The food crisis and Americanism

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THE FOOD CRISIS AND
AMERICANISM

COPTBIQHT, 1919

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

/

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Set up and electrotyped. Published, February, 1919

(da/ry Cerf^ ^ '^,

FOREWORD

'* When one aims at an error there he those who cry
out J * He is trying to bring down truth/ "

I realize that when one states facts that run counter
to prejudices or preconceived notions, he is likely to
be characterized as academic, inexperienced, impracti-
cal or visionary. Hence, not to interest the reader in
my personality, but as " a reason for the faith that is
in me," I will indulge in a bit of apparent egotism.

I was born on a prairie farm, where as a manual
laborer I worked for my father until twenty-one years
of age. Later, after working my way for four years
in one of the best Agricultural Universities, specializ-
ing in mathematics and agricultural chemistry, ill
health compelled me to abandon all thought of literary
or scientific pursuits. So for more than forty years
I have been actively engaged in the farm mortgage
business.

By accident, my first employer was the state agent
for Illinois of the Equitable Loan & Trust Company
of New London, Connecticut — the first company in-
corporated to do a farm mortgage business; at least
the first to enter into active operation. That com-
pany failed, and it is a significant fact that practically
all other companies incorporated for that purpose,
prior to 1896, failed. Must there not be some inher-
ent weakness in an industry, in which, after giving the

V

VI FOREWORD

heart of its assets as security to voluntary creditors,
those creditors fail?

The effects of the panic of 1873 upon agriculture
were not seriously felt throughout the Central West
until 1878 and 1879. During that period, it devolved
upon me to take charge of the foreclosed lands belong-
ing to my employers and their clients — see that they
were rented, rents collected, taxes paid, and lands sold.

Again, between 1893 and 1896, nearly 95 per cent,
of my competitors failed or went out of business, and
at the urgent request of my clients I took charge of
millions in mortgages which had been made by those
now defunct concerns. A great many of these mort-
gages were, of course, foreclosed, and as a result, for
nearly ten years, I had the control and management of
from 100,000 to 150,000 acres of farm lands scattered
through four of the best agricultural States. As these
lands were owned by a very large number of indi-
viduals and corporations, a strict account was kept
with each tract. None of these tracts paid current
interest on its costs. Poor farming! So I thought
until on investigation it transpired that the increased
mortgage indebtedness on surrounding farms was
greater than the shortage of my farming operations.
This experience, coupled with my early labors on the
farm, gave me, I think it will be admitted, an oppor-
tunity to study the farmer and his problems enjoyed
by few during the last fifty years. The result was
not in keeping with what I had hopefully anticipated.
Pleasing fancies were dispelled by unpleasant facts —
truth sometimes seems a cruel thing.

Agriculture is the basic industry of our nation. It

FOREWORD Vll

engages at least one-third of the population. It
should receive more serious consideration than any-
other industry; both in and out of Congress it receives
less. Every other civilized country has, during the
last sixty years, bettered its agricultural conditions
and enormously increased its yield per acre of cereals.
We have not done so to any appreciable extent. For
fourteen years prior to the beginning of this war, the
average wheat yield per acre of France was approxi-
mately 36 per cent, above ours; that of Germany, 107
per cent, above; and that of England, 124 per cent,
above. (See 1914 Year Book.) Had our 191 7
wheat yield per acre been on a parity with those coun-
tries, we could have sent to the Allies an amount of
wheat equal to our entire yield for that year, and have
had a superabundance for home consumption. No
national economic policy is sound, nor can it long en-
dure, that fails to give due consideration to this, our
great creative class, nor in whose counsels the farm-
er's voice is not heard.

For nearly three years the American people rejected
all evidence as to the sinister and brutal motives of
Kaiserism, accepting instead fairy tales, spun by the
pacifists, to show that the brotherhood of man was es-
tablished on earth, and that war could come no more.
In blood and money we are paying the penalty of our
unbelief. It is as dangerously unwise to reject a truth
because it is disagreeable as to cherish an error because
'' beautiful, if true." People who do the one usually
do the other.

Should the American people refuse to recognize in
the trend of events certain economic, socialistic, if not

Vlll FOREWORD

anarchistic, tendencies ? These must be met. Delays
are dangerous.

In this book, I have tried to give the results of my
observation and experience. If errors have crept into
the work, I regret it, and shall be glad to have my
attention called to them. I have endeavored con-
servatively and accurately to tell the truth.

William Stull.
Omaha, July, 191 8.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND
AMERICANISM

THE FOOD CRISIS AND
AMERICANISM

" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay ;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold Peasantry, their Country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied."

CHAPTER I

The most serious and one of the most pressing ques-
tions of to-day is, — What is the matter with Ameri-
can agriculture, that it is breaking down at the most
critical period in the nation's history?

After twenty-two years during which time not a
single State has suffered a general crop failure, but in
the main crops have been unusually abundant, why was
it that before a battalion of our troops had reached the
firing line, our Government was suggesting — and has
since made compulsory — a restriction of wholesome
food in our homes ? Our country has an almost limit-
less area of fertile soil, with a topography in the high-
est degree adapted to the use of farm machinery.
Climatic conditions are highly favorable to the produc-
tion of all essential foods. Our farmers are the most
intelligent the world has ever known. All this, coupled
with the inventive genius of our people, should enable
the American farmers to feed the world. Yet there

2/^/:i:lTnt'Fiok^ crisis AND AMERICANISM

is no civilized country in which, during the ten years
prior to the declaration of war, consumers have paid
so much for their food, or where fertile fields have
been to such an extent abandoned, neglected or illy
tilled, and the farmers received so little for their
products.

That evils exist is obvious ; that whatever they may
be, they should be speedily remedied, is imperative.

Labor and marketing conditions are responsible for
the present deplorable situation. These have grown
out of the two basic evils; the one, that we have Ex-
alted idleness ; the other that we, as a people, have be-
come over-commercialized.

The first was largely due to an error or oversight in
the development of our public school system, the evil
consequences of which no one seemed to foresee; that
is, when the high school supplanted the seminary, it
took over the curriculum of the seminary.

The chief, if not the sole, purpose and function of
the seminary was to prepare the pupil for college.
The college was to prepare him for still another
school — law, medicine, theology or literature; and
one so educated, who failed to follow one of these
professions, was usually looked upon as an ornamental,
if not a useless, member of society. His training had
led him not intentionally, but effectually, away from
other useful vocations, and especially from manual
labor.

With the private schools and colleges this was well.
The academy served its purpose. It responded to
the needs of a certain particular class which was will-
ing to pay for it. It directly affected a trifling per-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 3

centage of the American people, but nevertheless was
an important factor in the evolution of the nation.
On the contrary, the public schools are for all classes
— the children of all sorts and conditions of men.
The mingling of these children form one of the strong-
est ties that bind the American people together, but to
attempt to educate all the American children along
these academic lines, — that is, that each grade pre-
pares a pupil for the next, and the next — one school
for another — and each school for still another, —
neglecting the " Ninety and nine " to serve the one, —
is not only futile, but a menace to democracy. Yet,
that seems to be the result, if not the purpose, of our
public school system as it is now conducted.

That " man should eat his bread in the sweat of
his brow " applies to a very large percentage of the
human race, and I am not orthodox enough to believe
that it was meant as a curse. Next to a good mother,
I count my greatest earthly blessing that I was bom
on a farm, " stranger alike to poverty and wealth,*'
and with my hands labored there until I was twenty-
one years of age.

As a large majority of all the children of the coun-
try must labor with their hands, it is a serious blunder
to ignore this fact in their education, and a still more
serious, if not a fatal, one to let their education be
such as to lead them away from manual labor.

The public school being for all children, it should
respond to the needs of the average child. It is upon
the average citizen that the weal or woe of our country
depends. Hence, at whatever point the child's school
career be interrupted, whether at the end of the first.

4 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

second or last grade, he should to that extent be a bet-
ter citizen and better prepared to solve the problems
confronting the average youth. Under our present
school system, he is not to any appreciable extent so
prepared. On the contrary, as in the seminary, his
training tends to lead him toward other things. The
first effect of this education is that it engenders an
indifference to, if not a contempt, for, labor — or at
least a feeling that manual labor is very disagreeable,
if not degrading.

Legitimate commerce has in all of its complex rami-
fications but one function — the exchange of com-
modities between the producer and the consumer.
Five per cent, of our population are sufficient to fulfill
that function. Yet more than eighty-five per cent, of
all high school graduates, and almost as large a pro-
portion of the undergraduates, expect to find lucrative
employment in it. Those parents, especially of the
manual laboring class, making the greatest struggle,
subjecting themselves to the greatest self-denial in ef-
forts to educate their children, will give as the first
reason, " We don't want our children to work as we
have worked " — that is, to do manual labor. To the
infant and to most adults, to do things with his own
hands is the most fascinating of exercises, and if done
accurately, with a definite purpose, among the most
effective for mental discipline. To those who never
expect to do manual labor it gives a quicker sympathy
for and a clearer understanding of those who labor
with their hands. Respect for labor makes for better
and broader citizenship. In spite of all our boasts
about giving dignity to American labor, we have been

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 5

doing the reverse ; in no other country does the laborer
have so little pride in his calling, even among skilled
workmen, as in our own. Had our schools and col-
leges done as much to exalt mechanical skill and effi-
ciency as they have to develop football players, labor
conditions and labor sentiment would be entirely dif-
ferent; and the majority of those graduating from our
schools and colleges would not shrink from, nor feel
humiliated by, honest manual toil.

Our high school graduates, and a very large propor-
tion of our college graduates, have been prepared for
nothing but to continue school; so that they find to
their surprise that they are fitted for nothing in par-
ticular; that there is no niche in every-day life that
their education has prepared them to fill. Nothing is
more discouraging and nothing leads to greater dis-
content and bitterness than for one to find that for
which he has labored, and esteemed of highest value,
worthless.

So everywhere we are turning out malcontents —
young men and women, unprepared for anything but
the most common manual labor, which they are
ashamed to do. The false glamour thrown about
great wealth makes their outlook dark. Observing
men, without rendering any adequate service to soci-
ety, accumulating colossal fortunes, they are over-
whelmed with a feeling of dependence which ever en-
genders misanthropy. Hence, many of these become
easy victims to the socialistic agitator, the demagogue
and other enemies of society.

Our sister republics are all finding how to prepare
^he youth and immigrants for citizenship a perplexing

O THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

question. Gustave LeBon, one of the most profound
of French thinkers, in discussing the French school
system, among other things, says : " Nobody has ever
maintained that well-directed instruction may not give
very useful practical results." ..." The acquisition
of knowledge for which no use can be found is a sure
method of driving a man to revolt." Continuing, he
says : " In a recent work, a distinguished magistrate,
Adolphe Guillot, made the observation that at present
three thousand educated criminals are met with for
every one thousand illiterate delinquents, and that in
fifty years the criminal percentage of the population
has passed from two hundred twenty-seven to five hun-
dred fifty- two for every one hundred thousand inhab-
itants, an increase of 133 per cent. He also noted in
common with his colleagues that criminality is par-
ticularly on the increase among young persons, for
whom, as is known, gratuitous and obligatory school-
ing has — in France — replaced apprenticeship." He
then cites similar experience in China, as well as edu-
cation in India, under English rule. LeBon further
says : " It is evidently too late to retrace our steps.
Experience alone, that supreme educator of peoples,
will be at pains to show us our mistake. It alone will
be powerful enough to prove the necessity of replacing
our odious text-books and our pitiable examinations
by industrial instruction capable of inducing our young
men to return to the fields, to the workshop, . . ,
which they avoid to-day at all costs."

If in France, with but one language, one nationality,
all inheriting the same history, traditions, habits of
thrift and industry, with no influx of foreigners, they

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 7

find the free school system a perplexing, if not a men-
acing, problem, what may we expect in our country,
where one decade brings from all quarters of the
globe an immigration equal in number to lo per cent,
of our own population, each group having its own lan-
guage, traditions and habits? Citizenship can make
only temporary advancement where labor is being de-
graded. While remuneration has something to do
with the dignity of labor, it does not necessarily make
it dignified. Labor itself must be intelligent and self-
respecting, as well as honored and respected, if it
makes permanent advance. The supreme purpose of
our public schools should be the development of char-
acter. It is not the form of government, but the char-
acter of its people, which rules the destinies of a
nation.

More than 95 per cent, of our immigrants are of the
manual laboring classes. One of their first and most
important steps in the direction of citizenship is the
attitude they assume toward manual labor. If, like
the original New Englanders and the early immigrants
coming to this country, they look upon it as an honor-
able vocation, a stepping-stone to the best and highest
things in life, their self-respect, respect for others,
and respect for property rights will grow, and they
will soon be assimilated and rapidly become an integral
and valuable part of the American people. If, on the
other hand, they, like a large percentage of the Amer-
ican youth, become imbued with the thought that
manual labor is without honor, their self-respect will
be lowered. One who daily does that which he thinks
degrading, no odds how innocent the act, will in time

8 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

become degraded. Good citizenship, without a high
degree of self-respect, is impossible. So these people
may become an element of weakness and a menace
to our free institutions, if not to our Government it-
self. How, if not through our public schools, can this
mass, with small conception of our free institutions,
become assimilated and Americanized? We cannot
reasonably expect the average foreign-born adult ever
to have an adequate conception of the genius and
spirit of our free institutions. It is only in child-
hood that character may be molded and developed.
What we make of the young immigrant, after he is
here, is vastly more important than what he is when
he comes. The most practical way to reach the fa-
thers and mothers, ignorant of our language, is
through the children.

No broad-minded citizen would abolish the public
schools or minimize education, but thinking men must
feel some solicitude as to the character of the education
inculcated in these schools. Vicious education in
Germany had drenched the world with blood. That
malignant strength was waning and peace seemed
near, when Russian ignorance, in its weakness, robbed
us of a powerful ally. Should an unsatisfactory peace
come, who shall say which of the two factors — mal-
education of the German masses, or ignorance of the
Russian peasantry — was the one that shifted the
wavering scale of justice to the baleful side? Lack-
ing either of these, the Central Powers must have
failed ere this.

To the masses, and especially to our foreign born,
liberty is a vague term, " meaning many things to

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 9

many minds," from license to its true import. Mul-
titudes, especially of the foreign born, fail to real-
ize that " liberty is the result of law, and not
the absence of law." This misapprehension makes
for discontent and unrest. How many of the grade
pupils in the public schools and undergraduates of our
colleges could give a clear, comprehensive definition
of liberty? Few, when they first learn to lisp the
decalogue, comprehend its meaning; but, implanted
in the childish minds, the impression of these divine
commands deepen and broaden with the mental
growth, and thus unconsciously have become potent,
if not dominant, factors in the making of moral char-
acter throughout civilization. Why, by methods
analogous, should not our pupils in the public schools
be early taught simple, concise and comprehensive defi-
nitions of liberty and other principles that make up the
foundation of democracy?

CHAPTER II

It may be asked, " What do all these things have to
do with agriculture?" They have very much to do
with it because, as a class, the farmers are equal in
number to nearly all other manual laboring classes
combined. Hence, withdrawal of these vast numbers
from the ranks of labor or the lessening of their effi-
ciency, falls more heavily upon farming interests, than
on any if not on all others, combined. Not only be-
cause of number, but because of their isolation, any-
thing suggesting that manual labor may not be highly
honorable is among them more far-reaching in its
evil effects. As the employers of most other labor
are by tariff or monopoly protected from competition,
they are able to add to the cost of production, not
only the cost of labor, but a percentage of profit on
that added cost. The farmer has no such redress.
The prices of his commodities — except at present, as
a war measure restricted — are fixed in the world's
markets, while he is prohibited from buying in them;
hence, he can in no way meet this competition. It has
for years been utterly impossible to secure more than
half the necessary farm labor at any price. Thus the
evils of inefficiency and over-pay to other classes of
labor fall more heavily upon the farmers than on any
other class, especially as approximately 85 per cent,
of all the farmer buys is labor in some form. The

10

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM II

v?.lue of mineral in the mine, lumber in the tree, etc.,
IS almost an infinitesimal part of what he pays for the
manufactured product.

When war was declared and the call to the colors
came, the farmers* sons and the best class of farm
laborers were among the first to respond to the call.
The selective draft has taken many more. In addition
to that, the high wages paid, not only in the shipyards
and munition plants but in other factories, are daily
drawing thousands of the most efficient laborers from
the already scant numbers left upon the farms.

A very great majority of obtainable labor for the
farms are inefficients — " down and outers *' — from
the city. They have neither experience nor interest
in farm work, and intend to abandon it and return to
town at the first opportunity — hence, are of the small-
est possible value. Worst of all, many of them are
imbued with the spirit of the " walking delegate " —
that their services must not be made too valuable to
their employers, and that hours and output must be
restricted. To farm operations this sentiment is fatal.
Exactly to fix hours of labor on the farm is not prac-
ticable, for the reason that because of rain, snow, cold
and the resultant soil conditions, approximately one-
third of the days of the year field work is impossible.
Farm work must be done when it can be done. From
the first sowing in the spring to the last storing of
grain in the fall, delays are dangerous — often disas-
trous. For even one man to insist upon restricted
hours at critical periods means disorganization of the
whole force, and often entails enormous loss to the
farmer. As shown by numerous bulletins, as well as

12 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

experience, it is found impossible to secure an equiva-
lent to eight working hours throughout the year, not
including Sundays. To receive pay and board for the
hours actually worked only would be a decided dis-
advantage to the farm laborer, and few, if any, of
them would enter into a contract on such a basis.

CHAPTER III

To bring nearer home the farmers' competition for
labor, I would say that in commenting on the decision
rendered about the first of April, 1918, by Judge Alt-
schuler of Chicago, as arbitrator between the packers
and their employees, Mr. Murphy, manager of one of
the two largest packing houses in the world, is quoted
in the Omaha Bee of April 3, 191 8, as saying among
other things, " It means that on and after May 5,
common labor employees, working ten hours a day,
will receive an increase of 52 per cent, as compared
with what they were getting previous to January 14,
which was at the rate of 27^ cents per hour. Instead
of receiving $2.75 for 10 hours' work, they will re-
ceive $4.20. Women employees will receive a 59 per
cent, increase down to 37 per cent, to those who were
getting 60 cents an hour for a lo-hour day. The lat-
ter will be paid $8.33 for a lo-hour day." This means
that by working ten hours a day during the entire
year, Sundays excepted, a man and woman will earn
$3821.89, which, as I have shown elsewhere, is five
times the gross receipts of the average eighty acres of
land in Nebraska during the twenty-seven years end-
ing December 31, 19 17, and four times the gross in-
come from the average eighty acres throughout the
country during the eighteen years prior to the passage
of the Adamson Law, as shown by reports of the Fed-

13

14 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

eral Department of Agriculture. These farm incomes
make no allowance for interest on money invested in
either land, buildings or equipment, which amount to
an average of $10,000 to $15,000; nor an allowance
for disease and accidents to live stock, nor taxes upon
land. No one man and one woman can properly till
eighty acres, even by working from twelve to sixteen
hours per day.

Query: Why should these men and women leave
the packing plants, and go to the farm to work longer
hours for one- fourth of the pay? Answer: They
will not.

Query : Why should not the able-bodied, intelligent
young men and women leave the farm and go to the
packing plants or elsewhere where shorter hours will
insure 300 to 400 per cent, greater remuneration ? An-
swer: They are going, and, because of vicious labor
and marketing conditions, have been going for twenty
years, and will continue to go until the handicaps are
removed and better inducements are held out to keep
them on the farm.

A preponderance of all manual laborers of this coun-
try are foreign bom or of foreign parentage. A very
small and constantly decreasing percentage of the orig-
inal American stock is engaged in agriculture. As
our immigrants have neither traditions nor sentiment
binding them to the farm, they leave it with less re-
luctance than the American. For this reason, the exo-
dus from the farms is rapidly increasing, and will con-
tinue to increase so long as existing labor and market-
ing conditions obtain.

Some tell us that it is the glint and glamour of the

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 15

city which take the boys and girls from the farm.
Not so. Since our first parents were driven from the
Garden of Eden, men have been driven, not lured,
from country Hfe. Remove artificial handicaps from
agriculture, so that reasonable profits, modern con-
veniences and comforts are possible on the farms, and
they will be filled with intelligent, industrious people,
and our teeming millions fed better than ever before,
and this at a price not prohibitive to the most common
laborer.
I Why should Congress be so solicitous concerning the
wage of all other labor, so considerate of the profits
of commercial interests, and ignore those of the
farmer, practically assuming that, if he fails to accom-
plish the impossible, it will be because he lacks patriot-
ism?

