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Show America May Face Loss Of Farm Export Market Wickard Finds Less Production No Solution; Army Undertakes to Build 'Morale' j Among New Recruits. I By BAUKHAGE National Farm and Home Hour Commentator. WN'U Service, 1395 National Press Bldg., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. Few people realized real-ized how much dynamite there was in that speech on agricultural preparedness pre-paredness which Secretary of Agriculture Agri-culture Wickard delivered at his old alma mater, Purdue university, the other day. While he didn't come right out and say so in so many words, the secretary sounded the knell of hope for a foreign market for farm surpluses. sur-pluses. That speech marked the beginning be-ginning of a new farm policy in the United States based on what is believed by officials here to be a permanent and not a temporary loss of export trade. "The facts are," said the secretary, secre-tary, "that the trend of American farm exports has been downward since the turn of the century. Now I don't mean to say that the decline has been constant. You know better than that. It has been by fits and starts. Exports shot up for 15 years. Exports fell off like a stone dropped from a tower after the Smoot-Haw-ley Tariff act of 1930." In that paragraph is the secretary's secre-tary's hypothesis from which he draws his conclusions: SURPLUS STATISTICS According to the best statistics available here "there are two bales of cotton on hand in the world today for every bale that will probably be used in the current marketing year" and "there are at least 2,000,000,000 bushels of wheat in the world today for which no market exists" and "a similar situation exists in the lard and tobacco markets." The secretary says that the answer an-swer to this problem of farm surpluses sur-pluses cannot be solved with the two words "reduce production" because we "caVt reduce the number of people peo-ple who live on cotton farms, or wheat farms, or tobacco farms, in the same proportions which we can reduce the acreages of these commodities." com-modities." Those are the secretary's words but folks with a good pair of glasses have been busy reading between the lines and this is what they say he means: "When the war is over our exports ex-ports of farm products, even if they increase for a while, are going to decrease in the long run and we've got to take steps right now to make adjustments in the country." "Adjustments" is the secretary's own word for it. OTHER 'PAINFUL' POINTS More reading between the lines reveals a number of interesting, if somewhat painful, points: One: Not only must the amount of farm products be cut down, but the number of people on farms has to be cut down (i. e. other means of income found for them). Two: Not only must the unsuccessful unsuc-cessful farmer adjust himself to this situation by raising stuff that he can eat himself or by getting some other work, but the successful farmer farm-er will have to make some adjustments. adjust-ments. For instance, he will have to expect ex-pect a certain amount of interregional inter-regional competition. Concretely that means that the cotton farmer will be raising more of his own meat, poultry, and corn. Some of this will spill over and compete with the corn-belt and dairy farmer. It also means that in self-defense the successful farmer will have to co-operate in supporting economic and political effort toward raising the income of the unsuccessful farmer farm-er and the whole low-income group. This will mean that the big farm organizations which hitherto have used most of their influence in Washington to get better prices for farm products will have to use some of their influence to raise these low incomes so there will be a bigger home market for the farmers' products. prod-ucts. At least, that's the way Washington Wash-ington officials look at the farm situation situ-ation today. Army Is Busy Building 'Morale' Napoleon said an army moves on its stomach. He was right and it cannot be an empty stomach either. That's why in Uncle Sam's new army a cook is a cook and not just somebody who says he is because he thinks it's easier to be a doughboy dough-boy than a doughboy. But a full stomach is not all it takes to make a fighting man. It takes morale, and this time the government gov-ernment has done two things to build that highly necessary factor. It has begun early, before there is a war. It has taken over the whole job to itself instead of farming it out, as it did in the last war, to civilian organizations like the Y.M.C.A. And it's a big job, under the office of the adjutant general. The division divi-sion in the long west wing of the Munitions building in Washington has 50 clerks and 15 officers just to take care of the Washington end. In the various camps and posts are the many morale services all under this division the Army Motion Picture Pic-ture Service, the Camp Publications, Post Exchanges, Service Clubs, Guest Houses, and even entertainment entertain-ment for soldiers in towns near the training areas. In the last war it was learned what a valuable factor dramatics played in camp life and they will be encouraged. The Moving Picture Service will offer regular commercial commer-cial films, but it will also show educational edu-cational films, and much military instruction in-struction will be given by means of the moving picture. Top flight moving mov-ing picture executives are serving on a committee assisting in the production pro-duction of these pictures. Athletics, of course, are a part of morale and are considered important impor-tant also both from the standpoint of physical training and the building build-ing of an aggressive spirit which the modern soldier must possess. As Major General Bell said in the last war, "A singing army is a fighting fight-ing army," and singing will be a part of the show. The army has its own song book and mass singing will be encouraged. The Post Exchange, which is sort of an army general store, is a business in itself. To get an idea of how much of a business a Post . Exchange can be, the one at Cha-nute Cha-nute field, Rantoul, III., took in nearly $100,000 in one month last fall. Already a number of camp publications pub-lications have started. I looked over several of them at Morale Headquarters Head-quarters and some are exceedingly businesslike looking sheets. I noticed no-ticed in the office was a file of the "Stars & Stripes," the famous newspaper news-paper of the American Expeditionary Expedition-ary Force in France. Harold Ross, who edited it in Paris, is now the highly successful head of the New Yorker magazine; Alexander Wooll-cott, Wooll-cott, who was on the staff, is one of America's best-known writers and story tellers. It was my privilege to serve on that paper after the Armistice and I covered the Peace conference under the able direction of John Winterich, then a rear-rank private but news editor of the paper. He is now Major Winterich, attached to the office of the assistant secretary secre-tary of war. Probably many famous fa-mous journalists of coming generations gen-erations will get their training on some of these newspapers run under un-der the auspices of the New Morale Division. Another highly publicized group of this new division are the hostesses. But their job has been largely misunderstood. mis-understood. Let me quote from Lieut. Col. Harry Terry, writing in the Commerce magazine: "The term 'hostess' for these business women is a misnomer they might more properly be called 'secretaries,' which in fact they are. They are the assistants of the Division Commander and carry out his wishes in conducting their various vari-ous duties. "Providing social entertainment, running dances and other entertainment entertain-ment for thousands of men is no night club job. It will require a high degree of organization ability and no mean attainment in social arts and graces. Operating a cafeteria cafe-teria to meet the requirements of both visitors and troops in such a manner as to build the morale of troops and convince the mothers, sisters and sweethearts that their men are being adequately cared for requires a high degree of technical knowledge and immense tact Finally, to supervise all these activities activ-ities as well as the buying of food and supplies will need a person of more than good looks and a pleasant smile." PROBLEM IN COTTON One of the first steps taken in carrying out Secretary Wickard's policy is the supplemental cotton program under which farmers who reduce their acreage below the 1941 national acreage allotment will be compensated with stamps which are good for manufactured cotton goods. This attacks the problem of the cotton surplus from both ends cuts down production and uses up the stock by increasing the demand for the finished product |