accomplished fact overnight it Is a slow process and it seems slower than it Is it appears to take such a long time for benefits to reach the man in the street after there has boon been improvement in basic conditions and among the so called key industries but it is to be remembered that when the depression took hold there was a shrinkage in income of those who had put their money into the great factories or had invested thern them in stocks and bonds or tangible property quite a while before the shock was felt by the man in the street 0 0 0 washington observers are expecting to witness some fireworks to be set oil oft in the next congress by the diminutive senator carter glass dem of virginia g inia the senator is small of sta stature tures a mite of a man but that does DO not apply to his mental capacity lie ile Is moreover a man who does not n ot get greatly concerned about ordinary pieces of legislation whenever there Is a bill before the senate dealing with banking policies or money policies one will see the red head from virginia enla very much in evidence on the senate floor 0 sometime in the future when the next nest generation has grown to maturity the users of doing lumber and that Is 19 useful usef 1 work abo I 1 all u of us wi will look about them and observe fine growing timber awaiting the ax of the woodsman the picture before them will be the matured result of a program about which president franklin D roosevelt dreamed before he was elevated to the highest office in the land whether one agrees with tile the expenditure of public funds in this manner or not none can say that his reforestation program will not produce lumber for the future and none cone can say that it will not be sadly needed by the time the saplings now being planted have developed to the point where they are ready for use mr roosevelt started out in execl tion ot of his reforestation program as a means of alleviating unemployment ile he proposed that congress create the civilian conservation corps so that h upwards of three hundred thousand unemployed men might be given work that was of a character of they would not be ashamed ile he believed the money paid to them would reduce suffering among their families and if not among their families would take that number of men off of relief rolls or lift them from the almshouses and such it has proved to be to the extent of some two hundred thousand families and about one hundred thousand individual men they are working they are clothed well and they are fed well their morale Is high according to all persons who have hare the conservation camps the men feel that they are not a burden on society tor for the work they are doing Is useful consequently quent ly it Is the view ot of those with whom I 1 have hare discussed the corps that these men feel life to be worthwhile I 1 was reminded of the scope of the conservation program the tree planting plan tile the other day when one of the numerous boards and commissions around washington announced approval of purchase of land tor for use of the conservation corps the com commission nils approved recommendations for the purchase of acres scattered through twenty states the lands being acquired aca acq u I 1 r C d will w III be added to the government holdings in the thirty six national forests and units set aside for timber growth C 1911 western ne union |