Had there been an adequate number of farm labor-
ers available even when war was declared, or had it
been possible to have left the meager supply then there
undisturbed, the tremendous extra exertion now being
made by men, women and children upon the farms
would have gone a long way toward supplying the tre-
mendously increased demand for food stufTs brought
about by war conditions. But they are gone. Their
places must be filled if this increased demand for food
stuffs is met, and a food crisis averted. How shall
this be done if not by such increase in price of farm
products as will enable the farmer successfully to bid
for labor in the open market ? Two ways are pointed
out. First: That organized labor, emulating the
farmers' example, shall, during the war, abandon fixed
hours of labor, or at least make ten hours instead of

l6 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

eight hours the basic day's work. This would release
one in five of their number, to be employed in agri-
culture, or to take the place of those less skilled, who
would in turn be released for farm labor. Though
far from adequate, this would help. With the un-
precedented high wages now being paid them, this
should not overtax or be a crucial test of their patriot-
ism. No other class is doing so little.

The other avenue of relief is through Chinese labor.
White labor is unavailable, as man power is already
overtaxed in every civilized coimtry on the globe.
Agencies on the Pacific Coast have offered immedi-
ately to furnish, as fast as ships can bring them, a
half million of Chinese laborers, to be followed, if
necessary, by millions more. These laborers would at
once be efficient aid in our sugar beet fields, vegetable
and fruit growing sections, as well as in the dairy in-
dustries; and shortly would become effective and effi-
cient help on the average farm. Arguments against
the importation of Chinese labor in time of peace lose
force and should not apply when it becomes a question
as to whether or not our Allies and armies shall fail
for lack of food, and the world's liberty be lost on one
hand, or employment of these laborers on the other.

Those in high authority and in the best position to
know are not predicting an early termination of this
awful struggle, and if the present battle on the West
Front fails to result in decisive victory in favor of the
Allies, the war is likely to resolve itself into one of
economic endurance, in which food stuffs are an all-
important factor. The American farms are the last
resort. If they fail, our cause is hopeless. Without

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM • 1 7

added man-power, the utmost efforts of those now on
the farms will be inadequate. What is done, should
be done quickly.

Both France and England are using Chinese labor
on the farms with satisfactory and astonishing results.
During more than ten years, it has been impossible to
induce either the white or the black labor to do the
farm work necessary to produce adequate, wholesome
food for all our people; hence, other laborers are in-
dispensable. The chief opposition to Chinese labor
comes from " idlers " and organized labor. Because
of its insistence on shortened hours, reduced output
and a constantly increasing wage, and strikes in the
presence of the enemy — "industrial treason" — it
should be estopped from protest against getting others
to do the absolutely necessary work which they have
failed or refuse to do. That mothers and babes, as
well as our men with the colors, should go hungry lest
the wage scale be not further advanced, or that days
of labor be increased toward a basis upon which farm-
ers, as well as business men and salary earners, are now
working, is unthinkable. To attempt to " conciliate
labor " by leaving out the largest class, if not a major-
ity, of all our manual laborers, is not making for in-
dustrial peace nor national prosperity. One China-
man added to the present force on each farm would,
at the end of the second year, add 25 per cent, to 40
per cent, to the present output, and soon increase this
to i(X) per cent.

CHAPTER IV

As the Adamson Law was, at the same time, the
greatest stride yet taken towards Socialism, and the
hardest blow yet received by American agriculture, it
may not be out of place to consider the remuneration
received by the two classes of manual labor — organ-
ized labor in the industries, and unorganized labor on
the farms — just prior to the enactment of that law.

While that bill was pending in Congress, the wage
scale of the men to be directly affected thereby was
published, and, so far as I know, never contradicted.
This shows that the very lowest paid class to be af-
fected, the passenger brakeman, received an annual
wage of $967. A careful analysis of the reports of
the United States Department of Agriculture, taking
the average yield and the average market price — both
high — of the leading cereals during the preceding
eighteen years — usually fruitful — shows that the
gross income from the average eighty acres, all under
cultivation, allowing nothing for waste land, was
$936.80 or $30.20 less than the average wage of the
passenger brakeman. Yet the law was enacted, enor-
mously increasing this wage scale, which has recently
been again increased by Federal sanction.

No man can properly till eighty acres of land. The
position of the brakeman requires no previous prep-
aration, no physical strength nor mental ability above

18

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 1 9

that of even the farm laborer. His employer must
protect him against accidental injury. He has no capi-
tal invested. What reason has the young farmer for
remaining on the farm, even if given to him, waiving
interest on his investment — land, equipment and
stock, amounting to $10,000 to $15,000 — taking
all the hazard of accidental injury to self, acci-
dent and disease to stock, crop failure, etc.,
working twelve to fifteen hours a day, instead
of taking position as brakeman, with no capi-
tal, where he can work eight hours a day and re-
ceive more money? If he is capable of managing a
farm, he is capable of becoming a train conductor or
locomotive engineer, the wage of the former being
more than double, and that of the latter more than
three times, than that of the gross income of his farm.
The reason, if any, must be sentimental. As a result,
since 1900 more than a million of the most intelli-
gent, industrious and efficient men have left the farms
of our country. Their places, or part of these, have
been taken by hired men — mostly drifters from cities
— and renters — chiefly those who have failed of suc-
cess in other localities or other lines of endeavor — a
vast majority of whom have no capital, no hope or
ambition ever to own the land they till.

No other facts or factors have bred so much dis-
content and so discouraged the farmers as the con-
stant yielding by our Government to the extravagant
demands of organized labor. While the political press
is approving all this and lauding the leaders of organ-
ized labor as patriots, it has neither compliment nor
commendation for the farmer — apparently begrudg-

20 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

ing and minimizing possible profits to him, frequently
calling him "Slacker," "Pro-German," "Alien en-
emy," etc.

Is it strange, under such labor conditions, such
radical difference between the remuneration of organ-
ized labor of the factories, shipyards, etc., and the un-
organized labor on the farms, coupled with authentic
reports of the almost fabulous profits made by the
packers and others who control the marketing of food
stuffs, that farm abandonment is so general? That
we needs must have " Meatless and Wheatless Days " ?
Now that the Government proposes to furnish every
employee in our Civil Service, from the janitor up,
with accident insurance, amounting to two-thirds of
the annual wage, to be paid during the life of any de-
pendent upon him, the farm laborers are practically
the only class not thus protected. The farmer has no
funds from which to pay this, and to meet the added
cost, he cannot (as the manufacturer and other em-
ployers do) add to the price of his commodities. An
accident to the tramp who happens to be cleaning his
stables or shoveling his potatoes may result in bank-
ruptcy. A radical reduction of the wage scale must
be made or greatly increased prices paid for farm
products, thus enabling the farmer to meet this com-
petition, or the present exodus from the farms will
continue with ultimately disastrous consequences.

It may be suggested that the farmer has a home and
may raise a part of his food. In almost any town or
suburb, a house, better than the average farm house,
can be rented for $12 to $15 a month, together with
garden space larger than that used for vegetables on

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 21

the average farm. Shortened hours of the town la-
borer give him vastly more time to care for garden,
poultry, etc., than the average farmer can spare.

As a confirmation of my suggestion that the aver-
age yield and price of cereals, as given by the Depart-
ment of Agriculture, was too liberal, I am in receipt
of a bulletin. No. i6o, just issued by the Agricultural
Experiment Station of the University of Nebraska.
This shows the average yield and market price of the
three leading cereals in Nebraska during twenty-seven
years ending December 31, 19 17. These figures make
the average annual income per acre of these three
cereals $9.80, making a gross income from eighty acres
$784, instead of $936.80, as above stated. In neither
of the above computations was the annual amount of
seed required taken into consideration. In wheat and
oats and other small grain this amounts to approxi-
mately 10 per cent, of the total yield. The apparently
lower income from Nebraska acres is not because the
soil, climatic conditions and husbandry are inferior to
those of other States, but can be accounted for only
because of a more careful and accurate method of se-
curing data by the Nebraska authorities. The state
authorities, having facts close at hand, rely more upon
facts and less upon estimates, than the Federal De-
partment of Agriculture.

In an agricultural country like ours, a republic worth
while cannot long survive an impoverished peasantry.
Recent events in Russia must remind every thinking
man that it is quite as important that democracy may
be made safe for the World, as that " The world be
made safe for democracy."

22 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

The great body of manual laborers are not only
loyal, but right-minded. But are they not being mis-
guided by bad advisors, who are leading them back-
ward toward primitive and obsolete methods, methods
that may make for temporary success, but ultimate
failure? "No political institution, no social institu-
tion, is sacred unless founded on some eternal truth,
and all human institutions must change with the in-
creasing knowledge of mankind."

CHAPTER V

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, col-
lectivism and capitalism, as now understood, were
brought forth, both born of the same parents, — the
*' Spinning Jenny " and the Steam Engine. The first
view of these great benefactors of the race filled the
laborers with alarm — fear that increased production
would rob them of the means of livelihood — and
drove them into a frenzy of hate, which took form in
the destruction of labor-saving machines — these mute
but mighty factors sent for their deliverance from
bondage — a bondage worse than that of the colored
slave, then on our own soil. So insane was their rage
that they drove these machines out of many districts,
and laws were enacted, making the destruction of such
machines a penal offense punished by deportation.
Other bills were before Parliament seeking to make
the offense punishable by death. It was only after
their blind fury was past that they were able to realize
and accept this innovation as a blessing, that the first
real step toward the emancipation of labor was taken.
As soon as these conditions obtained, classes more for-
tunate and more powerful than they took up the cause
of labor, and by intelligent cooperation with it, secured
real, valuable and permanent reforms, raising them
from slaves, in all but name, to free men. By undue ,

restriction of hours, restriction of output and elimina-

23

24 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

tion of merit as a measure of remuneration, is labor
not fighting the same phantom as when it destroyed
labor-saving machines ?

It may be noted in passing that many of the middle
and higher classes shared with those unfortunate la-
borers this same blind fear of mechanical innovations,
just as some educated and sentimental people at pres-
ent join with the leaders of organized labor in the fear
that over-production of life's comforts and necessities
may be hurtful to those who labor.

The sentimentalists of that period rather hindered
than helped reform.

Until all labor controversies shall be settled on fun-
damental principles of right — the greatest good to
the greatest number, and the rights of all those who
labor, regardless of class, be taken into consideration
our country will be full of unrest. If civilization sur-
vives, manual labor must continue. Manual labor has
been the characteristic of all civilizations, and its effi-
ciency and skill a fair index to their worth. Savagery
reduces manual labor to the minimum. Where soil
and climatic conditions make only the smallest effort
necessary to secure that which sustains life, we find
the most degraded species of the human race. With
them, hours of labor reach the irreducible minimum.
The output is restricted to the individual's daily phys-
ical needs. The measure of merit is not applied; brute
force takes its place. Every movement toward the re-
duction of man's necessities and comforts runs counter
to civilization, arrests the development of the race,
and is a menace to free institutions. Yet this spirit,
fostered by those having smallest claims for our citi-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 2$

zenship, its percentage of foreign bom and unnat-
uralized being the largest of any class, has been grow-
ing, until at the present moment, the Nation is con-
fronted by conditions fraught with gravest dangers.

In a recent speech in the House of Commons, Chan-
cellor Bonar Law is quoted as saying, " The extent of
America's cooperation is not limited by transportation,
but rather is limited only by the extent of her man-
power. This is the one great fact of the war." There
is a shortage of man-power throughout the civilized
world, and while the great mass of the American peo-
ple are giving up wealth, comfort, ease — yea, their
own sons, that their blood may be offered as a sacri-
fice on the altar of liberty — at the dictates of organ-
ized labor Congress is considering the Anti-efficiency
Amendment to the Naval Appropriation, the aim and
purpose of which seems to be to prevent any possible
stimulant being offered to increase efficiency on the
part of the laborers in the employ of the Federal Gov-
ernment. It is alleged that although it has been dem-
onstrated that one man and his helpers may drive over
4,800 rivets in a day, the arbitrary ruling of organized
labor makes little more than 25 per cent, of this a day's
work; and that extra bonuses must be paid for all
work done over this restricted amount, and for all labor
over eight hours in any day.

The press is everywhere justly clamoring for pun-
ishment, swift and severe, for the I. W. W.'s. Yet
the utmost accomplished by their malignant work is
insignificant as compared with what must follow as a
result if such sentiment dominates labor in our war
industries. For at this critical juncture in the na-

26 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

tion's history, each delay makes it possible for the Hun
to multiply a thousandfold the destruction the I. W.
W/s can or have in the past wrought.

Enforced reduction of output, the refusal to do piece
work, and an effort to eliminate merit, have been more
fruitful of unnecessary and destructive labor contro-
versies than the question of wage. If organized labor
will abandon these vicious theories — theories that
run counter to all established economic principles —
labor controversies will be few; for, in my opinion,
a great majority of the people of this country will
agree with me in this proposition ; viz. — that no wage
scale can be so high as to be hurtful to humanity if
that scale is based upon a measure of merit, and ap-
plies to all those who labor, even if only to those who
labor with their hands. But when any class of labor
attempts to take the burden from its own shoulders,
and by shortening hours, restricting output, thus elim-
inating merit, throws this increased burden upon the
shoulders of other labor, it is running counter to the
spirit of American democracy and outrages every sense
of even-handed justice.

Our civilization is built upon the Christian faith.
The basic principle of Christianity is service — service
to one's fellows — any departure from that basic prin-
ciple is a step backward, and away from all that is
highest and best in the civilization of to-day.

CHAPTER VI

I HAVE no patience with those who assert that there
is a natural or inherent antagonism between capital
and labor. For more than a century after the land-
ing of the Mayflower, capital and labor were, in New
England, in more intimate contact and more mutually
helpful than at any time in the history of the race. As
a result of these two forces, New England developed,
and did an hundredfold more for the uplift of human-
ity than any other community or nation of its size
that ever existed. Honest labor and honestly acquired
capital were never antagonistic. It was only when
the criminal element in the ranks of both capital and
labor acquired undue influence that labor troubles be-
gan. Because of these twin evils, American agricul-
ture is well-nigh paralyzed, and our nation is facing a
food crisis.

If patriotic motives and impulses in this hour of our
greatest national peril will not induce organized labor
to postpone the settlement of all these controversies
until after the war — prospects of tranquillity and the
hope for renewed advances in everything which makes
for a higher civilization, after victory is won, are not
alluring. At the very hour, when on the West Front,
the gigantic forces of freedom and oppression are in
a death struggle, the press announces that 35,000 fac-
tory operators in New England, largely engaged on

27

28 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

government war material, have struck and quit work
for an increased wage. How can one reconcile this
act at this moment with a high degree of patriotism,
for which the unions have been constantly given credit
since the war began ?

From the farmers' standpoint, the loyalty of organ-
ized labor has only reached the effervescent stage.
There is no distillate of the true spirit of patriotism.
Patriotism is the love of country. The universal
measure of love, whether of country or of kin, is sac-
rifice. Working under the most favorable conditions,
the shortest days, and for the highest wage ever paid
to manual labor in the world's history, with frequent
strikes, does not, in the opinion of the farmers, con-
stitute sacrifice.

CHAPTER VII

A COMMISSION was appointed by Hon. Herbert C.
Hoover, United States Food Administrator, to investi-
gate the cost of hog production and to report plans
for stimulating that industry. On October 2y, 19 17,
the commission made its final report, covering both its
findings of facts and its recommendations.

After a most thorough investigation, covering nearly
seventy years, this commission found that it required,
under ordinary farm conditions, at least 12 bushels of
No. 2 com to produce 100 pounds of live hogs — that,
to secure a fair profit, a farmer must receive for 100
pounds of live hogs a price equal to 13.3 bushels of
No. 2 corn, based upon the average price of corn dur-
ing the twelve months preceding sale ; that to stimulate
an increase of 15 per cent, of production, made nec-
essary by war conditions, the price of 100 pounds of
live hogs should be equal to the price of 14.3 bushels
of No. 2 com; recommending that prices should by
the Food Administration be fixed accordingly. The
findings of the commission were neither new nor sur-
prising to the intelligent farmers or stock-feeders ; the
experience of most of these had been that 12 bushels
of corn had not, as a rule, been quite enough to pro-
duce 100 pounds of live hogs.

However, this report should be of enormous value
in convincing the consuming public that the high cost

30 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

of living is not because of any undue profits made by
the farmers, since November i, 19 17, when J. P. Cot-
ton, chief of the Meat Division of the Food Adminis-
tration, assumed supervision, if not control, of the
packing industry as shown by Table No. i.

Table No. i
PRICE OF CORN AND HOGS, OMAHA

Price Value Profit or loss

Year No. 2 12 bu. Price 12 to i basis Corn

corn No. 2 100 lbs. bu. per cwt equivalent

perbu. corn live hogs Loss Gain bushels
1913 —

(Entire year) $ .5925 $ 7-ii $8.06 $ $.95 13.60

1917 —

Nov 2.084 25.00 17.33 7-^ '•' 8.33

Dec 1.57 18.84 16.74 2.10 . . . 10.66

1918 —

Jan 1.85 22.20 16.125 6.07 ... 8.71

Feb i.6s 19.80 i6.25' 3.55 ... 9.844

Mar. 1.62^ 19.50 16.62 2.88 . . . 10.23

Apr 1.60K 19.26 16.88 2.38 . . . 10.51

May 1.62 19.44 16.89 2.55 • • • 10.42

June 1.604 19.24 16.38 2.86 . . . 10.20

Average... $1,701 $20.41 $16.65 %Z-1^ .-• 9.86

The reports of the United States Department of
Agriculture show that on September i, 19 17, the
month just preceding the commission's report, there
Were on the farms of our Country 8,038,000 less
hogs than on September i, 1915, and 5,427,000 less
than on September i, 19 16. Adding to this shortage
15 per cent. — 10,000,060 hogs extra — made neces-
5?ary by war conditions, disclosed a deficiency of
15,000,000 to 18,000,000 of hogs for our needed
supply.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 3 1

Confronting these alarming conditions, what was
done? Were the recommendations of that able com-
mission followed? Not at all; but instead, the Chief
of the Meat Division of the United States Food Ad-
ministration, on receipt of it, issued a bulletin, saying
among other things : " The prices, so far as we can
affect them, will not go below a minimum of $15.50
per cwt. for average packers' droves on the Chicago
market, until further notice." ..." As to hogs far-
rowed next spring, we will try to stabilize the price,
so that the farmer can count on getting for each 100
pounds of hogs for market, thirteen times the average
cost per bushel of the com fed into the hog." Why,
if a year hence farmers should receive an equivalent
of 13 bushels of com for each 100 pounds of hogs
ready for market, should he be compelled to accept the
equivalent of 7J4 bushels of corn at the then present
time? And especially, as at that time, he was begin-
ning the harvest of the smallest crop of com in food
value in ten years, if ever?

The price of No. 2 corn on the Chicago market at
that time — the month preceding and the month fol-
lowing — was a trifle over $2 per bushel ; the 12 bush-
els necessary to produce 100 pounds of live hogs,
$24, or $9.50 more than the price suggested for live
hogs.

How many manufacturers would continue to make
any line of goods in which the raw material was worth
40 per cent, to 60 per cent, more than the finished
product? None. They would be impelled, for self-
preservation, to sell the raw material. Nevertheless,
partly through patriotism, but chiefly because 40 per

32 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

cent, of their com was too soft to be marketed in any
other way, the farmers continued to feed hogs ; so the
evil effects were not immediately felt, but will be
keenly felt when too late to apply a remedy.

If the Meat Division of the Food Administration
had no authority to change the price at that time, by
what authority did it expect to change it later? But,
as the bulletin further recites : " We shall establish
a rigid control of the packers " — it seems to be
estopped from denying authority. The commission
recommended that these prices should be announced
as going into effect February i, 191 8, for the reason
that by so doing it would encourage fall breeding and
arrest the alarming slaughter of brood sows.

The result of the above was, as the commission
feared, that farmers continued to rush pigs and brood
sows to market. The records of the South Omaha
Stock Yards show that more pigs were received dur-
ing the month of November than during any previous
November in the history of the yards. At the same
time, the average weight of hogs received was 260
pounds — the heaviest average for any November in
seven years. These two facts alone (without other
evidence, of which there is an abundance) tend to
prove that the brood animals were being slaughtered
by thousands. Allowing for the light average weight
of pigs, the other hogs received must have averaged
approximately 300 pounds.

