Dig your hand in the land and listen to my story.
Feel the cotton, wheat and corn, the riches and the glory.
Feel the sweat and strain of those who worked before me.
Dig your hand down in the land.
Dig your hand in the land.
Touch the toil and sorrow in the soil, where the greenbacks never
grow and where I borrowed.
Dig down and tell me where's my seed for tomorrow.
Dig your hand down in the land.
The small working farmer earns his living on the land.
He works the soil to feed and clothe this country, and he buys much of the
nation's goods, one-fourth of the American people live by the land.
The small farmer has a big stake in the life of America.
Good morning. How are you?
Morning. Fine morning.
But hot, you know, how'd enough to sweat the life out of a man?
Well, have you thought it over?
Nope. I'm not selling now.
Eh, that's not common sense.
Land prices are higher than they'll ever be.
Sell now and you're through with slaving yourself and the wife
and the rest for the land.
Nope. I'm not selling now.
Boom's on now, but the bus is coming.
You know what happened to prices then?
You'll be hanging on by a button.
At least it'll be my own button. So long.
From all sides, the small farmer is pressed by powerful, organized forces.
Big farms, big money, big business.
Against these forces, the small farmer does not stand much chance alone.
Here's your lunch, Joe.
Did you talk to him?
Well, maybe you ought to hear him out.
You ought to listen to him once, Joe.
Maybe this is a good time to tell.
I got no time to talk now.
I'll eat later.
There seems to be no way out.
I chose a good man.
But all this figuring can't stop is milking the cows for the mortgage.
There's no end to payments to the banks and the machinery companies.
Jimmy, she's not like a spirit weath.
The tractor parts still come before a decent piece of floor covering
or a bed of stove.
You've got to sell.
You've got to sell and go to town where Jimmy can have a chance.
There's Joe and Jimmy and myself.
Used up and tied down to the farm.
And what have we got to face?
[...]
More and more work. Nothing to show for it.
We've got to sell.
We've got to sell and move to town.
There's no escape from the round of work and worry on the farm.
No crop is grown without grind and sweat.
Life on the farm wouldn't be much if it weren't for the crops ripening and the
knowledge that they mean cash and security for the family.
There was a time when a farmer could put up a fence and feel safe on his land.
But changes are taking place in the world outside, and the shadows of new
problems spill across the rail and dig into the roots of his land and warn him
he's no longer safe in his isolation.
Every farm kid has one special day in the week. That's the day the
family makes a trip to town.
Matter of fact, it's a special day for everybody.
There's the neighbors to meet and the stores full of brand new things to look at.
It's like a tonic for the whole family after a week of hard work.
Remember the bad years after the first world war?
The same signs are popping up again, skyrocketing prices and land booms.
And in spite of all the hard work, not enough money to buy the things you want
and the things you need.
It's the old question all over again.
How can one man stand alone in the world of inflation and
scarcity, boom and bust?
They ought to think of us farmers.
Here Jim, these strikers are not entirely to blame.
They have their clients and family to look after. And maybe the
machinery crust has something to do with it.
Don't forget they're our best customers.
And besides, the more a wheel squeezes, the more grief it'll get.
You know, what do you think about that?
Well, tell you the truth. Right now I feel like selling out. I
just can't find feed anywhere.
Looks like the small farmer is getting a squeeze.
That's just it. We think we're safe behind our fences.
But if we want to ship our produce, we have to pay the trucker, the packager,
the crater and the hauler.
All this costs money. It comes out of our pocket.
When farmers get together, they swap ideas.
Common worries and common problems come right out
when they talk things over together.
We are trying to do business with individuals in an organized world.
The workers and the fittest are organized.
They have their units to speak for them.
We are way behind. We are way behind.
The question
is always the same.
How can the small farmer get along?
And sometimes when a man leaves, he's got something new to turn over in his mind.
Hi. Hello, Joe.
Sam, I forgot. Are you coming to the soil conservation meeting tonight?
No, I don't think I can make it. I'm so very busy
that I don't believe I can get down.
I'd like you to meet Lee Smith, the farmer's union organizer in these parts.
Hi. Hello, Mr. Taylor. How are you?
It's been plenty warm the last few days, hasn't it?
Sure has.
I'll be back in a minute.
[...]
See you later, Leo.
I'll give you a hand with that, Mr. Taylor.
I sure can use it.
You're going to treat these seed oats?
That's right.
Where do you keep the treatment?
Over there in the corner.
You got some mighty fine oats here, Mr. Taylor?
Yes, they are.
Do you raise enough feed to carry you through the year?
No, I don't. I only raise a fraction of what I use.
Right now I can't seem to get the machinery.
And I suppose after a while when I will be able to,
I won't be able to pay for it.
Well, you know, farming is a gamble any place these days.
You got to watch out for your prices and repairs, and you got to
gamble with the weather anywhere you are.
That's the reason why we want to get the family type farmers together.
You know, you can't count on making a living for the wife and kids if you try to
do it all by yourself.
Well, that all depends on how you look at the thing.
Now, what can this organization do for me?
Well, let's put it this way.
The Farmers' Union program is based on a triangle, cooperatives,
legislation, and education.
