AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
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SurpPLUS CoONTROL—THE Basic PROBLEM OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE
‘By A. H. Stone, Vice President Staple Cotton Cooperative Association.
Greenwood, Miss.)

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Care TowN, SoutH AFRicA, February 17.

African natives, realizing the value of ivory, are becoming crafty in their
dealings with white merchants.

They guard carefully the secret of the elephant gravevards, and thus, like the
diamond syndicates, help control prices by restricting the output.

Elephants have a foreknowledge of death and wander away from the herd to
an elephant gravevard to die. The whereabouts of these piles of bone and
ivory is a closely guarded secret of the African bush native. who obtains from
them large quantities of tusks to sell the traders.

Has the American farmer as keen a grasp of the basic problem underlying his
business as the African native has of his? Does he really possess the intelligence
lo comprehend the disastrous effects of unrestricted competition and has he the
ability and determination to shift the center of gravity of such competition from
his own shoulders and so distribute the burden as to save his own industry from
destruction?

American agriculture must first be able so to state its case as to justify at the
bar of public opinicn any measures of relief which it may ask that public opinion
to approve. No attempted legislative solution of econemic problems, no remedial
legislation of any character, will endure long enough to accomplish its purpose,
anless it can successfully appeal to public judgment and to public confidence.

We have a peculiar situation in the matter of relief for our agricultural prob-
lems. Everybody wants to help the farmer. Along this line no issue can be
raised among either economists cr politicians. Yet we see one agricultural crisis
follow after another, in all commodities and through a long period of years. We
see Congresses come and go, with endless discussion and confusion, but the farm-
er's difficulties remain unmitigated and his problem remains unsolved. The
farmer is told that the financial affairs of his country have been stabilized and
financial panics abolished by congressional legislation. He knows that there have
been established in Washington Federal boards and commissions and agencies in
behalf of pretty much every line of American activity and endeavor. In a vague
wav he knows that there is a difference between industrialismm and agriculture.
He is painfully aware of the difference between indoor and outdoor enterprise.
He knows that his occupation depends largely upon weather, on its production
side, and upon all the elements of time and chance and circumstance in the matter
of releasing the products of his labor into the channels of commerce of America
and of the world. He feels that something is wrong, when he receives less for a
arge harvest than he does for a small one—that the greater is his production the
smaller are his proportionate returns.

{f. in his dilemma, the farmer turns his face toward the seat of his government
and begins to think in terms of Federal aid, he should not be comdemned out
of hand. We must assume one of two attitudes toward his position. We may
say that in the activities of the Department of Agriculture and in the operations
of the Federal Farm Loan Board the National Government has done al it
should be expected to do for the farmer. But this does not meet the issue. The
work of betir of these agencies is directly stimulative of production, the one
through the general purposes of its creation, the other by its help in the way of
rural credits. But the farmer's problem is no longer that of production. It is more
nearly that of overproduction. We must either take the position that with such
problems so arising the National Government has nothing to do or we must
‘rankly recognize the problem as one of national magnitude and national concern.
We have, in fact, already made such recognition, in enlarging and emphasizing
the work of the Department of Agriculture in problems of marketing and distri-
oution. But this work is only by way of study and suggestion. It only touches
the fringe of the real problem.

To say that the chief problem of American agriculture to-day is really that of
overproduction is only to say that in its major aspects the problem of agriculture
is the same as that of other branches of industry. If the maximum output of
36160—28—SERE, F

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