From Table No. i it will be seen that during the
year 19 13, prior to the original declaration of war,
there was, on a cost basis of 12 bushels of corn
to 100 pounds of live hogs, a profit of $.95 to the

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 33

farmer. On the same basis, since November i, 191 7,
there has been a constant loss averaging over 20 per
cent, on all hogs sold. They brought that much less
than the corn fed was worth on the market.

During thirty-one years prior to November i, 191 7,
when Mr. J. P. Cotton, Head of the Meat Division
of the Food Administration, assumed control of the
packing industry, there was but one year in which the
average price of live hogs in South Omaha was lower
than the ratio of 10 to i. During the eight months
since he took control, as will be seen by Table No. i,
the monthly average price of 100 pounds of live hogs
has been equivalent to only 9.86 bushels of com.

In the circular above referred to, Mr. Cotton further
says, " We have had, and shall have, advice of a board
of practical hog growers and experts." ..." That
board has given its judgment that to bring the stock
of hogs back to normal under present conditions, the
ratio should be about 13 to i." (The price of 100
pounds of live hogs equivalent to the current price of
13 bushels of No. 2 com). . . . "We shall establish
rigid control of the packers." Why, with this " rigid
control of the packers," should the price ratio of live
hogs go almost at once to, and remain at, a ratio of less
than 10 to I, instead of 13 to i, as recommended by
the commission of " practical hog growers and ex-
perts," and which commission has " given its judg-
ment that to bring the stock of hogs back to normal
under present conditions, the ratio should be about 13
to I " ? In short, why, during the past seven months
were the farmers compelled to receive $4.50 to $5.50
per 100 pounds less for their hogs than the commission

34 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

had decided they should receive — less than the corn
fed them was worth in the market ?

What were the conditions confronting the country
at date the report and circular referred to were issued ?
First: A corn crop that promised not to exceed 60
per cent, of normal in food value. Second : A h«)g
supply at least 25 per cent, to 30 per cent, below evi-
dent needs. Third: A proposed augmentation of
our fighting forces to one million or more, and an in-
evitable tremendously increased demand for food by
our Allies. Fourth : A record of extortionate profits
in the packing industry and other distributing agencies
of food stuffs. In view of the above, the Department
of Agriculture, and the Congressional Committees re-
sponsible for agricultural legislation, were not blame-
less in permitting such conditions to continue, especially
when the food situation was so critical. This simply
demonstrates what meager attention is paid to vital
matters pertaining to agriculture.

So far as I know, the reports of every other com-
mission created by Federal authority have been given
the widest publicity, and have been seriously consid-
ered by a congressional committee, or similar high
authority. Among all my acquaintances, I have not
been able to find more than three or four who had seen
a copy of the commission's report above referred to.
In response to requests, both the offices of the Secre-
tary of Agriculture and the Food Administration at
Washington reported they had none. Why not?
So far as I know, neither Congress nor any of its
committees have seriously considered or acted upon
this tremendously important report. Why not? It

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 35

concerns the largest and most basic of all our in-
dustries, and directly affects practically every farmer
north of the Mason-Dixon line. Every one of the
millions of consumers has a right to know whether
the exorbitant price paid for meat goes to stimulate
the industry, and thus by increasing production re-
duces the price; or if it goes to swell the already over-
filled pockets of the profiteers, discouraging production
and increasing prices. Would not the feeling of an-
tipathy of the consumer, paying what he thinks ex-
tortionate prices for meat, toward the farmers be less
if he knew that they have received no profit on hog
feeding during the war — that is, the corn fed them
was worth more than the hog brought?

As the circular sent out by the Head of the Meat
Division of the Food Administration was dated No-
vember 3, 191 7 — about six days later than the date
of the commission's report, October 27, 19 17, — what
time was there for others than himself (and that very
scant) seriously to consider that report; and who is
the Head of the Meat Division of the Food Admin-
istration, and what his experience to qualify him so
summarily to pass upon a report that required weeks,
if not months, in its preparation — a report whose
subject directly affects, either as a consumer or a
producer, more than 98 per cent, of the American
people ? Would either organized capital, or organized
labor, submit in silence to such treatment of a report
made by a Federal Commission directly affecting its
interests ? Have they ever been put to the test ?

** Porkless Days " should not have been discon-
tinued. The enforced slaughter of brood animals and

36 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM '

pigs foreshadows a shortage of hog supply. A
greatly increased demand by both our armies and our
Allies during the coming year is sure.

The above, or anything I may say, is not intended
as a criticism of Mr. Hoover, the able Head of the
Food Administration, who has brought to that monu-
mental task superb business ability, and the highest
degree of patriotism; but instead, to challenge atten-
tion to the fact that both those in and out of Con-
gress, who should have aided and cooperated with
him, because of inefficiency, ignorance or indifference,
failed to give him such support as would insure the
highest degree of success in this all-important Depart-
ment of our war activities.

As another example of this inefficient aid, I would
say that in January, 1918, a letter was addressed to
the Food Administration, saying that during the last
years of the Civil War, sorghum, raised by themselves,
constituted 90 per cent, of the sweets consumed by
the farmers even as far north as Southern Wisconsin ;
not only did it supply them, but any surplus always
found ready sale in the cities and towns; suggesting
that the Food Department, in a circular, urge the
farmers to resume this practice; with brief sugges-
tions as to its planting, culture, care, etc. ; to the end
that the sugar situation, then critical, might be re-
lieved. In response to this letter, one was received
written by a subordinate in the office of the Food Ad-
ministrator, saying among other things, that " the
question of sorghum and molasses production had
been frequently presented to our attention "... but
that the Department " Have not felt justified in con-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 37

stituting a National ' campaign ' to stimulate its pro-
duction, our reasons being that from reliable statistics,
it is apparent at this time that the sugar supply for
the United States will be practically normal for the
coming year," etc.

Supposing the sugar supply should become normal,
what of it? What harm if our farmers should begin
this practice of thrift and economy, and produce their
own sweets ? I fail to see how such a situation could
be harmful to any one unless it be to the sugar trust.
Half the year is gone, and the sugar situation grows
more critical.

In passing, I would say this " campaigning " the
farmers is an idea that came into practice only after
political and commercial interests had acquired undue
influence, if not control, of the State Agricultural
Schools, as well as the Department of Agriculture.
Why should suggestions from callow youths and
broken-down politicians have more influence with the
farmers than the advice of Mr. Hoover, whom they all
respect ?

CHAPTER VIII

Any one familiar with the pork industry knows that
the average hog seldom acquires a weight of 260
pounds before it is a year old, and also that it is quite
as seldom that any, except brood animals, are allowed
to attain that age on the farm. Every brood sow
slaughtered during the ninety days following this re-
port means a shortage of eight to ten marketable hogs
during the next eighteen months.

In the past, every time the price of 100 pounds of
live hogs approximated the value of 13.3 bushels of
com, this condition has been followed by a marked
increase in both quantity and quality of hogs mar-
keted. And every time it has gone appreciably below
that, there has been a corresponding decline in both.
During the year 19 10, reasonable profits prevailed,
the price of 100 pounds of live hogs approximating
that of the average price of 13.3 bushels of No. 2
com. The effect of this fair profit was reflected in
the increased number of hogs marketed the following
year — 191 1. In five of the leading packing centers,
this increase amounted to 4,516,000 head — 35 per
cent. — or approximately a ten million increase for
the entire country. During 191 1, the price of hogs
dropped below the 13.3 ratio, resulting in a reduction
of 512,000 in the number of hogs received during 191 2

38

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 39

at these same five packing centers, and this too in
spite of a marked increase in price during 19 12.

The influence of this ratio of price to cost may be
traced in the markets of this country for at least sev-
enty years. On the first day of January, 1861, the
price of 100 pounds of Hve hogs was equivalent to
the price of 17.7 bushels of corn. Among the first
effects of the Civil War was the cutting off of our
chief pork markets — the Southern States. This re-
sulted first in throwing the price of hogs far below
the proper ratio of 13.3 bushels of com to 100 pounds
of hogs. Then, as during the three months following
November i, 19 17, pigs and brood animals were
rushed to market, and the stock of hogs reduced on
every fann. A meat famine ensued, and it was not
long before 100 pounds of live hogs sold, not for the
equivalent of 13.3 bushels of com, but for the equiva-
lent of the value of 26.6 bushels of com, or equal to
$49.50 per hundred weight at present price of corn.
Such a meat famine now would be disastrous to our
armies and endanger our sacred cause. Like effects
from similar causes might be noted in wheat and other
food products.

Can we afford to take such tremendous hazards?
Why should we not offer every possible stimulant for
an increase of this indispensable food?

As in all other war necessities, the paramount ques-
tion should not be what food may cost, but can and
will it be produced in sufficient quantities? I approve
every step taken toward conservation of food; but we
can neither conserve, nor can our country comman-
deer, for our armies, grain from fields that are not

40 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

tilled, nor meat animals from empty pastures. In-
creased food production must be stimulated. Con-
servation alone can not attain the desired end.

To those who think a food crisis an impossibility,
I would say that based upon the Government and other
estimates there was early in 191 8 a general belief that
a vast amount of wheat remained in the farmers*
hands, and a feeling that they should be compelled
to disgorge. Protests were particularly vehement
concerning the Nebraska farmers until in April, 19 18,
when an invoice was made of the Nebraska farmers'
granaries. As a result, approximately 400,000 bush-
els of wheat were found. Quite a bit of wheat, but
not quite enough to feed her civil population for three
weeks — about one-quarter enough to re-seed her
fields. With this condition in the second wheat pro-
ducing State in the Union, where for twenty years
wheat has of all cereals been the most profitable, what
must be the condition in other States where this crop
has been of little or no profit? An invoice of the corn
cribs of the country would, in my opinion, result in
a still greater surprise. Our armies and Allies can-
not subsist on exaggerated estimates and rose-colored
crop predictions.

CHAPTER IX

An analysis of beef production discloses similai
conditions to those of pork, except perhaps in those
areas in the West and Southwest, where cattle may
be grazed the entire year on free range or very cheap
land. Under such conditions, the labor element is re-
duced to the minimum, and the expense of housing
and machinery is nominal. These areas should be de-
voted exclusively to the breeding and preparing of
cattle for the feed yards — the cattle to be fattened
on the farms in the corn growing section. This plan
would have been followed, as a matter of course, had
not the meat industry been monopolized, which elimi-
nated profits in the feeding business.

The Food Administration should at once appoint
a competent commission thoroughly to classify all cat-
tle. To the end, first, that the farmer may know
in just what class any animal he has belongs — hence,
what price it should bring. At present, he can hardly
make a rational guess.

In an investigation made, when the grading bill
was before Congress, it was alleged that the elevators
were buying millions of bushels of grain as of one
grade, and shipping it out and selling the same on a
much higher grade, thus deceiving and defrauding
the farmers, and misleading and imposing upon the
consumers. The packers seem to have been following

41

42 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

a similar plan in the meat industry. For a very few
choice cattle, a high price is frequently paid. This
is given the widest publicity, and in every shop it is
given as the reason for the high price of beef to
people who never tasted this high class of beef — the
meats sold them generally coming from a class of cat-
tle for which the farmers received little or no more
than one-half the price quoted.

The consuming public, as well as the farmer, from
daily market quotations, should know the number and
percentage of each class of animals sold, and the price
paid for same at the stock yards; that the one may
know what his stock should bring, and the other what
his meat should cost. These grades being established,
the Government, during the war at least, should pro-
hibit the slaughter of certain classes of immature and
un fattened animals. The result of this would at first
work apparent hardship. Consumers might, for a
time, have to pay higher prices, but for a better class
of meat; the farmer, obliged to sell non-slaughterable
cattle, probably would find a poorer market. But
these conditions would only be temporary. The stim-
ulus given to the feeders would rapidly increase the
amount of wholesome beef, and that in turn would
stimulate the prices of young and undeveloped ani-
mals. The Administration being able to detect and
eliminate vicious practices in the trade, our farmers
would soon be producing an abundance of meat to be
sold on the block at lower prices, still leaving them a
fair profit, instead of sustaining heavy losses, as in
recent years. From the standpoint of production,
meat must always be an expensive food, as compared

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 43

with cereals. This is obvious, from the greater
amount of work, cost of housing and risk of loss from
disease and accident.

Our country cannot, however, afford to discourage
meat as a diet, if we expect the American people to
maintain their present virility. In every nation,
where soil impoverishment has rendered meat produc-
tion impossible, its people have become physically
dwarfed, and their mentality sluggish, — as in India,
China, etc.

CHAPTER X

Attempted legislation for the alleged benefit of
agriculture, or to assist the farmer, has been very lit-
tle — the good results less — the " Betterment of
Agriculture " almost invariably being made secondary
and subservient to commercial or political interests.
In most instances, these bills were not primarily for
the " Betterment of Agriculture," but only because of
the influence the name ** farmer " might have in secur-
ing the enactment of laws, was agriculture connected
with them at all.

By the much lauded " Homestead Act," Congress
changed a national liability to a national asset. Most
of the lands available under the Act were beyond the
Missouri River, where vast sums were annually re-
quired to protect traffic and mail routes from the In-
dians. The homesteaders replaced the soldiers, and
under revenue and tariff laws at once began to pay
taxes. Incidentally the Homestead Law removed all
competition from the Railroad Land Grant lands.
The two bills were before Congress at the same time.
If one doubts this inference, or thinks it far-fetched,
he should read the Act of Congress amending the
Homestead Act passed in 1879, just as the influx of
homesteaders into this section began. This Act de-
prived the homesteader of his right to claim one hun-
dred and sixty acres of land as provided by the orig-

44

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 45

inal Act, except to those lands outside of the twenty-
mile strip — ten miles along each side of the railroad
bed. If inside that strip, it was reduced to eighty
acres. The Railroad Land Grant conveyed to the
railroads only the alternate, or odd numbered, sec-
tions within ten miles of the right of way. The even
numbered sections and all other agricultural lands
were withdrawn from sale and retained by the Gov-
ernment for homesteads only. Hence, the Govern-
ment had estopped itself from reaping any pecuniary
benefits from the advance selling price of these lands.
On no theory of the *' Betterment of Agriculture "
can this amendment be justified.

Then, as now, the intelligent farmer knew that,
though he might exist upon eighty acres, he could
never make a home suitable for an American citizen,
and rear his family on less than one hundred and sixty
acres. This is obvious, as these lands are fifteen to
eighteen hundred miles from consuming centers or
tide water, where the prices of farm products are
fixed. Hence, only by producing large volumes to be
sold on small margins of profit could he or his suc-
cessors hope to acquire a competency or to maintain
a home. The homesteader was thus driven beyond
the ten-mile limit to exercise his right to one hundred
and sixty acres of land. Except to benefit the Land
Grant landowners, why should our Government have
not only permitted, but encouraged, people to make
these early settlements as compact and as near to rail-
roads as possible, where the expense and trouble of
marketing would be reduced to the minimum, and
where schools and churches could be more readily

46 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

and inexpensively established and maintained? Few,
if any, phases of pioneer life in the West were more
pathetic than those brought about by this Act of 1879.
Because of it, the early homesteader, when in need of
medical aid, food, fuel, etc., or when he had produce
to market, was forced to drive through rain, snow,
heat and cold, twenty miles over a wilderness with no
roads, save trails leading through canyons, along
bluffs, across streams, frequently unbridged. If not
for the purpose of enhancing the value and expediting
the sale of the Land Grant lands, why was this law
enacted? As to the value of these lands, this was
measured by the price of land scrip, then a drug on
the market, at from forty to sixty cents an acre —
$64 to $96 per homestead.

On the other hand, labor (organized) for more
than two decades, has been the most conspicuous sub-
ject before Congress. Most of this legislation has
been detrimental to agriculture. It has increased the
wage, raised the tariff, adding cost to every manufac-
tured article purchased, whether domestic or imported.
It prevented the farmers or farming community from
offering any encouragement to the right sort of im-
migrant. Had our present Immigration Law been in
force when the Railroad Land Grant lands were placed
on the market, one-half of the transcontinental lines
would not have been built, and Kansas, Nebraska, the
Dakotas and Wyoming would have been largely a
wilderness, still occupied by the buffalo and Indians.
These railway companies placed before the best rural
peoples of Europe what America had to offer to the
industrious people of the world, no odds how poor.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 47

holding out as an inducement to come, low passenger
rates, free transportation of household goods, etc., etc.
They came in thousands, and out of these immigrants
have been built some of the most prosperous, loyal
cities and farming communities of the West.

But for vicious changes in our immigration laws,
the best States in the Com Belt would not have been
losing their rural population during the last two dec-
ades, nor the annual yield per acre of cereals on our
comparatively new lands would not have been con-
stantly growing less, while the fields, — soil-worn for
a thousand years, — in France, Germany and other
European countries, were increasing their yields, and
our laboring masses would have been better fed and at
lower prices.

CHAPTER XI

Passing many other legislative acts, we come to
that of establishing the Federal Land Banks, the al-
leged purpose of which is also the " Betterment of
Agriculture."

When the question of establishing a new national
banking system was before Congress, the best bankers
throughout the country were taken into the councils,
as well as into the confidence, of our law-makers.
Congressional committees seemed always glad to re-
ceive suggestions, called in bankers of experience,
great and small, from all quarters of the country.
The counsel of these practical business men of expe-
rience in that particular line did more to bring about
a better banking system — one which seems to re-
spond to every emergency — than any Congressional
Committee, without such efficient aid, could have evier
secured. When the system was established from
among these bankers, and following their counsel, and
in keeping with the consensus of opinion of all bank-
ers, men were selected to organize, supervise and con-
trol it.

In the creation of the Federal Land Bank system,
none of these steps were followed to any perceptible
extent. I have never heard of a man of high stand-
ing, large and long experience in the farm mortgage
business, who was called before the Congressional

48

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 49

Committee, or summoned to hearings held throughout
the country ostensibly to gather information as to its
desirability or method of operation. On the con-
trary, the men so called seemed to be selected from
among those most likely to favor the scheme, usually
job hunting pohticians, land boomers, or impecunious
farmers or renters, who desired greater credit for
themselves. Nor, so far as I can learn, v^ere the men
chosen to organize and control these institutions se-
lected from men of large experience and responsibil-
ity in the farm mortgage business. When the several
Federal Land Banks were organized, they were not
to cooperate, but to compete, with men and concerns
already engaged in the legitimate farm mortgage busi-
ness. The first bid for popularity was that they would
loan more money on the same security than the es-
tablished mortgage agencies and would loan to a class
of people whose credit was not satisfactory to those
established institutions. Who can conceive of the
chaotic conditions of our national finances at this
moment, had the new banking system been so organ-
ized, established and conducted, that it is not in coop-
eration, but in competition, with the established banks,
holding out as an attractive feature that they would
loan more money on the same basis of security than
the old banks had found safe, and to a class of people
who had not earned a credit with the older banks?
But that is just what the Federal Land Banks did.

Before, during and ever since the farm mortgage
boom of thirty years ago, the farm loans were based
and restricted to one-third of the total value of the
land and buildings. The Federal institutions prom-

50 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

ised to loan 50 per cent, of the value of the lands, and
in addition 20 per cent, of the existing or proposed
improvements. These promises as to liberal amounts
have been generously kept.

During the farm mortgage boom of thirty to thirty-
five years ago, able men with abundance of capital,
high credit and years of business experience in other
lines, organized farm loaning concerns, such as the
Lombard Investment Company, the Equitable Trust
Company, the Jarvis-Conkling Company, and a mul-
titude of others. These had among their officers and
directorates bankers and merchants of the highest busi-
ness standing, and an abundance of capital and credit.
Practically every one of these companies have failed
or gone out of business — the few that survived were
scarcely sufficient for " the exception which proves
the rule." These monumental failures were brought
about chiefly, if not solely, because men in whose
hands the management of these concerns fell were
without experience in the farm mortgage business, and
were ignorant of those fundamental facts and condi-
tions upon which farmers' credit should be based.
This is proven by the fact that scores of individuals
and corporations then in the farm mortgage business
passed through the panic of 1893, ^^^ depression and
the delirium of 1896, with practically no losses; and
before the depression following that panic had entirely
passed away, resumed the farm mortgage business,
and have ever since continued with increasing vigor
and success. Among these might be named Pearson
& Taft, of Chicago; Burnham, Trevitt & Mattis, of
Illinois; Anthony Brothers, of Peoria, Illinois; R. E.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 5 1

Moore, of Lincoln, Nebraska; Iowa Loan & Trust
Company, of Des Moines, Iowa; Mutual Benefit Life
Insurance Company, of Newark, New Jersey; the
Connecticut General; Connecticut Mutual; and ^tna
Life Insurance Companies, of Hartford, Connecticut,
and scores of other firms, individuals and corpora-
tions.

