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Show Released by Western Newspaper Uruon- FARMIXG IS 'KNOW-HOW,' NOT MERE OWNERSHIP THE VALUE OF ACRES as farm land is determined by the price at which the products of those acres can be sold, not for a year but over a considerable period of years. In 1917-18, with food products selling at extremely high prices, farm land prices not values doubled and trebled. Farmers mortgaged their home acres to buy more acres with the expectation of continued profits resulting from a continuance of high prices. Insurance companies and banks loaned money on the basis of those high land prices. They bid ravenously for the privilege of making mak-ing such loans. By 1921, with the war over and the edge taken oft the food demand in Europe, the high prices for food products disappeared, but the unpaid un-paid mortgage was still hanging over the head of the farmer. At normal prices for-his crops he could neither reduce the principal nor pay the interest. The land he had bought was not worth in peacetime what he had paid for it in wartime. The farmer had gambled and lost. He had expected high food prices to continue, but could not control the law of supply and demand. The banks and insurance companies took over thousands of farms on which . they could not realize the value of the money loaned. Again there is a world-wide demand de-mand on America for food. Again, there is an abnormal price for food products, though not nearly so high as the price of 1917-18. Again the price of farm land is shooting upward, up-ward, but this time it is not the experienced ex-perienced farmer who is buying. Now it is the man from the city who is attempting to hedge on the threatened inflation. When it is all over, when the last shot has been fired, when the starving people of a war-torn world have been fed, when food prices are again back to normal, nor-mal, then it is probable the experi- ' enced farmer can add to his home acres at a bargain price. The city farmer, sadder and wiser, will be moving back to the city. He will have discovered that successful farming must have back of it a "know how." FEDERAL PAYROLLS STILL GOING UP THE NUMBER of bureaus of the federal government grow week by week by executive decree. Despite the efforts of the Byrd committee to reduce the civilian expenditures ef the government, the number of civilian civil-ian employees increase each month. As long as last December the total amounted to 2,665,000 and it is now well beyond the three million mark. To that great army of employees, the government paid as salaries in December a total of $436,950,000. Of that total of civilian employees, 290,000 are in Washington and, in addition, another 15,000 are employed em-ployed by the District of Columbia. To that 290,000 the government paid in December the net sum of $52,200,-000, $52,200,-000, to which the District of Columbia Colum-bia added $2,485,000. The federal government has distributed dis-tributed throughout the states a total to-tal of 2,315,000 civilian employees, exclusive of those in Washington. Their job is largely that of regulating regulat-ing the activities of the American people. In the number of civilian employees, em-ployees, the federal government is nearing, if it has not surpassed, the number of such employees of all of our local and state governments. Last December there were employed em-ployed by all of our township, municipal, mu-nicipal, county and state governments govern-ments a total of 3,237,000 people. That included county, municipal and state police forces and all school employees. To these employees was paid a total of $384,261,000 in December, De-cember, as compared with the federal fed-eral government's civilian payroll of $436,950,000. What the end is to be is definitely up to the American people. RECOGNITION FOR CHINA IT WOULD SAVE "FACE" for the only Chinese government we recognize recog-nize if congress should grant to the ChinpKP thp samp immiar In ileges granted people of nations other oth-er than those of the Orient. Under the quota system, as now established, estab-lished, 107 Chinese immigrants could enter the United States in any one year. The number is meaningless, meaning-less, but according China the same treatment as other nations means much to the Chinese. It would abrogate abro-gate that idea of "white supremacy" from which China has suffered for many years. She has earned that recognition. WHEN STATESMANSHIP must become subservient to the cheap game of politics it will be good-by to statesmanship and the republic will cease to function. ... WE DO NOT NEED to care what form of government Germany or any other Axis nation may have so long as we are careful to see that they have no facilities or opportunity opportu-nity to again prepare for war. If they want a dictator, let them have one, but put a guard over the dictator. dic-tator. I r |