Meredith Says

"NORTH AND SOUTH SHAKE SWEATY HANDS OVER PLOW" --Thus yelped a headline in the Chicago Tribune. The cause was a convention of 80 farm organizations at St. Louis, Mo., where midwestern and southern delegates demanded immediate legislation by Congress to "enable the farmers to control and manage excess of crops at their own expense, so as to secure cost of production with reasonable profit." They approved of the Federal Farm Board plan, backed by Frank O. Lowden of Illinois. They defended the farm bloc as a political unit. Just as onetime Governor Lowden is the potent friend of farmers in the Republican party, so is Edwin T. Meredith, Iowa farm journal publisher, onetime Secretary of Agriculture, their Democratic friend. If, by some upheaval of politics, the farm bloc should gain control of both parties, these two men might be found running for President against each other.*

It was not in St. Louis before farmers, but in Manhattan before businessmen, that Mr. Meredith pronounced his farm creed last week. Along with that suave explorer-professor-Senator, Hiram Bingham, and that colorless, dispassionate labor chief, William Green of the A. F. of L., Mr. Meredith addressed the New York State Chamber of Commerce at its annual banquet. His cure for the farmers was no new bonanza -- merely an old one, clearly outlined for action. He urged that a federal commission be authorized to fix and guarantee minimum prices on the wheat, corn, cotton, sugar crops and on the production of wool and butter. He suggested that his commission be composed of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce and Labor, and four other members appointed by the President. Other farm relief plans have sought to take care of the crop surplus by government marketing aid, but Mr. Meredith's price-fixing scheme aims to eliminate the surplus by insuring a balanced production. Said he: "By raising and lowering the prices of these crops from year to year, as the law of supply and demand indicates, and relying upon the law of incentive, a balance can be kept and continuous surpluses avoided." Next day, Mr. Meredith turned political interpreter and said that "Progressive Democrats from the West and South" would rally behind William Gibbs McAdoo for President on a Dry platform. Mr. Meredith has always been a better editor and farmers' friend than politician. The trait seems to run in his family.

His grandfather, "Uncle Tommy" Meredith, ran a newspaper in Des Moines, The Farmers' Tribune, which cheered for the defunct Populist party. Young Edwin did odd jobs for his grandfather, finally took over the paper. At 25, he jumped at a new publishing venture, started a monthly journal called Successful Farming. The magazine faltered at first, then boomed. Now it has a circulation of some 850,000. Farmers read it avidly, become wise, grow bigger and better crops. In 1914 and 1916, Editor Meredith tried politics with scant success. He ran for Senator and Governor, was defeated. His farmer friends were not downcast-- after all, Iowa was a staunch Republican state and Mr. Meredith, however able, was a Democrat. As Secretary of Agriculture (1920-21), Mr. Meredith was in his element. He awakened scientists to problems agrarian; he set his Department on hundreds of investigations; he made the farmers understand that the services of the Department were both free and efficient.

*Mr. Meredith has anounced that he is not a candidate for President in 1928. Mr. Lowden is a candidate. He looms among half a dozen other Republicans, if President Coolidge does not get a third term nomination.