Of the ultimate of this government experiment in
the farm mortgage business, I express no opinion.
However, its present stage of development seems to
have disclosed two facts. First : As an intermediary
between borrower and lender, it is the most expensive
that ever existed in this country. Second : That the
public at large is not inclined to support it by the pur-
chase of its bonds to the extent it was anticipated, so
it seems to have become necessary for Congress to
appropriate $200,000,000 to be invested in these bonds
during the next two years. As our Government was
at that time borrowing money at from three and one-
half to four per cent, interest, and this is now being
loaned to the farmers at five and one-half per cent, in-
terest, it is not difficult to figure out the cost of the
governmental machinery in making the transfer of
funds to borrower from lender. In addition to this
tremendous margin between the rate received by the
lender and that paid by the borrower — one and one-
half per cent, to two per cent, per annum — in the
beginning, the Government subscribed approximately
$9,000,000; that is, $750,000 to the capital stock of
each of the twelve Banks, upon which no interest is
to be received ; and also assumed the payment of cer-
tain salaries and other expenses. If our farmers were

52 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

really lacking in credit, which they were not, and it
became necessary for our Government to extend such
aid to them, why add to the farmers' burdens an un-
necessary cost? In my opinion, and I speak advis-
edly, there is not a responsible firm doing an extensive
and reputable farm loan business, but what would be
more than willing, if the Government had funds for
the purpose, to take this money and loan it to the
farmers at four and one-half per cent, instead of five
and one-half; make no charge either to the farmers
or Government, but in lieu of all other remuneration
for time and expenses, accept one-half of one per cent,
per annum on the face of each loan, to be paid to
him as the interest was collected. Thus the farmer
would be saved one to one and one-half per cent, per
annum on interest, and the Government could with-
draw its $9,000,000 capital, and incidentally cut off
all expenses for salaries, office rent, stationery, ad-
vertising, etc.

This method would furnish a greater guarantee,
and secure better loans than any yet devised. First,
because none but firms solidly established in the busi-
ness could afford to wait three to five years before re-
ceiving any profit — it would be that long before cash
out of interest received would be equal to the accumu-
lated expense of the business. In case the company
(brokers) failed, the one-half of one per cent, on all
the outstanding loans would cover the expense of care
and collection of them. As to the safety of his loans,
no broker without the utmost confidence in his secur-
ity would do business on this basis, and with such
loans, he would be extra conservative.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 53

What does this one per cent, of extra and absolutely
unnecessary rate mean?, It means that the farmers
pay at least $2,000,000 per annum additional interest.
As the Land Bank loans mature in from five to twenty
years — an average of about twelve and a half years
— these borrowers during that time must pay $25,-
000,000 for the privilege, or as a penalty, of having
this business conducted by political appointees, instead
of by responsible men with long years of experience
in that particular line of business. One's head swims
when he attempts to compute the amount of this un-
necessary burden, when, as they anticipate, the Fed-
eral Land Banks shall have placed upon its books
$4,000,000,000 in farm mortgages. How much will
this $40,000,000 per annum and the millions to follow
increase food production, or aid in the " Betterment
of Agriculture"? But this is a fair sample of the
so-called " Farm Legislation."

CHAPTER XII

It may be suggested that the law as enacted pro-
vides for privately incorporated banks, but two of its
provisions are fatal to the successful conducting of
their business. First: The volume loaned must not
exceed fifteen times the amount of the capital stock.
That means that when this capital has been turned
over fifteen times, which should not require to exceed
three to four years, the bank must wait indefinitely
without income — that is, face a suspension of profits,
but continue the expense of caring for the business,
collecting interest, seeing that taxes are paid, etc., for
an indefinite period. The other is the guaranteeing
of loans made. Large capitalization and guarantees
have in the past invariably proven to be ropes of sand
binding a camouflage to conceal doubtful securities.
More than 98 per cent, of all losses sustained by in-
vestors in mortgages after the collapse of the farm
mortgage boom of thirty to thirty-five years ago, were
on guaranteed mortgages.

The losses on unguaranteed mortgages were almost
infinitesimal. It is easy to see how this should be so.
The honorable man of sanguine temperament will
take greater hazard on an investment for which he
himself becomes directly liable and believes himself
responsible, than on an investment for another made
upon honor. Another reason why the guaranteeing

54

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 55

of mortgages is unwise is that practically no defaults
occur during normal times, when crops and prices are
fair, and plenty of money available. The farmer,
under such conditions, can always borrow money to
pay his coupon. If not, he can usually find some one,
as many do, from whom he can borrow sufficient to
pay the existing mortgage and defaulted interest on
same.

Such general defaults and foreclosure eras have
been far removed from each other — twenty to thirty
years. They are then precipitated as the result of
overstrained credit, crop failure, low prices, or general
financial depression, and come all at once. Before
the climax is reached, the guarantors have exhausted
their resources in cashing defaulted coupons, and are
forced out of business — a most unfortunate thing
for the investor, as the judicious care of loans at such
a time is of vastly more value to him than the de-
faulted interest already advanced. Why exact a guar-
antee from men of responsibility and long experience
in that particular line, and not from irresponsible and
inexperienced political appointees?

Under the Farm Land Bank Act, each borrower is
compelled to invest five per cent, of his borrowings
in the Land Bank Stock, which carries a double lia-
bility. This could be retained by the Government on
loans made through private agencies, instead of held
by banks as now. The liability on this stock, how-
ever, will, if default be made, prove of little worth.
No Congress would fail to give relief to these bor-
rowers from an unwarranted liability imposed under
semi-duress. There is nothing in precedent or busi-

56 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

ness prudence that justifies the guaranteeing of a farm
mortgage. The investors who relied on it almost in-
variably lost; those who did not, seldom lost.

The Rural Credit System, so far as I am able to ob-
serve, has not increased the supply of food stuffs in
the slightest degree. It will, however, if carried to
its proposed objective, place an absolutely unnecessary
fixed charge of $40,000,000 to be paid every year by
the farmer borrowers as long as their mortgages run ;
and at the same time place $4,000,000,000 of presum-
ably untaxable securities in the hands of profiteers,
who should be paying taxes and buying Liberty Bonds.
Appai ently, in many localities, a very considerable pro-
portion of these loans are made to take up and increase
loans already resting upon the farms. The surplus is
chiefly devoted to either absorb the accumulated short-
age in farm operation, or for speculation. On the
other hand, it has materially increased farm land spec-
ulation, has added a new impetus to the already over-
stimulated land boom, which will ultimately prove
more disastrous than any previous one, for the reason
that the worst effect of every boom is that it engen-
ders a distaste for legitimate business, — more disas-
trous, not only because it includes a vastly larger class
than was included in previous booms, but because it
affects our basic and creative industry. Whenever
farmers are either unable or unwilling to buy goods,
all activities between the farm and the factory are
checked, if not completely arrested, and depression, if
not panic, follows.

It was the evident intent and purpose of the Law
creating Federal Land Banks, that credit to be ex-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 57

tended and money to be loaned was only to farmers
— those actually cultivating the land mortgaged.
This construction was logical, and the one put upon
the law prior to a meeting of the presidents of the Fed-
eral Land Banks at St. Louis recently. Returning
from that meeting, the president of the Omaha Fed-
eral Land Bank is quoted in the press as saying, among
other things, " They have decided to place no limita-
tion on the sale of farm lands; in other words, our
borrowers have a right to sell when and where they
please; the purchaser may run the farm or rent it or
do anything he likes with the land." ..." It gives us
a freer hand in making loans, and it takes off limita-
tions that have frightened borrowers." All of which
are a tremendous advantage to the speculators, invites
fraud, — " straw " borrowers, etc. — and indicates, as I
have suggested, that the system is giving an added
impetus to the " land boom," and that those interested
in land speculation were a potent factor in securing
the enactment of the law.

CHAPTER XIII

For the first time, class consciousness is rapidly de-
veloping among the American farmers. Whether this
shall be for the weal or woe of our country will depend
upon the mental condition of those people when this
consciousness becomes articulate. If that voice speaks
only of discontent, our free institutions will be in
danger. For whenever any man, or class of men, take
into their hands the redress of their own wrongs, it
ceases to be redress, and at once becomes reprisal, if
not revenge. That mental condition will depend
largely upon their financial condition.

As I have stated elsewhere, the financial condition
of the American farmer has not improved during the
last twenty fruitful years, and especially during the
last six years. Their patriotism is repressing, but not
eliminating, the tremendous discontent among them.
This discontent grows constantly worse. Among our
other laboring masses, discontent is evidenced by their
incessant strikes and their loud protests against the
cost of living, which they claim has been increasing
at a vastly greater ratio than the increase in wage.
These things are ominous, and speak volumes concern-
ing present marketing and future social conditions.
As I have heretofore asserted, in no country in Eu-
rope, during the last two decades, have the farmers
received so little for their produce, and the consumer

58

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 59

paid so much for their food stuffs, as in this country.

My plea is not for the farmer alone, but for our
whole people. The underfeeding of the masses, and
the splitting into classes, because of alleged wrongs,
has been the beginning of the end of every republic
throughout the world's history. Until victory is won,
patriotic loyalty will not be found wanting in the
individuals of our producing or our consuming classes.
But if after peace negotiations have begun, discontent
among these two great classes, both wearied of war
and dissatisfied with the net results of their labor
and the unnecessarily heavy burdens placed upon them,
as compared with those of the mercantile classes, shall
clamor for a peace, " when there is no peace," and
demand that any cessation of war is better than its
continuance, forcing our Administration into a peace
that is not a complete peace, carrying with it perma-
nent and complete liberty for all peoples, it will be a
calamity to the race. In time of peace, our country
failed to prepare for war. Shall we repeat the folly
by failing in time of war to prepare for peace ?

At present, when every good citizen is keenly alive
to the necessity and value of loo per cent. American-
ism, it is an opportune moment to inaugurate and
press forward a movement in that direction.

Mr. Roosevelt is quoted in a recent speech as sug-
gesting that foreigners unable to read and speak our
language should not be permitted to vote; that five
years' residence here should be the limit allowed in
which to acquire our language; and if not done within
that time, the foreigner should be forever barred
from becoming an American citizen; that after the

60 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

war laws should be enacted accordingly. Why after
the war? Should not the five years' previous resi-
dence, as well as the intellectual qualifications, apply
to all foreign bom — those now here, as well as those
to come in the future?

It takes vastly less time to master our language than
to comprehend, absorb and become embued with the
true spirit of American institutions. Why wait until
after the war for such legal enactments ?

The inherent weakness of all democracies has been
mental inertia — a tendency to act on collective im-
pulse, whose origin is suggestion — instead of from
individual investigation and reason. If these sug-
gestions be sinister, the results are pernicious. Hyp-
notism of the crowd is the most prolific source of mal-
legislation.

Immediately after victory, our nation will be con-
fronted with the most complex, difficult and far-
reaching economic and social questions ever submitted
to a people. It will be unfortunate, beyond words to
express, if at that time the balance of voting power
rests with citizens of foreign birth and parentage —
ignorant of our history, traditions and the fundamen-
tal principles of our Government. Had a vote been
taken sixty days before, or even sixty days after, we
entered the war, these foreigners, following the few
noisy pacifists, would have placed our nation in the
list of neutrals ; not because the immigrants were pro-
German or pro-Ally, but simply because they were
anti-war, utterly unable to comprehend the difference
between a war of aggression and conquest, and a war
for defense and liberty.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 6 1

After peace is declared, the mental and moral fiber
of nations will be subjected to the supreme test. In-
ternal reconstruction — readjustment of classes and
the establishment of individual rights — must come.
Unless our people comprehend more clearly, and think
more logically on questions of government and human
rights than other peoples have in the past, is not our
Republic likely to follow its predecessors — a flaming
meteor on the sky-line of oblivion? But I have an
abiding faith in the American people, and because of
them, " liberty shall not perish from the earth."
Should not those in position of influence and authority
be helping to prepare our people for this momentous
epoch in the world's history ?

Our post-bellum questions will be vastly more diffi-
cult to understand, and hence offer a more promising
field for the political demagogue, and these — you
may rest assured — will be here in abundance, as un-
fortunately men of their fiber are not on the firing line
and race suicide will never reach that class.

CHAPTER XIV

For more than a century, colored slaves did all man-
ual labor on the farms in the South, and it seems diffi-
cult, if not impossible, for the Southern statesmen to
differentiate between that race — whose origin was
the jungle and whose education was under the mas-
ter's lash — and the American farmer, whose origin
was among the most God-fearing, liberty-loving
classes in the civilized world, and whose education has
been broader and deeper than that of the masses of
any other nation or class of laborers in the world's
history. They continue to look upon , the American
farmers as, if not in part and parcel, at least analogous
to the ex-slave — his psychology materially different
from that of other men — an element to be used, but
always restrained — kept down. This attitude to-
wards manual laborers — and especially field labor-
ers— this fading stain of slavery on Southern men-
tality, may be observed in nearly every legislative ac-
tion looking to the " Betterment of Agriculture."
For example: On the vote to make the so-called
minimum price of wheat — in fact, the maximum
price in effect — $2.50 per bushel, of the members
from nine leading Southern States, are reported as six
voting for and sixty-two against giving the farmer a
possibility of profit on his crop. The measure was

defeated by a majority of only twenty-seven.

62

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 63

Sugar and cotton are war essentials, the same as
wheat and wool. The producer's price on the latter
two are restricted; on the former two, it is unre-
stricted. Why, if not because the cotton and cane
fields are owned by the " planters " — the forefront
and bulwark of Southern aristocracy, — and have been
for a hundred years; the wheat fields and pastures
owned by farmers — field hands? High price of cot-
ton in 1914-15 was $10.38. High price 1917-18,
$34.10 — approximately 230 per cent, increase. Av-
erage price of wheat 1914-15, $1,165; Gore Amend-
ment as passed (and vetoed), $2.40; approximately
130 per cent, increase.

I have taken at random nine Northern States,
which, in 191 5, produced an aggregate of 649,949,000
bushels of wheat. The average consumption per cap-
ita in those States was 6.24 bushels. Ten Southern
States, taken at random, produced in 191 5, an aggre-
gate of 77,800,000, with the average consumption per
capita in those States of 4.54 bushels. Why should
those Southern Congressmen, representing people who
produce and consume so little and who had so little
knowledge of wheat growing, so over-whelmingly
defeat this measure? Neither from a standpoint of
consumption nor the standpoint of production were
they justified in exercising such arbitrary power.
It has been the votes of those least qualified to
know, and least disposed to care concerning the
matter, that have usually defeated every bill for
the " Betterment of Agriculture." These Congress-
men being familiar with those industries, were, in
my opinion, doubtless justified in preventing any re-

64 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

striction being placed upon cotton and sugar. By
the same token, Congressmen from the chief wheat
producing States, in a position to know better than
others agricultural conditions in their respective locali-
ties, should have been deferred to in Legislation con-
cerning those commodities. Any restriction of cot-
ton, wool or food stuffs, is, in my opinion, a mistake.
There has never existed a Nation, whose masses were
too well clad or surfeited with wholesome food.

On the other hand, our profiteers look upon the
farmers as the largest unorganized class, and, there-
fore, furnishing the broadest and richest field for ex-
ploitation. These two influences have usually been
sufficient to defeat or divert broad, intelligent legisla-
tion, helpful to agriculture. Again, Congress has
been handicapped by the lack of reliable and accurate
information, which should have been furnished by the
Federal Department of Agriculture, the Agricultural
Departments of our State Universities, and others.
The discussions on the floors of Congress over the
bill to increase government price of wheat betrays
gross ignorance of our agricultural conditions.

So far as I can learn, all figures, compilations made
and conclusions reached by the Department of Agri-
culture on these subjects, have their origin in and are
based upon the accumulated " guesses "of men in each
township or precinct. These men neither survey the
land nor measure the grain. As a preliminary esti-
mate this may answer, but when all cereals are in the
granaries or cribs, our Food Administrator should have
positive and accurate knowledge of how much there
is of each cereal and where it is located, if he is to

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 65

successfully discharge the duties of his colossal trust.
To this end, every threshing machine, clover huller,
cotton gin, etc., should be required to secure a Federal
license. The license fees should be nominal, but the
failure to procure and furnish data, or the neglect to
follow and promptly comply with the rules and regu-
lations, should be subjected to severe penalty. With
each license, there should be sent a package of properly
printed post cards, addressed to the Food Administra-
tor's representative in the licensee's county. These
licensees should be required to fill out and mail one of
these daily, during the threshing season, giving the
exact number of bushels of each cereal threshed on
that date, estimated acres of grain, for whom, and the
owner's post-office address. As there is now a rural
mail box on practically every farm, less than five min-
utes daily of the thresher's time would be required to
fill out and mail these cards. The county agent should
tabulate these at the end of each week or month, and
transmit the results to the Food Administrator at
Washington. Thus, by November ist of each year,
the Food Administrator will know exactly the amount
of each cereal in the country, and just where it is lo-
cated. He would then not only be able to make defi-
nite plans, but to have each mill supplied with wheat
from the adjacent or nearest territory, thus making a
great saving of time, fuel, rolling stock and man-
power. The Food Administrator, if wheat deliveries
were slow, would know just what communities were
withholding their wheat, and the card index in the
hands of his county representative, in case requisitions
were necessary, would show exactly where each bushel

66 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

of wheat in his community was located. With this
system estabHshed, preliminary estimates would in
time become more accurate and valuable, as there
would be a positive check against them. As it is now,
they are of little or no value, because we have never
been able to know with any degree of accuracy the
number of bushels of any cereal produced in any par-
ticular year. We may find out how much has reached
the elevators, but there is not at present, nor has there
ever been, a way of knowing the amount retained upon
the farms for seed and home consumption, the amount
wasted, fed to stock, or amount sold to local mills.
Possibly other valuable information might be secured
at the same time, and means devised to secure authen-
tic data in regard to com, and I feel sure that a similar
plan might be worked out concerning our meat, and
other products. The cost would be nominal, the re-
sults of enormous value. Incidentally, this method
would interfere with the cornering of the cereal mar-
ket and the wholesale exploitation of food stuffs.
Conjectures by the Department of Agriculture have
been very expensive. In the past, false or erroneous
reports in regard to crop conditions and yields have
induced the farmers to hurry their grain to market,
only to find that a little later, when the bulk of the
crops was in the central elevators, the reports were
misleading and prices advanced.

A recent report of the Federal Trade Commission
throws light upon the ignorance, injustice or indiffer-
ence of Congressmen concerning the American farmer
or farming interests. In a dispatch to the Omaha
World-Herald dated Washington, June 29, 19 18, the

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 67

commission is quoted as saying in substance: That
the profits on milling increased from 12 per cent, for
the four years ending June 30, 19 16, to nearly 38 per
cent, for the year ending June 30, 191 7; and then in
quotation, presumably from the commission's report,
said, " These profits " — it is stated — " are indefensi-
ble, considering that an average profit of one mill for
six months of the year showed as high as $2 a barrel."
If these things be true, it is evident that the profiteers
were appropriating to themselves all and more than
would have gone to the farmers under the Gore
Amendment. The farmers fail to see how the taking
of money out of their own pockets and putting it into
the pockets of the profiteers savors of patriotism.
Possibly these Congressmen can explain. As the Gore
Amendment was before House and Senate for several
months, its passage vigorously contested by these
statesmen, and " these indefensible conditions " in
the milling business, according to the Federal Trade
Commission, continued for at least six months, these
Congressmen were estopped from pleading ignorance.
Will the Food Administration advance the price of
wheat, and thus stimulate production, or does it con-
sider this extravagant margin between price of wheat
to producer and cost of flour to the consumer as legiti-
mate plunder for the profiteers? The consumers
would rather pay a higher price for flour than to con-
tinue to pay the extortionate prices now exacted for its
inferior substitutes.

CHAPTER XV

Nothing touching the food question can be done so
mutually advantageous to both producers and consum-
ers as the enactment of a law creating and encourag-
ing grain elevators, analogous to the law for the
establishment, encouragement and supervision of
national banks. Not government-owned elevators, but
simply those authorized, licensed, encouraged and su-
pervised by the Government. These should be re-
quired to file reports, showing capital, assets and
liabilities, with the Food Administrator at Washing-
ton, and to publish these reports the same as the banks
now do at the call of the Comptroller of the Currency.
They should also be subject to inspection by Federal
examiners the same as the banks. These inspections
and reports would be much more effective, accurate
and valuable than those concerning the banks. Prac-
tically all that the reports to the Comptroller, made
either by the bank itself or by the National Examiner,
show is the face value of the paper held, not the intrin-
sic value of that paper.

