The Bismarck Tribune

Farmers and NRA

Despite the futility of embargoes and farm strikes to gain any relief for the deplorable conditions that beset agriculture, no one who knows the real plight of the farmers can blame them for grasping at straws in their present dilemma.

Until agriculture is given the same consideration as other industry and attempts made to restore parity, there will be continued resorts to embargoes, strikes, inability to pay taxes or to meet the staggering debt which hangs over agriculture-at present writing nearly 13 billion or an increase since President Roosevelt delivered his Topeka speech of nearly four billion.

It is admitted by most fair-minded leaders in the two principal political parties that President Roosevelt has tried hard and strenuously to make good the pledges of his party made at the Chicago convention, and reiterated by him at Topeka, but the fine spun theories of his agricultural experts and the NRA codes have not brought any measurable relief to agriculture.

Before the theories of Wallace and Peek were in full sway and the Blue Eagle soared into high, there were more evidences of an agricultural comeback than there are now. Examine the market reports of mid-summer and today. At the announcement of processing taxes, thousands of buyers of agricultural products slowed up. The nation went off the gold dollar. Credit tightened, traders were more cautious than ever and demand was absent because the threat of inflation hung like a wet blanket over all forms of business.

Seven months, of course, is too brief a period in which to overcome a depression which began four years ago. But it appears to many in the agricultural regions that the NRA is "hogging" the road to prosperity and that a multiplicity of codes, while putting some 4,000,000 men to work, has actually added to the farmers load by increasing materially his cost of living while a bear market and more debts continue to plague him.

This is the picture in brief. The national administration seems to be pouring in at the top again in hope that prosperity will trickle down. There have been no drippings for the farmer since the codes boosted the prices of everything he buys. Of course agricultural unrest follows and who can blame the farmers after the promises made?

There are evidences, too, that many of the rules and regulations set up to aid the farmers have not worked the way the theorists promised. What little inflation there has been--and there has been some--has not aided the farmer.

If prices of oil and other commodities are to be fixed, how can the administration deny the farmer his code under the NRA with its price regulation?

The plight of the oil industry is well known. Under the oil code the price of crude is set at $1.11 a barrel. This naturally brings the demand for all sorts of price fixing which, if persisted in, will bring about confusion and general economic chaos unless we are on the verge of abolishing all forms of capitalism for absolute state socialism.

It cannot be overlooked that agriculture is the basis of all prosperity. Out here in the wheat and corn belt we were reminded of that so many times during the recent national campaign that the references became dull and platitudinous. But it is just as true today as ever. Agriculture represents nearly half the nation's industry.

Can there be NRA prosperity for one half and abject poverty for the other?

There are certain recent phases of the NRA which do not please many people. Gen. Johnson's threats to "smack down" this or that industry is not in keeping with Roosevelt's conception of his New Deal. Johnson's intimidating tactics smack too much of dictatorship which is not contributing to harmony and the fine spirit in which the new deal was launched. Speaking generally, there must be an immediate shift in national policy toward agriculture.