164

AGRICULTURAL: RELIEF
all the mines and all the factories of America could be readily absorbed upon a
profitable basis to the producer there would be no need of organizing these indus-
tries with reference either to production or distribution. If there were always a
demand for all available labor at maximum wages, there would be no necessity for
organizing labor, so far as work and wages are concerned. But the problem here
is fundamentally the same as with the farmer. It is that of overproduction or
surplus control. Whether this be accomplished by limiting outputs in the case
of industry, or of so handling the output as to prevent its depressing prices, or
of regulating working hours and conditions in the case of labor, it 1s after all a
problem of surplus control. And in such case the means employed to accomplish
the end are fundamentally the same. The ultimate answer in each case is organ-
ization. And this is the answer in the case of our large-scale financial problems—
organization through the Federal reserve system, even to the extent of coercing
national-bank participation by threatened forfeiture of charters. The answer
is the same in the case of transportation. It is organization by consolidation,
with the elimination of wasteful competition and the concentration of control.

It may be asked why does not the farmer also organize? The same question
might have been asked of the national and other banks of the country, only a
few years ago—and of labor and industry a few years further back. But there
is a more specific answer in the case of the farmer. The very nature of his occu-
pation, and until recent years the isolation of his life, tended to develop an
individualism that was a source of both weakness and strength. It developed
character and self-reliance and independence. But these very qualities reacted
against the surrender of the measure of individual control over his operations
which is necessary to all successfully coordinated group action and is the basis
of all successfully organized large-scale industrial combinations.

There is another limiting influence in the case of agricultural organization.
With minor exceptions, which only emphasize the rule, agriculture can not be
organized on the production side of its operations. Here again natural causes
~ome into play. The outstanding factor in agricultural production is weather.
Weather alone may be the cause of a shortage or it may create a surplus. No
successful attempt has ever been made to control production by controlling
acreage. And it is just as well that this is the case. The farmer has no desire,
and he should have neither the right nor the power, to produce a famine in any
commodity essential to life or to its orderly course. And this would be the inevi-
table reaction to every period of agricultural distress. A constant surplus of agri-
cultural commodities is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of a margin of
safety in the commercial and manufacturing operations in such commodities.
If the mills consumed in any one year all the cotton in existence in such year the
movement of cotton would be abruptly stopped, mills would be compelled to shut
down, employees would be idle, and the entire cotton trade of the world would
be paralyzed in all its branches. The safety of these operations depends upon
their continuity, and their continuity depends upon an unfailing supply, and an
unfailing supply depends wholly upon the existence of a supply in excess of im-
mediate needs and such excess of supply is but another term for surplus. This
surplus, therefore, is the constant factor of safety which agriculture contributes
to industrialism, and yet the producer is penalized for providing it and denounced
as a menace to industry if he attempts so to control it as to make it possible for
him to continue to produce it and live.

There is still another reason for the failure of agriculture to organize. Congress
has granted certain exemptions to farmers in the matter of organizations for
promoting the orderly distribution of agricultural commodities. The Federal
rural credits act of 1923 is meant to create better financial arrangements for
agriculture through the medium of the intermediate credit banks. Congress
has also made special provision for promoting the work of cooperative marketing
associations, through the Department of Agriculture. But none of these agen-
cies, nor all combined, can solve the problem, always acute, which arises from
the need of the average farmer for the immediate conversion of his crop into
money during the harvest season. This financial necessity creates a condition
wg antithesis to the theory of orderly marketing. It, in fact, renders
utterly impossible the orderly distribution of agricultural commodities by their
agains, and reduces that desirable consummation to a meaningless phrase.
oh Busy Hoke This necessity for money means that there is as a rule no real
2 oo many iy crops at all; that is, marketing in the ordinary business
Tor tan be t th e farmer simply dumps his crop, and takes whatever
prage oe ge at the moment. Only a fair crop may take on the aspect of a
arg o i! under this dumping process, and a really large crop is almost in-

lably fraught with disastrous consequences to those who produce it. while