One-tenth the time required to examine a bank
would be required to examine an elevator of the same
amount of assets, and these reports would be absolute,
not only as to the amount, but as to the quality of each
cereal. These warehouse certificates would be the
best of collateral and everywhere accepted, and would

68

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 69

give to the farmers, whether great or small, a credit
accordingly — a credit of real value to them, instead
of to the exploiters. Their funds would be available
when needed — interest stopped when the emergency-
passed. On account of the high cost of labor and ma-
terial, an almost infinitesimal percentage of our farm-
ers have suitable and permanent storage for their
grain. Hence, there is enormous waste. On the
other hand, if stored on the farms, it adds little or
nothing to their credit except locally. Therefore,
most of them are obliged to sell as soon as the grain
is harvested. Such a system would tend to a more
even distribution of sales of farm products through-
out the year, and check the sharp market fluctua-
tions, which are of advantage only to the profiteer.
Small mills would spring up as they did before dis-
criminating freight rates drove the small miller, and
with him the local storage warehouse, out of business.
In addition to discriminating rates and lack of storage
facilities, the country miller, during a large part of
the years, has to buy his grain from the elevators in
the large grain centers, subjecting him not only to the
expense of brokers' commission and profits, but to
freight on the grain to and from those centers.

It is an economic absurdity that a large percentage
of the flour consumed in such States as Iowa, Nebraska
and Illinois should be milled at Kansas City or Minne-
apolis, or other cities entirely outside of these States.

The trend of traffic in the United States is along
east and west lines, so except what little goes by the
Great Lakes during summer season, all food stuffs
produced west of the Great Lakes must be brought

70 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

south to get around Lake Michigan on its way to the
seaboard and our great consuming centers. So the
Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois wheat sent to Minneapolis
for milling, and later to the Eastern markets, must
be subjected to the unnecessary expense of freight to
and from the initial point to Minneapolis. Again, a
line east and west through the south point of Lake
Michigan is approximately the dividing line between
our winter and spring wheat areas, and as large
quantities are shipped from each area to the other
to be mixed in milling, this enormous expense can
be avoided by milling the grain near this dividing
line, or — during the war, at least — in the Allied
countries. They need the by-products, as well as the
flour.

As every one knows, these uneconomic practices
were the result of specially low rates north and south
to meet " river competition " — in other words, to rob
the public at large from the benefits of water trans-
portation on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
With government control of railroads, it would seem
that there was no longer any possible excuse for con-
tinuing this unnecessary burden upon producers and
consumers — taking from the selling price of the for-
mer or adding to the purchase price of the latter, and
continuing the waste of fuel, man-power and rolling
stock. As to the economy in milling, because of water
power, large capacity of mills, etc., one may not be an
expert, may even be a novice in the milling industry,
to see the fallacy of this theory. A few decades back,
local toll mills were all over the country, and few
States but what had laws governing them. In most

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 7 1

States, the miller's remuneration was restricted to one-
tenth to one-eighth of the wheat ground, or its equiva-
lent in money. From almost any railway station in
Nebraska, the freight to Minneapolis on a bushel of
wheat is more than one-eighth of its value, to say
nothing of the freight for returning the flour and by-
products— bran, middlings, etc. The average price
of wheat from 1893 to 191 5 inclusive in the Chicago
market was 88.3 cents per bushel. The freight on a
bushel of wheat from central Nebraska to Minneapolis
on rates quoted just prior to advance under Govern-
ment control was 13.74 cents per bushel, or one-sixth,
instead of one-eighth, the value of the wheat. The
same applies to the by-products — bran, shorts, mid-
dlings— indispensable to successful dairying. The
high cost of these commodities has practically driven
the small farmer out of the dairy business, resulting
in an increased cost of milk, butter and cheese to the
consuming public. Thus it is seen that larger profits
to the farmer do not necessarily mean higher prices to
the consumer. In fact, with marketing conditions
such as obtained before the war in nearly all European
countries, the price of food stuffs to our consumers
could have been largely diminished during the last
twenty years, and at the same time profits to the farm-
ers enormously increased.

As side-lights on the present agricultural situation
in general and evidences of the deplorable marketing
conditions, some contemporaneous facts should be con-
sidered. One of these is the dividend of $80,000,000
— 400 per cent. — on the capital of $20,000,000 re-
ported declared in 19 16 by one of the packing com-

y2 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

panics. At the time this dividend was declared,
press dispatches quoted the vice-president of the com-
pany, in explaining it, as saying : " The $80,000,000 "
(this dividend) "surplus involved in the increased
capitalization stock dividend was earned in the period
from 1901 to 1912, when few dividends were paid."
A " few " cannot be less than two — probably several

— but even if dividends covering only two years' prof-
its had been declared, it would still leave a net annual
earning of 44.4 per cent, covering the other nine years,
and this without taking into consideration the princely
salaries usually paid stockholders of such concerns as
officers of the companies. Table No. 2 is taken from
the April number of the Farmer's Open Forum, Wash-
ington, D. C, in its discussion of the Heney investi-
gation. This table does not indicate that profits have
been reduced to any great extent.

Table No. 2

PROFITS SUMMARY OF THE BIG FIVE PACKERS

IN 1917

Capital Profit Per

stock and loss Net cent

■ outstanding surplus Sales income earned

Swift & Co $100,000,000 $59,965,000 $875,000,000 $34,650,000 34.65

Armour & Co 100,000,000 56,126,680 575,000,000 21,293,563 21.29

Morris & Co 3,000,000 37.293,554 (not given) 5,401,071 180.04

Cudahy Packing Co. 20,000,000 7,730,120 i84»8ii,ooo 4,430,530 22.15

Wilson & Co., Inc. 30,476,400 15.051,045 (not given) 6,504,422 21.34

Facts disclosed at the investigation started (but not
completed) by Mr. Heney, at Chicago — the ratio of
the price of live hogs to cost, as shown in Table No. i

— would indicate that the packing business had been
vastly more profitable than disclosed by the above fig-
ures. Why was the Heney investigation carried to the
point of maximum benefit to organized labor in the

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 73

packing houses, and abandoned just at a point when
facts were being disclosed which should be of advan-
tage to unorganized labor on the farms and the con-
suming public — throwing light upon the internal
workings of the big packing concerns in our meat in-
dustry? If present laws were inadequate, why should
not Congress, then in session, have immediately, by
amending them, furnished a remedy? Has the lamp
of the legislative Diogenes gone out in a search for
" combination in restraint of trade," or is it because he
feels that it is only a bunch of unorganized farmers
who are making complaint — the consumers being ig-
norant of the source of their trouble, the misinformed,
subsidized or misguided press assuring them that it is
to be found in the greed of the farmers?

CHAPTER XVI

The state census of Iowa, 191 5, covers seven years
of those included in the packers' dividends quoted
above. This census shows, among other facts, that the
total buildings, implements and live stock on the aver-
age farm in that State, one hundred and sixty- four
acres, were worth only $4,391.80. The mortgage
on the average Iowa farm is more than that. If
to that we add the farmers' local indebtedness to
banks, etc., the depreciation of soil (25 to 50 per
cent.), what have the farmers of Iowa to show for
more than two generations of hard work, with the
minimum amount of recreation and luxury of anv
kind? A result of these conditions is reflected in a
loss, during the decade covered by the last Federal
census, of about one hundred thousand of its farm
population. The state census, under the head of " Oc-
cupation," shows that during the decade, the number
following agricultural pursuits decreased from 40.7
per cent, in 1905 to 36.3 per cent, in 191 5; those in
" Trade and Transportation " increased from 16.4 per
cent, in 1905 to 25.4 per cent, in 191 5 ; that the num-
ber of cattle turned in for assessment was practically
a half million less than those turned in ten years be-
fore. That 48.4 per cent, of the acreage of Iowa
farms are operated by renters. As the rented farms
are smaller, and as a rule no help is hired upon them,

74

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 75

while the farms operated by owners are larger, and
they hire much help, this means that 60 per cent, of
the people on the farms of Iowa own no land and little
other property. Iowa is undoubtedly the best agricul-
tural State in the Union, if not the best agricultural
area in the world, — its people the most intelligent
(having only one per cent, of illiteracy) of any com-
munity of its size in the World. If with all these
favorable factors, the above lamentable conditions ex-
ist, what must be the condition of the farms and farm-
ers in other States less favored by soil, climatic condi-
tions, and especially those who after more than a cen-
tury of use have only an impoverished or exhausted
soil?

Again, Nebraska, one of the most fertile agricul-
tural States in the West — and perhaps the most ex-
clusively agricultural State in the Union — on a parity
with Iowa as to soil, climatic conditions, and character
of its farmers, containing approximately 150,000
farms — during ten years — six of them included in
the eleven mentioned in interview with packer re-
ferred to — increased its farm mortgage indebtedness
at least $180,000,000. (Exact figures are not obtain-
able, as during each of those years from three to nine
counties, evidently not pleased with the showing made,
failed to report. Without these, the aggregate in-
crease shown in those reports was $162,274,364.30.)
The highest estimate made by those in position to
know, is that this $180,000,000 constituted only 35
per cent, to 40 per cent, of the mortgages then resting
on the farms of Nebraska; but assuming that it is 40
per cent, the highest estimate, that would make the

yd THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

total farm mortgage indebtedness of the State $450,-
000,000. This is, in my opinion, a low estimate.

Bulletin No. 210 of the Nebraska State Department
of Agriculture, dated November 25, 1916, shows that
the total value of all permanent improvements, all
the cattle, horses, mules, sheep and hogs on the farm,
is, in the aggregate (and this on a very liberal basis),
worth $353,933,047. So that the Nebraska farmers
have earned, as a result of more than fifty years' labor,
since Nebraska became a State, to say nothing of the
work done during territorial days, a meager living, and
at least $90,000,000 less than the mortgage indebted-
ness for their labor. To this deficit should be added
indebtedness to banks, etc., for implements, store debts,
etc., which would amount to millions more.

If the pauper peasantry of Russia, occupying an
area equal to that bounded on the north by a parallel
drawn through the southern borders of the Great
Lakes, on the west by the looth Meridian, on the south
by a parallel through the Ohio River, and on the east
by the Alleghany Mountains, could borrow an amount
equal to the mortgages now resting upon the farms of
that area — the very heart of the Com Belt — it would
have suf^cient money to duplicate every house, bam,
granary, crib and fence; to buy all the cattle, horses,
hogs and sheep now upon those farms ; and have hun-
dreds of millions of dollars left with which to buy
Ford cars, Victrolas and see the " movies."

Such a loan made to them by the Allies would tem-
porarily suspend the Bolshevik movement now devas-
tating Russia. But should the Allies at the same time
impose upon these peasants the same labor and mar-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 'jy

keting conditions which have rested upon the Amer-
ican farmers during the last ten years — that is, in
spite of their utmost efforts, the mortgage indebtedness
could not be reduced, but on the contrary, has been
augmented at an ever-increasing ratio from year to
year; and millionaires would, in Russia, multiply just
as they multiplied in our country during the last two
decades. But Bolshevism will rejuvenate itself, not
to fight with pitchfork and club, but with bayonets
and machine guns, and just so sure as our labor and
marketing conditions are not changed for the better,
an agrarian revolution in America is inevitable.
Many think that in the Non-Partisan League they
see the beginning of such a revolution, and are alarmed.
This revolution would probably be bloodless, but it
would sow the seeds of an anarchy worse, if possible,
than Bolshevism of to-day.

The most grave question before the American people
is not as to the issues of the great war, but whether
or not, when victory is won, personal and property
rights, regardless of class, shall be recognized and se-
cure in our land.

As to the profits on increased value of land, every
intelligent farmer knows that his acres in virgin soil,
still unprofaned by the plow, are more salable, as well
as of greater intrinsic value, than those that he has so
laboriously and profitlessly tilled, and that the advance
in selling price, be it great or small, is not so large but
that his equity is more than likely to be wiped out by
the first financial depression; just as such equities
were wiped out by the thousands during the depression
that followed the panics of 1837, 1857, 1873 3-nd 1893.

78 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

The ratio of the intrinsic value of the farmers' pre-
sumable equity to their indebtedness is less now than
in either of the four preceding periods referred to.

I know of no State in the Union which would make
a showing more favorable than either Iowa or Ne-
braska.

It is these thoughts that have prompted hundreds of
thousands of the best American farmers to realize upon
their equities while it is possible. It is their energy,
efficiency and money, driven thence by our intolerable
labor and marketing conditions, that has made possible
the wonderful development and prosperity of the Ca-
nadian Northwest.

CHAPTER XVII

In June, I spent ten days in one of the most fertile
sections of Illinois. Leaving it on an interurban rail-
way, I shared a seat with a factory operative — a
farm-reared boy — on his way to work. He pointed
out his father's farm, where he was born. He told me
that his wage was 52 cents per hour, but at the end
of each week, if he worked full schedule time for the
six days, he received a bonus of $7.80 — $1.30 per
day — or about 11 cents per hour additional. This
was not for service rendered at all — that was already
fully paid for; no such excuse or pretense was made.
This bonus was simply a reward for working regular
schedule time at an extremely liberal wage — a wage
400 per cent, higher than is received by the average
farm owner if he be allowed 3 per cent, on his money
invested. The income tax returns confirm this. Only
one farmer in four hundred has a gross income of
$3000, and this without allowing anything for wages
paid his sons or other members of the family. Why
should this young man and his brothers remain on the
farm ? Did this young man own a farm — all the
acres he could possibly work — he could not afford to
till it. It would be more profitable to let it lie fallow,
and stick to his job. They are not remaining, and tens
of thousands of their fellows are leaving the farms
for similar reasons.

79

8o THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

In the whole history of the development of our coun-
try, from the time the New Englanders first began to
migrate to the country west of the Alleghanies, there
has been no parallel to the high character of the farm-
ers emigrating from the best States of the Corn Belt
to the Canadian Provinces. In the settlement of the
great plains and valleys between the Alleghanies and
the Rockies, the average emigrant from States farther
east seldom brought more than a poor team, one cow,
plow, harrow and a few household goods, aggregating
on the average less than $300 per family.

The Canadian records show that the assets of the
average emigrant, coming from the American farms
to their Northwest Provinces, vary from $3,000 to
$10,000 in money, together with an ample supply of
farm implements and household goods. Yet in view
of these appalling facts, the present Congress, panicky
in the fear that the American farmer may be too pros-
perous, is so restricting the prices on his leading com-
modities, that under present labor and marketing con-
ditions, their production is unprofitable. This, too, in
face of the fact that organized labor and most com-
mercial enterprises are reaping greater profits than
ever before in the history of this, or any other, coun-
try. Had unorganized labor on the farms during the
last ten years received the same consideration that
organized labor in our industries has received, and had
marketing conditions been one half as favorable as in
any European country, " Meatless and Wheatless
Days " would have been absolutely unnecessary —
even if the war continued indefinitely — and food
prices vastly lower.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 8l

How is it that such conditions can exist and the
public is so misled concerning them ? There are many
reasons. Perhaps one of the most potent is found
in the fact that six out of every ten business and pro-
fessional men, including bankers and salary earners,
and an army of farmers and wage earners, are directly
interested in land speculation. Hence, it is prac-
tically impossible to secure publicity of anything that
tends to check the boom, or that might bring a reces-
sion of land prices. The United States Department
of Agriculture, whether consciously or unconsciously,
has seldom seemed entirely insensible to such influ-
ences. As an illustration : Some time since, this De-
partment prepared a bulletin. No. 41, the ostensible
purpose of which was to show the net earning capacity
— incidentally the intrinsic value — of the farm lands
throughout the country. The result, if not the object,
of the bulletin seemed to have been chiefly to help the
land boom.

To make this investigation, they claim to have taken
a large number of farms in three different States
(average representative farms, of course; otherwise,
the investigation would have been meaningless) and
from these deduced facts bearing upon the question of
farm products (incidentally, farm land values). A
discussion of this in detail is unnecessary. A few
facts and figures will suffice. The first factors in the
problem, of course, would be the yield per acre and the
price of the leading cereals that year throughout the
country. These were as follows :

82 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

Table No. 3
U. S. Department of

Agriculture Reports : Presumably as used

(Average yield same year) in the Bulletin :

Wheat yield 12.5' bu. 18.9 bu.

Corn yield 23.9 bu. 48.3 bu.

Oats yield 24.4 bu. 40.3 bu.

Table No. 35^
(Page 36, Bulletin 41, U. S. Department of Agriculture)

COMPARISON OF CROP YIELDS ON OWNER AND

TENANT FARMS IN INDIANA, ILLINOIS,

AND IOWA

Yield per Acre (Bushels)
State Corn Oats Wheat

Owner Tenant Owner Tenant Owner Tenant

Indiana 52.5 52.2 47.8 45,5 19.5 19.0

Illinois 54.S 52.2 38.2 39.7 17.4 15.4

Iowa 37.9 36.4 34.9 32.6 19.7 16.8

Average 48.3 46.9 40.3 39.3 18.9 17. i

From which it will be observed that in the problem,
as shown by the bulletin, the yield of wheat is 50 per
cent, above normal average ; yield of corn 100 per cent,
above the normal average ; and oats 66 per cent, above
the normal average. Again, the amount of the essen-
tial food elements taken from the soil by these crops
was not taken into consideration. Three of these ele-
ments — potash, nitrogen and phosphorus — are staple
commercial commodities, and at pre-war prices, the
amount taken from the soil by each bushel of grain,
as shown by Table No. 4, is as follows :

Table No. 4

Bushel of corn $.1665

Bushel of wheat 2358

Bushel of oats 1119

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 83

The net result of this investigation was to show that
even at these inflated figures, there was a return of
only 3J^ per cent, of die money invested by farm
owners, or three to three and a half dollars per acre.
Changing no other figures, but reducing the yield to
be in keeping with the average yield reported by the
Department of Agriculture itself, it would reduce the
yield of corn 50 per cent. ; the yield of wheat 34 per
cent.; and the yield of oats 39 per cent.; and would
show that instead of receiving an income, the farmer
was paying from $3 to $4 per acre and taxes for the
privilege of using his own land. Waiving the ques-
tion of yield, but deducting the value of the plant food
elements taken from the soil by the three cereals
named, it would show that the farmer must still pay
$3 to $5 per acre and taxes for' the use of his land.
In short, correcting figures as to yield and making due
allowance for soil elements removed, their experi-
ment would show that the farmer is actually paying
from $4 to $6 at least per acre rent upon his own
land.

In response to an inquiry why this element of soil
depreciation was omitted, a letter from the Department
of Agriculture said, "If we would deduct the value
of these elements, we would soon reach a point where
land would be valued at a very low price." A most
astounding admission. In substance, that in solving
scientific problems of far-reaching importance in the
greatest of all our industries, the United States De-
partment of Agriculture must reach desired or precon-
ceived conclusions, even if vital facts be omitted to do
so. The Department did not seem to know whether

V* ^

84 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

lands were surveyed, grain measured, or both simply
estimated.

Table No. 5
FERTILITY IN FARM PRODUCE, APPROXIMATE MAXI-
MUM AMOUNTS REMOVABLE PER ACRE ANNUALLY
Produce Pounds Market Value

£c kl k% 2c kl ig 1^1

Kind Amounts .hCoSiSn ^^,

O J5 +-> 3 ^-j rt

^'^£^;S*^ g'^^ g'^^ (£'- H>

Corn, grain.. 100 Bu. 100 17 19 $i5-0O $.51 $1.14 $16.65'

Corn stover.. 3 T. 48 6 52 7.20 .18 3.12 10.50

Corn crop 148 23 71 22.20 .69 4.26 27.15

Oats, grain.. 100 Bu. 66 11 16 9.90 .33 .96 11. 19

Oat straw... 2^ T. 31 5 52 4.65 .15 3-i2 7.92

Oat crop 97 16 68 14.55 48 4.08 19.11

Wheat, grain 50 Bu. 71 12 13 10.65 .36 .78 11.79

Wheat straw 2^/2 T. 25 4 45 3.75 .12 2.70 6.57

Wheat crop 96 16 5^ 14.40 .48 3.48 18.36

Soy beans... 25 Bu. 80 13 24 12.00 .39 1.44 13.83
Soy bean

straw 2^ T. 79 8 49 11.85 .24 2,94 15.03

Professor Hopkins says, " The figures given in this
table are based upon averages of large numbers of
analyses of normal products, of which some have
been made by the author and his associates, and many
others by various chemists in America and Europe.
These averages are trustworthy." . . . " On the
whole, however, it is as nearly correct to say that a
fifty-bushel crop of wheat requires 96 pounds of ni-
trogen and 16 pounds of phosphorus as it is to say that
a measured bushel of wheat weighs 60 pounds."

