Relief?

Economic discomfiture for a people is political discomfiture for a government. And yet so strange is the structure of modern U. S. politics that the present Administration has survived while the Nation's farmers have felt themselves sick unto death.

For five years the farm-threat has hung dagger-like above the Republican party. But so impotent has been the Democratic party that the farmers have never let the dagger drop except to prick here and there a political life. For three and one-half years, President Coolidge has unequivocally opposed every farm bill which the farm bloc desired. And, while he has not signed any of the bills which the farm bloc did not want, he has never offered any plan of relief. He has confined himself to advising farmers to cooperate on their own initiative. Hitherto, the President has avoided vetoing a farm bloc bill by using his influence to kill the bill in Congress. Last week it became clear that he could no longer avoid the personal issue.

It became clear that a farm relief bill--one which he dislikes and Secretary Mellon abhors--was soon to be passed by Congress. If he vetoes it, he will promptly be told that Frank Orren Lowden or Charles Gates Dawes is as likely to be the next President of the U. S. as is Calvin Coolidge. If he signs it, he will be called upon to apologize to New England and "sound businessmen" throughout the land, and will be accused of having lost his character as a strong, silent man. Incidentally, he may find that his signature has been attached to an unconstitutional measure. And he will get little credit for signing--as everyone will be told that the signing was a case of sour pickles.

The news of this bill last week was the more amazing because a month ago not a single political prophet saw a farm bill in this Congress's horoscope. What happened has in it a tale of political strategy all of which is not yet apparent.

It began with a matter of coal. The President wanted a bill passed giving him power to deal with a coal crisis, should one arise. Horrified, coal operators from and about Pittsburgh caused their lobbyists and Congressmen to gyrate. At this juncture, the fine Machiavellian hand of an opportunist plucked the reins of state. It is believed to have been that of able lawyer and farmer's-friend, Congressman Dickinson of Iowa.* Whoever it was, word was passed that the House farm bloc would vote for a coal-crisis bill. Then the farm bloc offered to block the coal-crisis bill if the coal operators' congressmen would get behind their favorite farm bill and push. Closed. Silence shrouded coal while from one end of the capital to the other a fanfare of political trumpets echoed the groans of the suffering farmer.

In quick succession, the Senate and House Agriculture committees reported favorably the revised McNary-Haugen bill. But how to get a vote with so much other important legislation pending? There now appeared one morning after a fashionable dinner at which he had been the lion, the Vice President of the U. S. A banker, Mr. Dawes has nevertheless allowed his blessing to rest on the McNary-Haugen scheme. A man of great resourcefulness, he whiffed the political air and he smelled a bill dear to "big business." That was the McFadden branch banking bill, with which is involved the fortunes of the Federal Reserve System. Mr. Dawes got the bank-bill men and the farm-bill men together. Just how and where is not known. Farm-bill men agreed to let the bank bill pass, bank-bill men agreed to vote for a vote on the farm-bill. And last week the farm bill, which a month ago had been as dead as a pig in a stockyard, commanded the immediate attention of the Senate--with an even chance of passing by a narrow margin. Thus with two neat strokes of strategy, the farmers were in sight of that land of milk and honey which the government had for five years told them was never-never land.

Consideration of the U. S. farmer involves thousands of facts, hundreds of theories, dozens of nostrums, bushels of sentiment and clouds of politics. Some of the facts:

P: U. S. farms produce more than U. S. people eat, wear, or otherwise use or waste.

P: There is therefore a farm surplus available for sale in competition with foreign-produced comestibles. Hence its price-value (which like water seeks a level) is in part determined by foreign price-values, and foreign price-values are relatively low.

P: The U. S. protects most of its manufactured products by tariff. Protection means keeping prices and wages up. Thus farmers must buy their clothes, building materials, labor, cosmetics, etc., in a protected market, although they must sell in an unprotected market.

P: The biggest item in the cost of producing farm stuff is the cost of land--i. e. its rental value. Many a farmer bought land during the War boom when farmland was worth more than it is today. (The effects of this situation are gradually wearing off--but it is still one of the factors in the farm-problem.)

According to the Department of Agriculture, the average price for an acre of farm land was $108 in 1920, $76 in 1926.*

P: Many a U. S. farmer makes money, and wants no government aid.

P: While the farm vote rules some states, because 51% of the voters in those states are farmers, it can no longer rule the nation except as a minority may rule. Reason: only about one-third of the U. S. farms.

Many states, have a Grange-- an organization of farmers, which is occasionally the most powerful single political group in the State.