Now, if you join a farmers' union cooperative, it helps to equalize your cost of
production against your income.
Then there's legislation.
That means fighting for laws to keep the farm for the
family and the family for the farm.
Education is to give the children a real chance to stay on the land, not only
better schools, but learning what we're up against and what we have to do.
Doesn't that sound reasonable to you, Mr. Taylor?
Well, I don't know.
Sounds a little too polished for me.
Sounds like grief through a tin horn.
How about this other part here?
That has something to do with cooperatives.
That's in dollars and cents. Maybe I can understand that a little better.
Well, you see, the farmers' union has always organized cooperatives.
It helps the farmer to get together to fight for security on the land.
Now, suppose you belong to a farmers' union cooperative.
This is the way it would work.
Any cooperative starts with you and your neighbors.
It may be a purchasing co-op to buy things together, or a marketing co-op to sell
your produce, or a service co-op, the same ideas back of it.
Whatever you sell the cooperative way, you get the most for your work.
It means maximum return because handling costs are cut
down and the middleman is cut out.
If you buy through a purchasing co-op, you get the best possible price and
quality, because it's your own business. Yours and your neighbors
run for your own good.
After money has been set aside for operating expenses and education, you get a
patronage refund in proportion to what you bought or sold.
That's your dividend, and your vote makes an equal partner with an equal share.
Cooperation does mean working together, but you still run your own business.
You and your neighbors decide who runs the feed mill
and what kind of feed he sells.
You don't have to take what someone else decides is good for you.
In fact, you can cooperate in almost anything, the machines you
need, the plans you make.
And it all adds up in dollars and cents, dollars and cents which you keep and
which keep your land for you.
Say Lee. Yes, Joe?
This cooperative idea all sounds pretty practical, but how's a small farmer
going to stay in his land during the bus?
Well, I'd say that was up to you.
Well, how's that?
You've got something more powerful than all the money of the corporations, the
big trusts in their lobbies in Washington.
You've got the vote, and that's what counts.
Whether it's the vote that elects the President of the United States or the
County Chairman of AAA, it's your vote that does it.
You make it count by getting together, deciding
what's best for all of you, and getting it across to others.
It takes the hand and help of all of you, working to convince
others of your point of view.
It takes work, action, to bring your needs before the government.
That means going to see your senator about a new hospital your county may need,
talking to the REA administrator about bringing power into your community.
Helping your national president and the representatives of your organization in
Washington fight for your needs.
It means having to argue your case right before congressional committees and
fighting for the things you need, like the Missouri Valley Authority.
And it all stems from your vote, your action.
And that's the way it shapes up, Joe.
Cooperatives, legislation, and the base of the triangle is education.
Mr. Smith, does that mean that Jimmy will get better schooling?
I've been worried about his school here.
We're fighting for better educational facilities all the time.
But it's also up to you. Education doesn't stop when you leave the
classroom. Education goes on all through life.
That right, Joe?
Yep.
Education for farmers is a practical affair.
New problems come up which need immediate answers.
Education doesn't come off the blackboard alone.
A lot of it comes from inside the farmhouse, from neighborly discussions
of neighborly problems.
It means giving time to help others understand how to get things, like cheaper
electricity and better medical care.
What happens outside the farm will affect the farmer, too.
Education means young and old learning to think and work together
for security on the land.
It means preparing the young people for the responsibilities ahead of them.
At summer camps, the young people learn through economics and other studies how
life is changing and how they can influence those changes.
Education is the base of understanding, which is built against the prairie skies,
a system of grain elevators owned and operated by farmer producers.
This is the idea which has created creameries, oil refineries, credit unions,
insurance companies, a cooperative hospital, and great wheat terminals to store
and distribute an abundant harvest to this country and the world.
These are dreams made real by half a million people in thousands of cooperatives,
all built by farmers through cooperation, legislation, and education.
Well, Joe, does it all add up and make sense?
Seems to make sense to me.
Dig your hand in the land, turn your eyes on a new horizon, dig your hand in the
land, there's a new sunrise in to shine on that seed, to help us organize
and keep our hands down in the land.
The local meeting is the means to action, the grassroots from which
the whole program grows.
The meeting is like a piece of farm equipment. Keep it in good repair and it
works well for you.
This meeting of farmers, union, local, three will please come to order. The
secretary will please call the roll.
Abbott? Yes.
On the roll? Yes.
Silverbrand? Yes.
Freeman? Yes.
Ashcroft? Yes.
Eggley? Present.
Jackson? Yes.
Landon? Here.
Minnett? Here.
Olsen? Here.
Gregory? Here.
Discussion is not enough. Ideas are not enough. The only value of ideas and
discussion is to act upon them. Time is precious to men who work from sun to sun.
And the small farmer knows that, but he also knows that the time he takes
to think and plan and play his part in his local organization
is the best guarantee he has for his future on the land, his
future and his children's.
For here too, he plants today the seed for tomorrow.
Dig your hand in the land, turn your eyes on a new horizon, dig your hand in the
land, there's a new sunrise in to shine on that seed, to help us organize and
keep our hands down in the land, keep our hands down in the land.