With an object lesson of soil robbery, extending
along the Atlantic seaboard, from the Carolinas to the
Canadian lines, resulting in wholesale farm abandon-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 85

ment, it would seem that no opportunity should be
missed to emphasize this danger, and to impress such
facts upon the farmers of America, to the end that
they should not allow such a disastrous practice to be
repeated in our younger States.

The most highly desirable class of farmers is fast
disappearing. Though in the foreign-born (Slavs,
Sicilians, Greeks, et ai), who are taking their places,
there are great potentialities for good, great possibili-
ties for citizenship in the future, they will not, in a
generation, if un- Americanized, be qualified to pass
upon those intricate and momentous post-war ques-
tions which must be met. These immigrants are in-
clined to settle in colonies, each of its own nationality.
Unless there remain in each community at least a few
intelligent, forceful Americans, alien language, habits
and traditions will prevail, and it will require genera-
tions to assimilate and Americanize this foreign mass.
The forceful and intelligent American will not remain
on the farm under present economic conditions. He
can do better in other vocations.

In passing, I would remark that a land boom was
the last boom — the one just preceding every great
panic in the history of this country.

The intelligent farmer is conscious of the fact that
if he had tilled, and used for his vegetable garden and
home, one acre, instead of trying to till i6o acres, and
had worked for others at 30 cents per hour, the labors
of himself and family would have been less arduous,
their cares infinitely less, and the net financial results
greater than are now his.

Our country has dire need of the farmers' products

86 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

— it has greater need of the farmer. If during the
economic and social disturbances (world-wide) which
must follow this war, we cannot depend upon the sane,
fair judgment of the American farmers — that largest
and most intelligent class of manual laborers the sun
ever shone upon — Bolshevism in America is more
than a possibility.

CHAPTER XVIII

An American orator once spoke of " that corporate
courage which drives the coward to a valorous deed."
By the same token, we have in this country to-day a
corporate cowardice which prompts men to stand
aghast at the criticism of any pubHc man, no odds how
inefficient; or a suggested change or betterment of any
measure, no odds how ineffective; and they are ready
to cry out, ** Disloyal, etc." — when constructive sug-
gestions are made by the most loyal citizens. Among
these good citizens are scattered the worst enemies of
the republic — profiteers, grafters and men who re-
joice at everything that tends to defeat the nation's
purpose in this great struggle for human liberty.

This influence is apparent in nearly every gathering
of farmers. To illustrate: In a state meeting of
farmers at Omaha, some months ago, it was admitted
that following the price fixing of wheat, the acreage of
winter wheat sown in the State was reduced to 25
per cent, below the normal average. A resolution was
suggested, calling the attention of Congress to the fact
that the low price fixed upon wheat was so out of
proportion to the price of other commodities — cotton,
labor, etc., — that it would result in reduced production
of that cereal, just at a time when war necessities must
greatly increase the demand. This suggestion was met
with shouts, insinuating lack of patriotism, etc., and a

87

88 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

resolution promptly passed that would lead Congress to
believe that the price fixed upon wheat was entirely sat-
isfactory.

The real feeling of the farmers of Nebraska was
reflected in the output of wheat for that year of 13,-
764,000 bushels as against an annual average output
of 69,428,000 bushels during the three years previous
(see 1917 " Red Book," page 50) ; and is further re-
flected by the estimated yield of 43,000,000 bushels
— both spring and winter wheat — for 19 18. Un-
favorable conditions had something to do with the
reduction of output for 19 17, but if the acreage had
been stimulated to 25 per cent, above normal, instead
of being depressed to 25 per cent, below normal, the
increase in bread stuffs would have been 50 per cent,
to 100 per cent, to be added to the total amount saved
by the strenuous and able efforts of the Food Adminis-
trator of the State of Nebraska.

As Nebraska has gone " Over the Top " in sub-
scriptions for Liberty Bonds, Thrift Stamps, Y. M.
C. A., and every other war enterprise, including vol-
unteers, the charge of disloyalty will not lie.

The above is an example of how both in private and
public assemblages expressions and suggestions, which
would have been valuable to the Administration and
Congress, and might have rendered some of the fla-
grant abuses impossible, have been prevented. Why
should not the criticisms and suggestions from intelli-
gent citizens be heard, even if the most of these are
erroneous, or of little value? In France and England
such criticisms and suggestions have been heard and
heeded, and resulted in a very marked improvement

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 89

in the prosecution of the war. Because of it, weak
generals have been replaced by stronger ones; ineffi-
cient officials by abler men. One, who was among the
highest officials in the French nation, at the time war
was declared, is now in prison, awaiting trial for trea-
son. Few, if any, of these desirable results would
have been so speedily brought about had criticisms and
suggestions been throttled. Why should we not bene-
fit by their experience?

No one is more heartily in favor of punishment,
swift and sure, for every one guilty of treason, than
I ; but that a self -constituted class of patriots are per-
mitted to assail any individual who disagrees with
them, any class that does not conform to their par-
ticular ideas of Government or personal conduct, is
not in keeping with the American spirit of liberty.
If the officers of our Government, high or low, ever
cease to be the servants, and become the masters, of
our people, the spirit of democracy will die within us.

CHAPTER XIX

Professor Liebig, then an obscure chemist, now
known as the " Father of Agricultural Chemistry," in
his homemade laboratory in Giessen, delved deeper
into the secrets of plant life than his predecessors. In
1834, he published to the world the results of his re-
search. Briefly stated, these were that all plants and
foods contain definite and fixed amounts of certain
chemical elements; chiefest among these being phos-
phorus, potash and nitrogen; that these were obtained
through the plant from the soil. That in time by con-
tinued cropping the plants would exhaust the meager
soil supply of these elements, and unless they were,
by the hand of man, replaced, the soil would ultimately
become worthless. Hence, soil feeding was an im-
perative necessity if the limited areas of tillable land
in civilized countries continued to supply proper food
for the constantly increasing inhabitants.

The leaders of agriculture in England, France, Aus-
tria, Italy, Germany, and nearly all other countries,
accepted and acted upon these theories with marked
improvements in the agriculture of each. Naturally
his own country was the first to adopt Liebig's theo-
ries and put them into practical execution. The re-
sults in the increased yield of cereals per acre on four
German estates are shown in Table No. 6. Contrast
with these Table No. 7, showing the decreasing yields
per acre in the State of Kansas.

go

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM QI

Table No. 6
Years Wheat Rye Barley Oats

" A " /1830 18.7 21.2 35.6 46.2

■|i 897 to 1904 46.1 34. 50.4 69.1

«g., ri825 to 1834 21.04 21.63 30.19 31.85

Li 900 to 1904 36.14 32.52 43.23 57.80

„^„ fi 830 to 1840 18.82 15.04 16.37 13.86

^ I1885 to 1894 35.70 29.52 41.06 43.96

Showing average yields per acre and at different
periods on three German estates, numbered " A," " B "
and " C " respectively, and the increased yield secured
by application of scientific principles, business methods
and intelligently directed labor.

Table No. 7
AVERAGE YIELD PER ACRE, STATE OF KANSAS
1860-1889 1889-1908 Decrease

Crop (Bu.) (Bu.) (Percent)

Corn 34.2 21.6 36.9

Wheat 15.3 II.8 22.8

Oats 32.8 21.9 32.2

Professor J. W. Spillman, of the United States
Bureau of Plant Industry, in referring to Table No.
7, is quoted as saying in Hoard's Dairyman of May
14, 1909, " These figures are in general agreement
with the data from other sections of the country."

Ignoring all this, certain men in the Federal De-
partment of Agriculture, some fifteen to eighteen years
ago, began to combat the theory advanced by Pro-
fessor Liebig, as well as by the managers of the
Rothamsted farms in England (where scientific agri-
cultural experiments have been continued for nearly
a century), and others, claiming to have had made a

92 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

great discovery; viz., that lands that were worn out
and had become worthless had not done so because the
food elements therein had been exhausted ; but because
certain plants, called weeds, exuded or exhaled certain
substances, deleterious, if not poisonous, to other
plants, and especially to those plants chiefly propagated
for human food. To illustrate: Professor Hopkins
in the work referred to quotes from Bulletin No. 22,
Bureau of Soils, United States Department of Agri-
culture : " It appears further that practically all soils
contain sufficient plant food for good crop yields, that
this supply will be indefinitely maintained." Pro-
fessor Hopkins again quotes as from Bulletin 55, Bu-
reau of Soils (Soils of the United States, February,
1909), as follows: "The soil is the one indestructi-
ble, immutable asset that the nation possesses. It is
the one resource that cannot be exhausted; that can-
not be used up, etc." He further quotes from a hear-
ing before the Congressional Committee on Agricul-
ture, 1908, in which a representative, Mr. Cameron,
of the Department of Agriculture, is questioned as
follows :

The Chairman. " Then I come back again to the
question. Why is it necessary, or is it in your judgment
necessary, ever at any time to introduce fertilizing
material into any soil for the purpose of increasing
the amount of plant food in that soil."
Mr. Cameron. " Not in my judgment."
In view of facts disclosed by the foregoing tables,
and with the history and present condition of agricul-
ture in India, China and elsewhere, as well as what
has taken place all along our Atlantic Coast, it seems

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 93

almost unbelievable that the Department of Agricul-
ture should have put itself on record as discouraging
the American farmer from doing all possible toward
maintaining the fertility of the soil, and especially any
of those things which science, as well as all human
experience, has so clearly pointed out as being neces-
sary. If instead of this discouragement, the Depart-
ment of Agriculture had impressed upon the American
farmer some of the facts disclosed in Tables Nos. 5
and 8; viz., that when he burned the straw and stub-
ble from his grain fields he was, in these indispensable
food elements, destroying what would cost him from
$2.50 to $3 per acre to replace; that when he burned
his stalk field, instead of plowing it under, he was
losing, in soil elements, what would cost him from $3
to $4 to replace, and besides these a vast amount of
humus, indispensable in putting these elements into
solution, thus making them available as plant food.
If farmers had been impressed with these facts, do
you think that for the last twenty years, our prairies
would, for weeks, be lighted up with burning stubble
fields, stock fields and straw stacks, and our average
grain yields per acre constantly decreasing? This
waste is preventable. It simply comes from lack of
knowledge that should, and could, easily have been
furnished by the Department of Agriculture and the
Agricultural Educational Institutions.

In i860, we had upon our lands the most intelligent
and industrious farmers that ever tilled the earth.
From the Alleghanies west, it was then practically a
virgin soil; so the appalling contrast in yields per
acre can only be accounted for in the methods of

94 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

agriculture, and as we are paying, and have been
paying, ever increasing millions annually for the sup-
port of the Federal Department of Agriculture,
scores of the State Universities, Agricultural Schools
and Colleges, these institutions are, in a very large
degree, responsible. For in addition to scientific re-
search and information, it was their manifest duty to
keep both Congress and the public advised as to the
labor situation and marketing conditions affecting
agriculture, for the betterment of which they were
created and are maintained.

Table No. 8, made from the 1914 Year Book, show-
ing the average yields per acre of leading cereals in
our own, and European countries, since 1900, is evi-
dence that this appalling tendency continues. As
hundreds of thousands of acres of old, worn-out lands
throughout the East, during these fourteen years, have
been abandoned, and in the West hundreds of thou-
sands of acres of virgin soil been brought into cultiva-
tion, and as European lands have been worked for a
thousand years, conditions are worse even than those
indicated by tables.

Table No. 8

AVERAGE YIELD PER ACRE OF UNITED STATES AND

EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 1890-1914

Barley Wheat Oats Rye

United States 24.9 14.8 29.5' 16. i

Germany 37-1 30.7 54-0 27.4

Russia ISO lo.o 18.0 12.0

France 24.1 20.1 31.1 16.9

Hungary 24.6 19.0 31.5 18.3

United Kingdom 35.5 334 43-5 29.1

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 95

To show that I do not stand alone in my opinion of
the wonderful theory advanced by the Department of
Agriculture, I would refer you to pages 339 and 340
in " Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture,'* in
which it will be seen that in a canvass of 104 agricul-
tural chemists, agronomists, professors of agriculture,
soil specialists, etc., but two were found willing to
endorse these theories, and, as quoted, " These two
are from minor or branch institutions, however, not
one of the Land-grant Colleges or State Experiment
Stations being willing to accept or teach them in the
sense in which they have been put forward by the Bu-
reau."

Where is the fault, and what the remedy? There
is, I think, no grounds for suspicion of fraud or prof-
iteering either in the Department of Agriculture or the
Agricultural Institutions throughout the land. In all
of these are many earnest and able scientific men,
whose research and experiments should be of inestima-
ble value to agriculture ; but those directing the affairs
of these institutions have seemingly failed to appreci-
ate the seriousness of their work, the enormously im-
portant part that they should play in the economic, as
well as the e very-day life, of the nation. Hence, they
have permitted inefficients, impractical theorists, fad-
dists and sensationalists to occupy too prominent a
part in these institutions. Since commercial and po-
litical interests began to look upon these institutions
simply as organizations, " going concerns," which they
could use to pecuniary and political advantage, these
ills have multiplied. Congress is not blameless in fail-
ing to observe and correct these evil tendencies. An

96 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

extended discussion of this phase of the subject is not
permissible in this volume. I would, therefore, refer
the reader to " Soil Fertility and Permanent Agricul-
ture," by Professor Cyril G. Hopkins, to whom I am
indebted for much scientific data, including some of
the tables herein.

In other directions, the Department of Agriculture
and these Agricultural Institutions are derelict. Why
has there not been a loud-voiced protest from these
institutions, whose business it was to know the soil
needs, to Congress against the enormous waste of ma-
nure at the Stock Yards in our packing centers?
Hundreds of thousands of tons of the best possible
manure, at all of these Stock Yards, are annually al-
lowed to waste in the sun and rain, and to be washed
into specially constructed sewers, and to be burned in
incinerators built for that purpose. None of this
should be wasted. While one for years has been able
to secure freight rates on commercial fertilizers to
the most obscure station, at many stations in the vicin-
ities of the packing centers, it is impossible to secure
any rates at all on stock yard manures. If to any,
usually at rates that are prohibitive. As the first
profits from an increased tonnage of grain and other
food stuffs goes to the transportation companies
( freight rates must be deducted before a dollar is paid
on any commodity), they can afford to make an ex-
ceedingly low rate on transporting this much needed
fertilizer to the farming communities, and now that
our Government is operating the railroads, I see no
reason why a movement in this direction should not

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 97

immediately be made. As the great majority of all
the cars bringing live stock to the packing centers go
back empty, the cost of transporting the Stock Yard
manure to the country would be nominal. It is valu-
able as a fertilizer, not only because of the food ele-
ments contained, but for the humus, for the lack of
which many soils, and especially those of the " loess
deposit," are suffering.

As evidence that these tendencies toward soil de-
preciation and decreasing yields of grain still continue,
and that many thinking men view the situation with
alarm, I quote from a speech delivered by Hon. Car-
roll S. Page, of Vermont, in the United States Senate,
July 24, 19 1 6.

" Within the last thirty years Germany has in-
creased her production of rye from 15 to 29 bushels,
the United States from 14 to 16 bushels; Germany in-
creased her production of wheat from 19 to 30 bush-
els, the United States from 13 to 15 bushels; Germany
increased her production of barley from 24 to 39 bush-
els, the United States from 24 to 24.3 bushels; Ger-
many increased her production of oats from 31 to 59
bushels, the United States from 28 to 30 bushels;
Germany increased her production of potatoes from
115 to 208 bushels, the United States 98 to 100
bushels.

" This statement is so full of meat that I wish to
give to the Senate these figures in percentages :

"The German increase in rye in 30 years was 87
per cent., the United States 10 per cent. ; in wheat 58
per cent., the United States 14 per cent.; in barley,

98 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

60 per cent., the United States i per cent. ; in oats 85
per cent., the United States 6 per cent. ; in potatoes 80
per cent., the United States 7 per cent.

" Mr. President, Germany has an area equal only to
the three States of Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri,
but she produced three-fifths as much oats, four-fifths
as much barley, three times as much sugar, six times
as many potatoes, and nine times as much rye as we
produced in the whole United States.

" Let me state it in another way. In 1907 Ger-
many had 43,000,000 acres sowed with wheat, barley,
oats, and potatoes. She harvested therefrom 3,000,-
000,000 bushels. We had under cultivation 88,500,-
000 acres — more than twice as many acres as Ger-
many— and sowed the same crop. The American
farmer harvested only 1,875,000,000 bushels. In
other words, from less than one-half the acreage
Germany harvested nearly double the number of bush-
els that we did.

"If from the land we devoted to oats, barley, and
potatoes the American farmer had produced the same
per acre as was produced in Germany, we should have
been richer by $1,400,000,000 annually."

The most practical way to rejuvenate the soil of an
old farm in the Central West is with a treatment of
ground rock phosphate and crushed lime stone. In
amounts used most economically, these materials cost
from $25 to $30 per acre, and as this treatment must
be repeated at least once in five years — about $5 to
$6 per acre per annum. Hence, if each farmer has
$100 per acre of his land to invest, it would require
the interest on same to keep the farm approximately

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 99

Up to virgin fertility. On soils where potash is also
needed, a liberal addition to cost of this must be added.
To all these must be added barn-yard manure and
frequent clover crops. As the clover adds little, or
nothing, to the soil, unless plowed under, and as the
clover is a biennial crop and must be sown every two
years; as good clean seed costs from $9 to $12 per
bushel ; the young plants frequently Winter kill before
making any return ; and the hay plowed under is worth
from $8 to $12 per ton; this additional fertilizing is
expensive.

The above shows what the lost soil elements were
worth — what soil depreciation really means to the
farmer. These things also, incidentally, show that
an abundance of intelligently directed labor is indis-
pensable to successful farming.

I believe in conservation and approve every rational
step taken in that direction, but in food stuffs, it is,
at the utmost, measured by what the American people
will deny themselves. On the other hand, a properly
stimulated increased production has practically no
limit, certainly it would go far beyond the possible
needs of our armies, our Allies and our own people.

Had German agriculture — acreage yield — been
no better than American agriculture, the British and
French armies would have long since marched on to
Berlin, needing no other allies than hunger and want
among the German people. Had French agriculture
been no better than our own, she could not have con-
tinued the war for a single year after the submarine
campaign was inaugurated. So that the present war
necessities and future preparedness both demand a

lOO THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

tremendous increase in our production of food stuffs.

But waiving these, many are of the opinion that
but for the war, a farm mortgage foreclosure era
would ere this have been in full swing, with its inevi-
table accompaniments of depression and panic. Since
the sub-sea warfare began, vast amounts of wheat and
other cereals have been, and are, accumulating in In-
dia, Australia, Argentina and elsewhere. In Austra-
lia, Argentina and other South American countries,
flocks and herds have been multiplying at a constantly
increasing ratio. Many think that when peace comes,
these vast accumulations of human foods will be
thrown upon the European market. That the im-
poverishment of the masses of Europe must continue
to keep consumption at the minimum, resulting in
such a radical depression of prices, that because of
their tremendous burden of indebtedness, the Amer-
ican farmers will be crushed under this competition,
and disastrous consequences follow. Such a crisis can
only be averted by prices that will, during the war,
enable the American farmers to reduce their indebted-
ness, so that they may be able to meet the emergency
and stem the tide. Hence, from every point of view,
one can see the imperative demand for "The Better-
ment of Agriculture."

Inaccurate and inflated estimates, sophomorical
treatises on husbandry and oratorical dissertations on
the farmers' patriotism, rather hinder than help in
this direction. War profits to the farmer, or the lack
of them, are reflected by a statement just received
from the State Auditor, whose official duty it is to
secure and publish these statistics, which shows that

THE FOOD CRISIS A^D AMERICANISM lOI

the increase in the farm mortgage indebtedness in Ne-
braska, during the year 191 7, was $29,755,109.14, as
compared with an increase of the farm mortgage in-
debtedness for 1906 of $8,092,336.48; in 1907 of
$10,074,881.70; and in 1908 of $9,707,244.64; with
nothing Hke an adequate increase of the farmers' as-
sets. In my opinion, on account of high cost of ma-
terial and scarcity of labor, less than the usual amount
of farm improvements was made in 19 17. As I have
shown, the increased selling price of land is of no
value from either the standpoint of national econom-
ics, or that of the real farmer.

