A Defeat

The first of the long-heralded farm relief measures to go before the Senate was defeated, in a nonpartisan vote. The Norbeck-Burtness bill, as it is called, provided for loans in $1,000 amounts to farmers of the Northwestern wheat belt to assist them in diversifying their crops. A fund of $50,000,000 was to be provided for this purpose. The vote was: In favor, 20 Republicans, 10 Democrats, 2 Farmer-Laborites (32) ; opposed, 18 Republicans, 23 Democrats (41).

In debate there was considerable tart comment:

Said Senator Glass of Virginia: can't see the force of the argument that I am to take the money of the 1,069,000 farmers of Virginia to enable 67,000 farmers of one of these states to enter into competition with those of Virginia."

Said Senator Bruce of Maryland: "The Northwestern States at the present time, which were so long wedded to the Republican party are not drifting to the Democratic party: not at all; they are drifting, and steadily drifting, as I have said, to some form or other of state socialism. . . .

"The trouble with the people of the Northwest is that they have had too much done for them by the Government, and not too little.

"The Northwest was hatched out in the very beginning by the warmth of an artificial incubator."