500

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
2. In the autumn of 1920 came our collapse of prices and vast numbers of
unemployed and part-time employment. Thus our people’s purchasing power
was greatly cut down—an increase in underconsumption. More goods were
dumped abroad. For 18 months our disorganization increased.

Business was stimulated by the Government commission, the Federal Reserve
Board, by inflating the quantity of bank credit and money is use. (Hearings on
stabilization of price level before the House Committee on Banking, 1926-27.)

Also the tariff on imports was raised, on the basis of maintaining the private-
monopoly prices and excessive profits (see above, paragraph 4).

For now the eighth consecutive year there have existed in our land the rela-
tively high prices of the qrganized business interests, the outcome of reaction to
conservative Government.

THE PEOPLE'S PEACEFUL REVOLUTION, 1926
Then in 1926 there came at the Republican primaries the people’s peaceful
revolution, as is set forth near the opening of this statement. The incoming
Congress, the present one, is pledged to agricultural relief, and you, gentlemen
of this committee, are taking testimony as to just what is the best and most
available road to agricultural relief.
A WORLD-WIDE ISSUER
But the issue is world-wide, as I have pointed out.. And the causes of the
economic distress are clearly understood. The shortcomings in arriving at the
necessary remedies in this Congress and in the public mind are as follows:
VI. SHORTCOMINGS BY FARMER LEADERS
The farmer leaders have not been asking for the needed remedies. In 1922
[ issued a book in inexpensive form and distributed copies with the farmer leaders
urging that the relatively low prices to the farmers be corrected by demanding
the ending of private-monopoly prices of the organized business interests, oper-
ating through conservative Government. (Restoration of equal rights and pros-
perity by means of the new progressivism.) Months afterward I appeared before
the Senate and the House committees on agricultural relief.

AN OBSCURITY AS TO MAN'S FUTURE

The explanation of the failure by the farmer leaders to demand the ending of
the private-monopoly prices of the organized business interests has been the
obscurity as to man’s future. For nearly 14 years beginning with the outbreak
of the World War there has existed a hell on earth, years of sorrow, but now the
clouds are lifting. This statement points the wav out industrially.
VII. Ter Way Our
In the year 1912 in this country there came a people’s peaceful revolution at
the polls, followed by the beginning of reconstruction, commencing with the worst
privileges; the privileges which were resulting in the bankers’ trust in Wall Street
and the privileges to the business interests from the monopoly tariff.

The remedies for these two sets of privileges were unexpected middle courses.
The opposing political parties had each been partly right and partly wrong, and
when the people came into power in place of the rule of the few there opened up an
unexpected middle course, as follows: o.

A muddle course.—The incoming liberal government, a progressive government,
installed a protective tariff, in place of the business men’s monopoly tariff; and

The incoming progressive government installed the Federal reserve system,
in place of the bankers’ trust in Wall Street.

This new Federal reserve system consists of unified control of the supply of
bank credit and of money by Government supervision, through the Government
commission the Federal Reserve Board; in combination with self-regulation by
some of the banks, by majority rule in each of the 12 districts. Itisa system of
industrial democracy, a new institution on our planet, paralleling political
government. ,

The general application of this industrial democracy is to restore equal rights
in industry—freedom. civil liberty, regulated competition.