CHAPTER XX

As an illustration of the futility of attempting to
reach reliable or accurate facts from estimates made
by the Department of Agriculture, or any one else, I
would say that in the June number of The Farmers'
Open Forum J Mr. George Creel, Chairman of the Com-
mittee on Public Information, has an article in which
he attempts to prove that under the government fixed
prices, wheat has advanced at a greater ratio than com.

In reaching this conclusion he says, " The figures
collected by the Department of Agriculture show that
the average prices received by the farmer during the
three years previous to the War were, roughly, 86.9
cents a bushel for wheat and 66.5 cents for corn."
With these figures as a basis, he proceeds to show that
" the increase over the pre-war prices has been 131
per cent, in the case of wheat and only 109 per cent,
in the case of corn."

The figures in Table No. 9 are taken from the De-
cember, 19 1 7, number of "Our Red Book" — Sta-
tistical Information — by Howard, Bartels & Co.,
Chicago. This publication is, I think, considered reli-
able and taken as standard on statistics of crop yields,
prices, exports, etc.

We are not just sure whether Mr. Creel means the
three years prior to our entrance into war, or the
three years prior to the original declaration of war

102

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM IO3

Table No. 9

YEARLY AVERAGE PRICES BASED UPON THE

MONTHLY RANGE FOR THE ARTICLES NAMED

IN THE CHICAGO MARKET

Year Wheat Corn

1911 $0.98^ $0.59^

1912 1.045/^ 0.68^

1913 0.95^ 0.62^

Average $0.9945 $0,635

1914 $1.01^ $0.69^

1915 1.31K 0.72^

1916 1.38 0.8254

Average $1.2366 $0,751

by Germany in 19 14. We assume that it must be the
latter. If so, how does it happen that the " prices re-
ceived by the farmer during the three years '' were
12^^ cents per bushel less than the Chicago market
price for wheat? And 3 cents per bushel more than
the Chicago market price for corn? Deducting I2j4
cents per bushel from the Chicago market price for
com, will reduce it to 51 cents per bushel. This would
reverse his findings and show that the ratio of increase
for com was 180 per cent., instead of 109 per cent., as
he states. On the other hand, if we assume that it is
for the three years prior to our entrance into the war,
it would show that the farmer was getting over 36
cents a bushel less than the Chicago prices for his
wheat, and only 8.6 cents per bushel less than the Chi-
cago prices for his corn.

CHAPTER XXI

No two rivers in the civilized world, capable of
carrying so much freight, are carrying so little as the
Mississippi and the Missouri. To no communities in
the whole world is the freight item of such transcend-
ent importance as to the people of these great valleys.

American agriculture is under a tremendous handi-
cap, in that our great food producing areas are in the
midst of the continent, far removed from tide water,
and hence, from the world's markets, where the prices
of farm products are fixed. Our Government must
advance millions to our great railway companies to
meet maintenance and operating expenses. The peo-
ple of the country are being subjected to tremendous
inconvenience and loss for lack of transportation facili-
ties. Why should not our Government advance a few
millions for steel or wooden barges, and for otherwise
developing transportation on these great waterways,
thus enormously reducing expense, fuel and man-
power along transportation lines, beside relieving the
freight congestion at almost every terminal point ?

When in Belgium, a few years ago, I learned that
though the Government owned nearly all of its rail-
ways, it was, for every six miles square of land (equal
to one of our townships), maintaining more than one
mile of internal waterways. Prominent business men
there credited these internal waterways for Belgium's

104

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM IO5

ability successfully to compete with all other peoples
in the world's market with its manufactured products.
If Belgium, owning her own railways, can afford to
maintain this vast system of internal waterways, why
should not our country encourage the development of
our own? Whenever this subject is discussed in the
press or on the platform, suggestions are made that
the railways must be protected from water competition.
Why, if not on the theory that the people were cre-
ated for the transportation companies, instead of the
transportation companies for the people? By what
power, human or divine, was the accruing blessing of
water transportation bequeathed to a few people living
along the shores and to the transportation companies ?

I found that from a given point in Belgium to any
other point, whether fifty or five hundred miles dis-
tant, the freight charges by water were not more than
50 per cent, of the freight charges by rail.

On some stretches of the Missouri River, companies
with small capital and meager equipment are profitably
carrying freight. But such companies can never se-
cure sufficient capital permanently to carry freight, so
long as there is a fear on the part of investors that
the Government may, in the future, as in the past,
permit railway lines, paralleling these streams, tem-
porarily to make such low rates as to bankrupt the
waterway companies, at the same time recuperating
the railway losses by increased rates from inland
points, and when the boat companies are driven out of
business, resume original high rates. Our Govern-
ment should at once take a firm stand in the matter
and assure the American people that all the rights,

I06 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

blessings and advantages incident to waterway trans-
portation should be forever secure in and for the whole
people, regardless of how the development of these
waterways may affect the railway or other special in-
terests. With this assurance and small aid in present
emergency, internal waterway systems would soon be
established and developed, resulting in vast profits to
the nation.

To illustrate the discriminating rates in favor of
lines paralleling waterways, I would say just prior
to the taking over of the railways by the Federal Gov-
ernment, it cost 1 1.9 cents per hundred to bring a car-
load of com from Grand Island to Omaha — 153
miles. If that carload of corn was reshipped to Kan-
sas City, 192 miles, the rate would be only 5.5 cents
per hundred (less than one-half for the longer than
for the shorter distance). On wheat from Grand
Island to Omaha, 13.6 cents per hundred. The rate
on this same wheat reshipped to Kansas City, 5.5 cents
per hundred. The rate on wheat from Grand Island
to Omaha was 13.6 cents per hundred. The rate on
wheat originating beyond Kansas City and rebilled
from Kansas City to Minneapolis, 558 miles, is 12
cents a hundred, or 1.6 of a cent less per hundred to
ship it 558 miles parallel with the Missouri River,
than to ship it 153 miles from a station in the midst
of the grain fields to Omaha. The rate of com from
Grand Island to Omaha is 1 1.9 cents per hundred. The
rate of corn originating in the grain fields of Kansas,
and reshipped from Kansas City to Minneapolis, 558
miles, is II cents a hundred, or .9 of a cent less per
hundred for carrying it 558 miles paralleling the Mis-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM IO7

souri River, than for carrying it 153 miles from sta-
tions in the grain fields, on direct line to the great
consuming centers, and the seaboard. Everywhere
there is a lower rate on shipments over routes unnec-
essary and without advantage to the general public,
than over routes necessary and indispensable to the
public good.

According to the genius and spirit of American com-
mercialism and organized labor, profits should be made
by obstructing the interchange of commodities between
producer and consumer, instead of by facilitating this
exchange. Is a people, who will, without protest, con-
tinue to allow itself to be subjected to such monstrous
impositions, worthy of liberty? Or do they not need
some one to govern them and protect them ? Royalty,
in its palmiest days, never exacted greater or more
unjust tribute from its subjects.

The above and other intolerable practices, common
in the trade and transportation of this country, are mak-
ing for Socialism and Bolshevism. Because of them,
impoverishment of rural communities and farm aban-
donment were inevitable.

A rich soil; the adaptability of our lands to the use
of machinery; the inventive genius of our people; all
coupled with the superior intelligence of our farmers,
as compared with the peasantry of any other country,
will enable them to successfully compete with all, if
artificial handicaps, now resting on American agri-
culture, be removed. The impetus given to agri-
culture would soon result in such a stimulus to busi-
ness in general, that our railways would quickly find
an abundance of freight to keep them busy. Five

I08 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

cents a bushel reduction in freight, and the same added
to the farmers' prices of grain, would, in twenty years,
pay every mortgage on all the farms of the Corn Belt.

With less than half the necessary man-power to op-
erate farms already in cultivation, the Federal develop-
ment of irrigating systems in the West was premature.
Had one-half the amount of money invested by the
Department of Reclamation Service been expended
upon the Missouri River, from Kansas City up,
straightening that stream and fitting it for navigation,
the land incidentally reclaimed thereby would have
been quite as large in acreage, and more than loo per
cent, richer in fertility, than that reclaimed in the
mountain districts by irrigation ; the climatic conditions
of the Missouri Valley make a greater diversity of
crops possible; and besides that, the foodstuffs pro-
duced are from 500 to 1000 miles nearer to the Seaboard
and our chief consuming centers, than the products
from the irrigated lands are. This river and the Mis-
sissippi open to navigation, by reducing freight rates,
would result in greater profit to our farmers, and at
the same time lower prices to the consumer.

The undeveloped irrigable lands are a national as-
set, which will keep indefinitely. By erosion, soil ele-
ments — which it would require millions to replace —
are annually being carried down the Mississippi and
Missouri Rivers, and dumped into the Gulf of Mexico.

CHAPTER XXII

Planting of winter wheat in Nebraska and Kansas,
the two largest wheat-growing States in the Union —
chiefly winter wheat — became popular, not so much
because of its profits, as because it matures before the
dreaded hot winds come, and was frequently an abun-
dant crop, when spring wheat and other wheat sub-
stitutes were destroyed.

As a " safety-first " war measure, the sowing of
winter wheat, especially, should have been stimulated
to the limit. A hot wind next August may be a
greater menace to our cause than the appearance of
Hun submarines off our Atlantic Coast. But for price
fixing, the temporarily abnormally high prices of
wheat would, in my opinion, have so stimulated the
growing of that cereal, that we would not only have
had an abundant supply, both for export and home
use, but that this extra supply would have resulted in
prices no higher than are now being paid, especially by
the consumer.

As an illustration of the effect of price-fixing, in a
certain locality in Illinois, where wheat, especially win-
ter wheat, for many years had been unprofitable, and
hence practically abandoned, one farmer had an abun-
dant harvest — thirty bushels per acre — of high
grade wheat, then worth $3 a bushel. He was ready
to sell. This price and yield appealed to the farmers
of that community; so many of diem applied for seed,

109

no THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

that the farmer withheld nearly a carload of wheat
for his neighbors, estimating that sufficient to sow 200
to 250 acres would be required. The price to be paid
was the Chicago price on date of delivery, less freight
and commission. Not long after that, the Govern-
ment fixed the price of such wheat at $2 per bushel,
Chicago (about $1.85 to $1.90 per bushel to the
farmer). When sowing time came, only two of all
the farmers who had applied for seed called for it —
those two taking 14^^ bushels, just enough to sow
9J^ acres, instead of 200 to 250 acres. The only
reason offered for not sowing more wheat was that the
price fixed was too low to justify sowing, and taking
the hazard of crop loss or shortage. If the largest pos-
sible acreage is sown in the coming year in the strictly
wheat-growing sections, it will not be sufficient to sup-
ply our Allies, our armies and home consumption. If
this amount is secured, it must be by inducing a mul-
titude of farmers, in localities where wheat has not
been a profitable crop, to plant wheat.

According to recent press reports, we, in 19 17,
shipped to our Allies, 132,000,000 bushels of wheat.
During the years 1914, 1915 and 1916, after deduct-
ing seven bushels per capita to feed their own inhabit-
ants and re-seed their fields, Kansas and Nebraska
alone had an annual average surplus of 175,613,192
bushels of wheat. With unrestricted prices, these two
States can be safely counted upon for more than all
that was sent to the Allies last year. According to
reported yield for 19 17 and estimated yield for 19 18,
under restricted prices, the surplus will be little, if any
more, than one-half that amount.

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM III

Wheat is grown in every State from Maine to
Texas. Had farmers not been discouraged by price
restriction, in my opinion, the temporarily high price
would have flooded the markets, and we would have
now been eating good wheat flour, instead of substi-
tutes, and at a lower price.

The great monopolies and other trade combinations
in food stuffs, hurtful alike to the agricultural and
consuming public, were built up on discriminating
freight rates — discrimination between cities and
towns, as well as between individual merchants and
manufacturers.

These combinations are so strongly entrenched that
there is exceedingly small hope that the iniquitous
practices inaugurated by them can be eliminated or
even appreciably checked, except by a reversal of these
transportation methods which brought them into being.
To this end, freight rates on foodstuffs, at least, should
be established on an initial charge for loading and
unloading, with high and graduated demurrage charges
as a penalty for delay. To these initial or terminal
charges should be added a fixed rate per mile. This
would tend to minimizing mileage, eliminating that
which was unnecessary, and thus tremendously reduc-
ing the expense for rolling stock, labor and fuel. It
would reduce the hurtful and unnecessary congestion
of men and material in our great cities, bettering the
health — physical, moral and economic — of our peo-
ple. It would build up a multitude of more prosper-
ous, but smaller cities. There is no valid reason why
we should not have hundreds of independent packing
concerns, instead of one score, and practically, as is

112 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

now generally believed, under one control, with all the
possibilities of profiteering and market manipulation.
So long as these iniquitous practices are made easy,
they will continue to increase. Milling and other in-
dustrial enterprises would spring up in these small
cities, to the great advantage of producers, consumers
and laborers; live stock would be slaughtered at the
nearest packing town; and the grain shipped to the
nearest mill; greatly reducing the cost of living to
wage and salary earners, and giving them better sur-
roundings ; and at the same time increasing the farm-
ers' profits.

It is absurd that cattle and hogs in Central Iowa
must be shipped to Chicago or Kansas City for slaugh-
tering; and wheat shipped to Minneapolis to be
ground; and a large proportion of cured meats and
flour shipped back again to the communities from
which the wheat and live stock came.

Every unnecessary expense in the exchange of com-
modities must be deducted from the price received by
producers, or added to the price paid by the consum-
ers. Men who "labor for those things which make
for righteousness " and physical health, should be in-
terested in this. Great cities, from time immemorial,
have been the plague spots of civilization.

Because the small manufacturers of New England
found that on account of discriminating freight rates
they must first ship their wares to the seaboard, and
from there reship them to the consuming centers of
the West, they moved these factories to cities on the
coast. With their exit from the rural communities,
New England agriculture began to wane, and farm

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM II 3

abandonment followed. Very low rates on through
— not local — freight from the West still further
helped to bring disaster to the New England farmer.

The exemption of farm laborers from the draft has
not been as successful as was hoped it might be.
From various causes, it often happens that the effi-
cient are taken, and the inefficient left. Why should
not the really efficient farm laborers in each canton-
ment be selected and placed in separate regiments —
these to be subjected to intensive training from No-
vember 1st to March ist; and on March ist, each year,
to be detailed for farm work under such restrictions
as would result in the prompt recall of the labor slacker
and his transfer to the Front?

This would secure for the farms efficient help dur-
ing those months when skilled men are indispensable.
On the other hand, the possibility of an attempted
invasion makes at least one or more thoroughly dis-
ciplined army corps at home desirable. The intensive
training and manual labor in the open would keep the
men at all times fit and ready for active service at a
moment's notice. Hence, such a system would be of
maximum aid to agriculture, and of minimum, if any,
detriment to our war machinery.

I have never seen so many able-bodied men on the
highways of the rural districts, ostensibly seeking la-
bor, but in reality trying to avoid it and to escape the
draft, as during the present season. Farmers will not
hire them. Not so much because of the extortionate
wage demanded, as because they lack both inclination
and ability to do effective farm work.

The learned discussions and formidable array of fig-

114 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

ures to show the cost of producing cereals on the av-
erage American farm are as obviously absurd as it
would be to attempt to solve a mathematical problem
without fixed, permanent factors.

Take wheat : No system or method has as yet been
attempted, which, if carried out, would show with any
degree of accuracy the exact total acreage; the total
yield; the amount of home consumption; the amount
fed or wasted on the farms and in transit, etc. All
conclusions reached have been based upon estimates.
In a multitude of these hypothetical problems exam-
ined, I fail to find one wherein the ratio of acreage
sown to the acreage actually harvested has been taken
into consideration — that is, any allowance made for
the millions of acres every year winter killed, taken
by the chinch bug and the Hessian fly, or destroyed
by drought and flood, and deduction made for the
tremendous loss in labor, seed and use of land result-
ing therefrom.

In my own experience, three out of eight years my
wheat winter killed. One crop on account of soil
puddling in the spring — something I never heard of
before — failed to produce a single bushel of mer-
chantable grain, and only a trifling amount of feed.
Two years the yield was above normal — two below.
The net results being that the total amount received
for wheat sold was less than the total amount paid
for seed and labor, leaving me nothing for eight years'
use of the land or interest on money invested.

During the last few months, the papers have been
full of comments (mostly unfavorable) concerning the

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM II 5

Non- Partisan League — that most effective combina-
tion of American farmers ever organized. It took
possession of North Dakota a year or two ago, and
but for the war would now hold the balance of political
power in most, if not all, the Corn Belt and Pacific
Coast States.

I am not qualified to discuss the merits or demerits
of this organization. With them, as with every man
and organization, the same test of loyalty should be
applied: "Are they for us or against us?" . . .
" Are they helping or hindering our war activities ? "
If the latter, it should be suppressed.

One thing, however, seldom, if ever, mentioned in
the press should burn itself into the consciousness of
every thinking American citizen. That question is
this : " What was the cause of this widespread dis-
content, that such an organization is possible? That
upon their bald promise of bettering marketing con-
ditions, without tangible evidence that they could make
such promise good, a small group of men were able
to induce enough farmers of that little State, North
Dakota, to contribute $i6 per capita, until these en-
thusiastic and self-appointed agricultural reformers,
or agrarian revolutionists, had more than a million in
cash at their disposal to carry on their propaganda ? "

Discontent, widespread and bitter, because of mar-
keting conditions, is the only way to account for this
movement. To silence discontent, without removing
its cause, makes that discontent doubly dangerous.
Discontent is the only soil in which the seeds of revo-
lution and anarchy grow. Restricting prices of the

Il6 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

farmers' products, while leaving prices of the planters'
products unrestricted ; restricting the wage — earnings
— of the farmer, while advancing and multiplying the
wage of organized labor, is not tending to eliminate
this already alarming discontent.

CHAPTER XXIII

Professor Liebig said, " Agriculture is, of all in-
dustrial pursuits, the richest in facts and the poorest
in their comprehension." This is true to-day, and be-
cause of these misapprehensions on the part of law-
givers and the public, the last two decades, instead
of being years of universal prosperity to the whole
American people, have been years in which farm mort-
gage indebtedness and millionaires have multiplied;
and especially in agricultural districts, the tendency
towards " industrious poverty '* — the most sickening
spectacle in economic life — has increased. Hence, it
may not be out of place to mention some of these mis-
apprehensions.

One : That a land boom or radical increase in the
selling price of land is attributable to the increased
profits in farm operations. On the contrary, the land
boom was entirely attributable to other causes, the
three chief est among them being: First: The in-
creased output of gold — reducing the purchasing
value of the dollar — making apparent profits where
none existed. Second : The reflect effect of " Fren-
zied Finance " which drove thousands of investors
from railway and industrial securities into the farm
mortgage market — resulting in such a plethora of
money that it was persistently urged upon farmers at
lower rates of interest, and upon more favorable terms

"7

Il8 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

and conditions. Third: Last, but not least, that
many farmers, despairing of profits in food produc-
tion, ceased to be producers, and became speculators
in land.

Another great misapprehension is that since 1893
the profits in farming operations have been tremen-
dously increased, and have been vastly greater than
during any previous period. Table No. 10 shows the
average market price of five leading commodities, upon
which the farmers' profits are chieiiy based, and are
an accurate index of all others. That is, if the price
of any of these be depressed, it results in an increased
production of all others as a general price leveling.

Table No. 10

ANNUAL AVERAGE PRICE — FARM PRODUCTS

Years Wheat Corn Oats Mess Pork Lard

1873 to 1893 96.76 47.36 32.55 14.87 8.42

1893 to 1916 88.32 50.04 34.4 14.63 8.249

—8.44 +2.68 +1.95' —.24 —.18

For example : It will be seen that wheat, the lead-
ing farm product, brought 8.44 cents per bushel more
during the period between 1873 and 1893, than it did
during the period from 1893 to 19 16; the decline in
the wheat price being nearly double the advance in
both com and oats. A change in the price of hog
" Products " was slight, but lower during the latter pe-
riod. The price of labor, however, not only on the
farm, but labor in everything the farmer has to buy,
has so continuously advanced, that in 191 5 the wage
of the farm hand was more than double what it was
in 1892. Eighty-five per cent, of all the farmer buys

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM II9

is labor in some form. The value of the raw material
is an exceedingly small part of the price paid. He who
can discover how he can increase profits by paying
more for what he buys, and receiving less for what he
sells, will put himself in the class of Edison and
Wright.