P: Corn and swine are linked. Let farmers believe they will get a good price for corn, and promptly too much corn is planted. Down goes the price of corn. Meanwhile swine command good prices. So, next season, farmers turn their acres over to swine, feeding them on the almost worthless corn. Then, in the course of nature, they get too many swine and not enough corn. Down swine-price. Up corn-price. Next season farmers plant corn, and vicious is the circle. Furthermore, this corn-swine see-saw is apt to be exaggerated--an exaggeration of an exaggeration-- in city corn-exchanges where gamblers get giddy.

The McNary-Haugen Bill is the most famed remedy for the farmer's ills. Its most easily comprehended elements are:

1) There shall be a Farm Board --a great government brokerage corporation. Its members shall be appointed by the President from nominations made by various farm organizations.*

2) To it will be turned over $250,000,000 ( 1/4 billion) of government money.

3) When it sees fit to do so, it will declare that more of a certain crop has been produced than the U. S. can consume.

4) It will determine how great the surplus is, and will proceed to dispose of the surplus either by

a) buying the surplus and holding it against a lean year, or

b) buying the surplus and selling it abroad at whatever price it can get.

5) The loss and expense of its operations will be paid by an equalization fee. This fee will be collected (in transit and in other points) as an internal tax on every unit of the crop in question-- bushel, bale or pound.

6) The plan is to be labeled an experiment (it is proper, it is argued, for the government to experiment on behalf of the people's good). If it succeeds, it will take nothing directly out of the government purse, for the equalization fee will pay all. If it fails, the government loses the $250,000,000 capital, and whatever other capital it may later put into it.

The arguments in favor of the bill are quickly summed up by saying that most of the farm bloc wants it because it believes that most of the farmers believe it will make them richer.

The arguments against it and the appropriate rebuttals are:

1) It is price-fixing, and price-fixing is only less abhorrent than communism. Rebuttal: it is not price-fixing.

2) It is price-fixing, for although the Farm Board will not declare the price of wheat to be so-and-so, it can control the price of wheat because it can control the supply. Rebuttal: It is merely price-stabilization, the cost of which is borne by the equilization fund.

3) It will do the farmer no good. For as soon as higher prices are created for a crop, more of that crop will be produced, and the last state will be worse than the first. Rebuttal: with fair prices for all crops (including swine), farmers will not tend to produce an excess of one and an insufficiency of another.

4) It will give occasion for graft. Rebuttal: so has, does, and always will the protective tariff.

Over against the McNary-Haugen scheme is the position assumed by the Administration. It favors the extension of co-operative marketing for farmers but by farmers. In this school of thought, the only proper role for the Federal Government is to offer advice and disseminate information.

But the direst opponents of the McNary-Haugen Bill are opponents of all government-going-into-business schemes. The biggest farmer in the world is Thomas D. Campbell of Montana. As an important example he is vital to any farm discussion. He says, in effect, that the very idea of "a farmer" is obsolescent foolishness, that he ought to be put in a museum along with the dodo and the cobbler and the individual candlestick maker.

Mr. Campbell farms 100,000 acres without a single beast of burden and with few men. Machinery and mass do it. Today he farms an acre of wheat for $8. The Government standard for efficiency is $16.50. Following his example, he says all farming should be done by great corporations. Great corporations can get credit from banks which view the "farmer" with alarm. Great corporations can develop new inventions,* can watch markets, can hire the efficient and fire the inefficient.

The Campbell idea is oppose mainly by those who are appalled by its corollary: a social revolution.

Authors McNary & Haugen. The Senator joint-author of the McNary-Haugen bill is Charles Linza McNary who did not stay down on the Oregon farm where he was born. Leland Stanford Jr. University (Calif.) and private tutors educated him. A lawyer and gentleman, he became Dean of an Oregon law school, whence he was elevated to the bench. In Washington, the characteristic thing about him is not that he is Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee but that he is a member of the Committee on Committees. The latter requires political finesse, conversation (not oratory), the dispassionate manipulation of other men's passions. And Senator McNary plays faces better than figures.

The Congressman-author is Gilbert Nelson Haugen, a sincere, likable old politician, who was reared in Wisconsin and rose in Iowa. He never had much education, has doubtless gone further than his father thought he would. He has never permitted either his ambitions or insidious urban barbers to run away with his rural idea of a proper tonsure.

* Believed to be a candidate for Republican nomination for Vice President of the U. S.

* Most of the decrease has been in cattle lands. Per contra, in the Texas Panhandle values increased by conversion of ranches into cotton farms.

* This point is a shock to admirers of the constitutional phrase ". . . by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate."

* A mechanical cotton-picker, for example, which, operated by two men, will do the work of 25, is expected to be on the market soon.