Again, there is a general impression that vast im-
provements have been made in farm machinery and
farm implements in the last twenty years. Nothing
can be more erroneous. Since 1826, when that Eng-
lish clergyman put the first reaper into a field of grain,
scarcely more than a dozen implements in general use
and thought indispensable for the average farm, have
been invented. Chiefest among these are the mower,
the hay tedder, hay loader, horse rake, horse fork for
unloading hay, the reaper and binder, applying to both
com and small grain, the check-row corn planter, the
disc harrow, the manure spreader, the corn sheller, etc.,
all of which were in general use long prior to 1893,
many of them for forty years. Since the Farm Im-
plement business became monopolized, improvements
in them, if any, have been chiefly to aid sales — not
to add to their utility. The gasoline or oil motor has
not yet become an appreciable factor in agriculture,
and its practical utility on the average farm has not
been fully demonstrated. On a drive of over six hun-
dred miles last Fall, studying crop conditions in the
best sections of Illinois and Iowa, I saw only four
tractors at work on nearly 2,400 farms, under observa-
tion, and this too at a time when Fall plowing and Fall
seeding should have been in full swing.

That the lack of the farmers' credit has interfered

I20 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

with agriculture is another misapprehension. In one
thing, and that is credit, the farmer has for forty
years been on a parity with those engaged in other
industries. There is no section, in the Com Belt, at
least, where the farmer has not during those years
been able to borrow money at lower rates of interest
and on better terms and conditions than the country
merchant, small manufacturer, the professional man
in his locality, or the city man borrowing a similar
amount. One owning a first class or average home in
Chicago or Omaha, and also owning a first-class or
average farm in Illinois or Nebraska, could borrow
money at lower rates of interest on his farm than on
his home, and will find that lenders much prefer to
loan to the owner and occupant of the farm adjoining
his, than to him.

Another erroneous belief is that by crop rotation
and live stock raising, the soil may be kept up to its
virgin fertility. That is utterly impossible, and is
contradicted by every scientific experiment made in
ninety years. Even to the novice in chemistry, that
is obvious, as potash, phosphorus and nitrogen, the
chief soil elements, are the essential, invaluable ele-
ments in all food stuffs, and they are taken from the
soil with every pound of meat or grain sold. By what
alchemy shall we recover these, and by what legerde-
main put them back into the fields ? Many believe that
by pasturing alone, the soil is rejuvenated and brought
back to its pristine fertility. They fail to realize that
the animal returns nothing to the soil except that
which he has first taken from the soil, and only a part
of that, as every drop of blood, every ounce of flesh

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 121

or bone contains a portion of these precious soil ele-
ments— called precious, simply because they are in-
dispensable elements in blood, bone and tissue building.
Nearly, if not all, plants that have the ability to draw
nitrogen from the air are imsuited and dangerous as
grazing for all meat animals except the hog, as they
cause bloat. The other animals, while they may graze
on clover, alfalfa, etc., for a time, under certain con-
ditions of moisture and temperature, a single day, or
even a few hours, are sufficient to exterminate a
healthy, vigorous herd.

Experience in this country has been that after thirty-
five to forty years' use, crop rotation and stock feed-
ing, it has not been possible to keep land up to more
than 50 per cent, of its virgin fertility ; and to do that,
it is necessary to use vastly more manure than is made
upon the farm itself. The use of other fertilizers on
market is an expensive proposition, and is discussed
elsewhere. The most successful farmers in the Corn
Belt, during the last thirty years, have been those who
fed no meat animals, but instead sold their grain on
the market.

One of the most groundless, widespread and hurtful
misapprehensions is in regard to the prosperity of the
American farmer. The public in general has been led
to believe that since 1896 the farmers* prosperity has
been unusually great and uninterrupted; that farm
mortgage indebtedness has been so rapidly decreased,
that it has almost reached the vanishing point; that
scientific principles and practices have been applied to
agriculture as never before in the history of this, or
any other, country. Were these things true, many of

122 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

the most perplexing economic questions would never
have been raised, and in case they had, would have
speedily furnished their own answer, but as I have
shown, these things are not true ; that on the contrary,
the farm mortgage indebtedness has not only during
all these years been increasing at an enormous rate,
without anything like an adequate increase in the farm-
ers' assets, but at the same time there has been an
almost constant decrease in the number of men on the
farms to meet this indebtedness; that the increased
acreage yield of cereals, if any at all, is more than
accounted for by the abandonment of worn-out lands
and the bringing of new lands into cultivation.
Though only between one and two bushels less than the
average, the winter wheat yield for 191 6 was the low-
est in twenty-five years or more, 12.2 bushels per acre.
I have suggested that the large number of people
speculating in farm lands has a great deal to do with
the matter, especially in the suppressing of unfavorable
facts. Two recent news items suggest a source of this
misinformation, if not mal-information, which, in my
opinion, exceeds all others. Two editors were aspir-
ing for the same high office. One accused the other
of publishing as news items speciously written arti-
cles, prepared by large commercial interests and in-
tended to mislead and divert attention from their enor-
mous profits. From the controversy between these
two, it would seem that that sort of perversion of the
news columns for profit was not unusual, but on the
contrary quite common. The other was in an article
written by Mr. Frank Stockbridge, entitled " Edward
A. Rumely, Man Who Bought the New York Mail

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 1 23

for the Kaiser." In this, Mr. Stockbridge quotes him-
self as saying to Mr. Rumely: "I don't care what
you put on the editorial page — that influences no-
body." ..." The place where poison works is in the
news."

As one illustration of how this works in matters
pertaining to agriculture, I would say that the tremen-
dous number of land sales, during recent years, has
had this effect upon the farm mortgage business: viz.,
that perhaps 40 per cent, of all the business done
throughout the year is transacted during February and
March ; that is, in the nature of things, to avoid inter-
ference with farm operations, possession of land is al-
most invariably taken on the first day of March.
Hence, practically all sales of farm lands, made
throughout the year, provide for closing on the first
day of March, and a very large proportion of all mort-
gages are made payable on that date. To avoid loss of
interest, or payment of double interest, the money,
both on account of land purchased and for taking up
old mortgages, must be paid on the first day of March.
Hence, to prepare for this, the mortgages are made —
many of them, several months before; but practically
all of them executed and filed for record prior to the
first day of March, with the provision that they begin
to draw interest on that date. The inevitable result
is that in nearly all of this vast volume of business, the
mortgages are recorded prior to the first day of March,
and the releases, or satisfaction of the old mortgages,
are filed after that date. With the result, that there
is in each March a tremendous amount of mortgages
released, and comparatively a very few mortgages

124 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

filed. I have observed that statements of the amounts
of mortgages filed and released in the month of March
in various counties find their way, not only into the
local papers, but into the press dispatches and the pat-
ent inside of small papers. From these items, the lay
reader would assume that that community must be
rapidly wiping out its farm mortgage indebtedness;
while had the corresponding items for February been
published, he would assume that the same community
was tremendously and hopelessly in debt.

Local pride might account for the appearance of
these misleading items in the rural press, but it would
hardly account for their appearance in press dispatches
and elsewhere throughout the country, unaccompanied
by any figures or statements indicating that these were
unusual, or figures to show the total or relative
amounts of mortgages made and released throughout
the year. A better understanding between the con-
suming and producing classes would be helpful to both,
and a tremendous factor in the prevention of profiteer-
ing.

Another serious misapprehension, one under which
perhaps the majority of the American people labor,
is that the small farm and intensive farming, if not
one and the same thing, are inseparable. Nothing is
further from the truth. The large number of experi-
ments made by the Federal Department of Agricul-
ture, Agricultural Universities and others, show that
small farming tends neither to better conditions of the
farm, larger profits to the farmer, improved living
conditions, increased yield, nor better quality of prod-
ucts. That these things must be true is obvious. The

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 1 25

farm is a factory wherein the soil elements are con-
verted into food stuffs. Hence, the same principles
and methods which have enabled American manufac-
turers to excel all others must be recognized and ap-
plied.

One of the first is the combination and division of
labor, resulting in greater efficiency and output, and at
the same time minimizing equipment and investment,
and making a greater diversity of crops possible. In
this, as in all other business enterprises, only a small
percentage of men are found endowed with initiative
— the ability to direct one's own efforts to his own
greatest good — hence, it transpires, that four men,
one capable of directing the efforts of all on 320 acres
of land, will produce larger and better crops and mar-
ket same with less expenditure of time and labor, than
will five men on 400 acres, independently working 80
acres each. To make my meaning more clear: The
operative in a New England shoe factory is now work-
ing shorter hours for larger pay under better condi-
dions, and is in every material way better off than
was his grandfather — the independent cobbler.
Why? Chiefly, if not solely, because a higher degree
of intelligence, or an especially qualified intelligence,
directs his efforts. And why does this higher intelli-
gence direct the efforts of his workmen? Simply be-
cause it pays, and until the farm is placed on the
same basis as other factories, the American farms and
farmers will continue toward a constantly lowering
level.

Great landed estates, such as exist abroad, would be
both undesirable and undemocratic, as other vast ac-

126 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

cumulations of wealth are, and for the same reason :
viz. — because of the centralization of power. How-
ever, British landlordism has never been so oppressive
to the tenants as trade combinations are to the Amer-
ican farmer. It never forced the tenant to take $3.76
per hundred weight less for his hogs than it cost him
to produce them. (See Table No. i.)

On the other hand, if ownership of land in this
country is to be restricted, it will be unfortunate —
if the maximum to be held by one individual shall be
made less than can be economically operated. Bulle-
tin No. 41, United States Department of Agriculture,
already referred to, shows — and observation and ex-
perience confirms — that the renter's profit on money
invested is twelve times that of the farm owner.
Hence, to advise or encourage the man of small means
to at once buy a farm would be both unkind and un-
economic. Yet this theory was a stock argument in
the Federal Land Bank campaign, and is adding ma-
terially in continuing the land boom.

In addition to the experience, observation and the-
ories in our own country, the history and experience
of others and older countries tend to prove that small
farming, a decline in agriculture and impoverishment
and degradation of the farmer, go together. In India
the farms vary in size from two to twenty acres —
the average said to be less than ten — and though
nearly 95 per cent, of the population is engaged in
agriculture, scarce a decade passes without famine in
some part of the realm. In 1770, during nine months,
10,000,000 died of starvation in one province. The

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 1 27

famines of 1877 to i8'78, and those from 1897 to 1900
were severe.

Another misapprehension is that our retired farmers
left the farms because they wished more fully to enjoy
their accumulated wealth. Not so, but because the
intelligent boy and girl will not continue unremunera-
tive labor on the farm, while lucrative vocations are
open to them, and laborers cannot be hired to take
their places. These children have been told of luxury
that they might enjoy " after the mortgage is lifted.''
But instead of being paid, they have seen the mort-
gage increase from year to year, and the hope of better
things on the farm has died within them — they have
gone to the cities — the cities and the sea are the only
places left. " The boundless plains and the mountain
places " are occupied.

The condition of the retired farmer is best illus-
trated by the remarks of a merchant in a Southern
California town, where a large number of retired
farmers had settled : viz. — " These retired farmers are
no benefit to a town. One motorman on an interurban
trolley buys more groceries than three or four of them.
At first, I thought them a stingy lot of misers, but
since becoming a director in the bank down street, I
have watched their accounts, and when I see their
meager incomes coming in in driblets from month to
month, and observe that a large proportion of them
about the first of March each year buys a good-sized
draft, payable to some Eastern loan concern, to meet
interest due on his farm mortgage, I changed my mind,
and I can now understand why they are saving. Why

128 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

they are always ready to do odd jobs about the store;
rake my yard, mow my lawn, and bring a few fresh
eggs and a little milk to my house before breakfast
every morning."

Another gross misapprehension being made, more
far reaching and injurious in its effects, by the so-
called " Farm Labor Agencies," is this : That it is
only at harvest time that there is a serious shortage of
farm labor. Nothing could be further wrong.

Except in a few restricted localities, where wheat is
grown to the exclusion of other crops — these should
not exist, as they result in financial vicissitude for the
community, greater market fluctuation and soil im-
poverishment, than mixed farming — I say, that ex-
cept in these very limited sections, the farm having
adequate labor during the rest of the year needs no
additional help at harvest time. This is obvious to
any one at all versed in practical farming and familiar
with the history of the development and improvement
of farm machinery.

Forty years ago, with the best implements then in
use, a harvesting crew required from eight to ten men
as follows:

One man to drive the reaper.

One man to rake off, leaving the grain in gavels —
loose bunches — to be raked together and bound into
bundles by hand.

It required four extra good — usually five — men
to bind the grain as fast as cut.

It required one man to carry the bundles together,
and still another to put them into shock ; thus necessi-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 1 29

tating eight or nine men, and for these, ten acres was
considered a good day's work.

To-day only one man is needed to drive and operate
the harvester. This machine not only reaps the grain,
binds it into bundles, but leaves the bundles in piles,
so that there is only one man needed to set them into
shock. For these two men, twelve to fourteen acres
is considered a fair day's work, so that these two men
to-day are doing more and better work in the harvest
field, than nine could possibly do with the implements
in use forty years ago.

In no other department of farm work has labor-
saving implements reduced the man-power to one-half
the extent as in the harvesting of small grain.

The appalling fact is that because of the lack of
labor from the first day of seeding time to the ripen-
ing of the harvest, the grain yield has been reduced to
less than 50 per cent, of what it could and would have
been, with an adequate supply of efilicient farm labor.

As the laggard in the race makes as strenuous an
effort to pass the pole and avoid being " distanced " as
the leader does to get under the wire and win, so, fran-
tic with fear lest the little he has be lost, the farmer
cries out for help at the harvest time. This appeal is
pitiful. It is the cry of " that spent runner who al-
most won the race."

Of all erroneous notions concerning agriculture,
there is none more widespread and generally accepted
than the idea that brute strength and animal instinct
are all that are necessary in a farm laborer; that
neither experience nor intelligence is required.

130 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

Sixty years ago, when grain was cut with a cradle,
bound by hand and threshed with a flail ; when hay was
cut with a scythe, and handled in a similar manner;
there might have been a semblance of truth in such a
conclusion. But with the present-day methods and
modem machinery, nothing is more misleading and
mischievous. In no other industry is the laborer so
independent — so much alone, and so compelled to rely
on his own resources. It is impracticable to have, as
in other industries, some one over him to guide, direct
and stimulate his efforts. So, therefore, ignorance
and indifference are fatal defects; hence, the absurdity
of most of this just now popular propaganda of mo-
bilizing town and city boys and girls for farm work.
In a few special lines like truck farming, fruit grow-
ing, etc., where they work in groups under an overseer
to direct and encourage, they may render effective
service, but in the fields where cereals, etc., are pro-
duced, from which our milk, butter, bread and meat
come, they will be more of a hindrance than a help.
To avoid loss in production of our cereals, implements
and machinery must be utilized to the greatest possi-
ble extent. For these novices to attempt to handle this
complex machinery, under unfavorable conditions in
the field, is dangerous for the operator and invites dis-
aster to the machinery. In the care of livestock, they
are still less qualified.

To assume that a few hours', days', or even weeks',
tutoring by theoretical farmers, salesmen for imple-
ment houses, etc., make these young people proficient,
is too absurd to be considered. This movement is a
sample of the " camouflage " that politicians are con-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM I3I

tinually placing before the farmers. These " would-
be statesmen " fail to realize that the masses, like chil-
dren, are less wanting in comprehension than in ex-
pression, and because few protests are heard, assume
that their nostrums for agricultural ills are taken with
relish; but instead they are engendering discontent in
our best farming communities. This discontent was
in a degree reflected in the political land-slides during
the last three years, not only in North Dakota, but in
such States as Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.

A good farm hand must be " To the manor bom,"
or educated by long experience. He must be wise as
to the needs and wants of plant and animal life; must
have learned that constant, painstaking care is neces-
sary to secure success. To illustrate : Not long since
I chanced upon one of these inefficients cultivating
com — one of the simplest operations on the farm.
He seemed to be doing his best, but by actual count was
tearing out and covering up more than one hill in every
ten, so that in going once over the field (this should
be done four times), he was destroying one-tenth of
the com. As this in no way reduces the capital in-
vested, cost of seed, labor, etc., this ten per cent, must
be deducted entirely from the farmer's profits. As
these seldom amount to ten per cent., that man's labor
was a net loss to his employer.

I am not assuming that these youngsters could not,
if they would, in time become eflficient farm help, but
they go to the farm with no such purpose — instead
they are moved by patriotic impulse to render tem-
porary service to our country in the time of need. To
return for even another short season, or to make agri-

132 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM

culture a permanent vocation, is not in their thoughts.
At first the novelty of the situation appeals to them,
but as the sweat trickles down the face, enthusiasm
soon oozes out at the finger-tips, and one soon hears
them discanting upon the advantages and beauties of
life in town — shorter hours; larger pay; " the bright
lights that out-shine the stars " ; etc. Such influences
on the rural youth serve no good purpose, but instead
make for discontent.

Any aid or stimulus to food production that does
not make for permanent agriculture is of little worth.
Only by the assurance of continuing profits can Amer-
ican Agriculture be rehabilitated. To do this, there
must be a radical change and readjustment of labor
and marketing conditions. First of all, an adequate
supply of laborers who are willing to remain upon the
farm. These will be wanting so long as present con-
ditions obtain.

In this connection, I would say that thus far the fix-
ing of prices of farm products in a few central mar-
kets has failed of its ostensible purpose; viz., to secure
to the producer fair and remunerative returns for his
capital and labor, and at the same time reasonable
prices of food stuffs to consumers. It puts little or
no restraint upon the profiteers. Every price fixed
by the Government should be at the farmer's nearest
station having elevator facilities. In no other way
can he be protected from the profiteers.

To illustrate: There recently came under my ob-
servation a farmer who was hauling his wheat to a
station five miles farther from the central market and
less accessible to his farm, in order to secure a rea-

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 1 33

sonable price; that is, at the first station they would
offer him only $1.90 per bushel, while at the second
station, with no better facilities for handling, he re-
ceived $2.10 per bushel. There was no milling done
at either station — no valid reason for a difference in
price. So long as such iniquities are possible they will
be practiced. If the Government restricts the price
of commodities it should insure to the producer his
just share of that price. Our farmers will not object
to price restriction so long as they feel that any lack
of profit to them results entirely to the benefit of our
National cause, but the conviction that thus far the
profit of price restriction on farm products has ac-
crued chiefly to profiteers in food stuffs — meat, flour,
etc., — (see recent reports of Federal Trade Commis-
sion) it is engendering bitter and justifiable resent-
ment. Besides this, and especially as the railways are
now operated by the Government, the Food Adminis-
tration is in a position to practice great economy in
transit. To illustrate: Why should not every car-
load of wheat be billed direct to the nearest mill in
need of it? Or if not immediately required by the
mills, direct to the seaboard for exporting, thus avoid-
ing all unnecessary switching; inspection; elevator
charges and commission (these were, I am advised,
paid at the central markets even during those months
when the grain could go only to the Food Administra-
tion) as well as high local rates all charged to the
farmers ?

CHAPTER XXIV

The farms of this country are more heavily mort-
gaged than ever before. In many of our best agri-
cultural States, the majority of the men on them are
tenants or hired men, with little or no capital, less edu-
cation and few aspirations. Many of them foreign-
ers, having no conception of our free institutions.
This situation is full of pathos and fraught with dan-
gers— not simply because farms are mortgaged, but
because those mortgages have, during fruitful years,
increased more rapidly than ever before, in which
millions have multiplied in the hands of those who
traffic in food stuffs which the farms produced. Nor
is it because some men are tenants and others labor
for a wage, but because most of these men labor with
little hope of ever acquiring a competency or a home
of their own. This accumulation of propertyless peo-
ple on our farms is a new situation — a new phase in
the economic life of the Nation. How long will this
class of people, if they continue in hopeless toil, turn
a deaf ear to the Socialists and the Bolsheviki, who
expatiate on their wrongs, and suggest a divison of all
property and the leveling of all classes?

Under existing war conditions, agriculture has
ceased to be an academic question to be dreamed over
by school masters and philanthropists, and to be eulo-
gized by politicians and profiteers; but has become a

134

THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 1 35

vital and economic one. It should engage the seri-
ous consideration of every patriotic, thinking citizen.
The fate of our Nation may depend upon its early
solution. We think of Nihilism, Anarchy and Bol-
shevism as the fruits of autocratic despotism, but had
commercial despotism not united with monarchial des-
potism in impoverishing the Russian peasantry, Bol-
shevism would have found neither place nor influence
in International affairs, nor Russia be a national wreck
to-day. Should not Americans shun as a contagion
every tendency toward impoverishing our rural popu-
lation ?

THE END

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