despite the fact that the Central Government subscribed about $9,000,000 of capital stock to initiate the system. This subscription is being paid back to the Government already. The Federal Land Bank of Spokane as early as April, 1919, distributed dividends amounting to $60,000. The Federal Land Bank of Houston declared a dividend in October, 1918.

"Only one per cent spread is permitted between the bank loan rate and the bond rate. There is already ample proof that the Federal Farm Loan system is a financial success, and can be made self-supporting on less than a one per cent margin. The money loaned to the farmers comes from the sale of bonds, exempt from all kinds of taxation.

Now, in order that private companies might not be put out of business by Federal competition, the Federal Farm Loan Act provided for a system of joint-stock land banks into which the old mortgage companies might enter. But if the private companies came into the Federal system, they were not allowed to charge the farmers more than the Federal rate of interest, and have to submit to the regulation of the Federal Farm Loan Board.

"Most of the private farm mortgage companies, I believe, have stayed out of the Federal System, and are conducting an insidious propaganda to ruin it. They are operating in many of our States, and charge farmers as high as eight and ten per cent interest. They consider that the Federal Government is a meddler in their lucrative business. You see, the Federal system operates upon a fixed basis of income, and rules that any excess of income over expenses and a fixed reserve must go back to the borrowers in the form of dividends. Of course it is natural to consider the Government your financial enemy if you find it difficult to loan money at a high interest rate in competition with lowinterest long-time Federal loans to your patrons.

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ATTACKS FARM LOAN ACT

The Federal Government is no longer considering the thousands of new applications from farmers for loans that are pouring into Washington. Why? The Farm Mortgage Bankers' Association is responsible for a suit now pending in the Supreme Court to test the constitutionality of that provision of the Federal Farm Loan Act which exempts the Federal Farm Loan and the joint-stock land bank bonds from taxation. Until the Court has handed down its decision no further loans will be made, although more than one hundred and thirty thousand farmers in the last three years have already been helped financially to the extent of more than $500,000,000 by the Federal land banks and the various joint-stock land banks.

Paul Thompson

"As a result of this suit interest rates have already been raised by private money-lenders and banks from one to four per cent on loans to farmers.

"If the Farm Mortgage Bankers' Association should win this suit, consumers would be the worst sufferers. The farmer is the first to be fed and the last to starve; the consumer is the last to be fed and the first to starve. It would further discourage an already discouraged class of basic workers, and mean a serious setback to the ownership of farms by farmers, particularly young farmers. If this suit should go against the farmer, it would mean a serious decrease in food production, which would mean higher cost of food products to the consumer. Or it might mean that the higher rate of interest which the farmers would be compelled to pay would result in increased cost of raising farm products. In any case, a decision adverse to the farmer will come home hard to the consumer. The country and the city are inseparably linked together," concluded my informant.

I asked a number of farmers if the Federal Farm Loan Act, with its taxexemption clause, was not a piece of class legislation. I do not know how sound the opinion of these farmers is, but this is what they think: "Class legislation! We know that some bankers and other money-lenders regard it as such. They are much wrought up about the $500,000,000 Farm Loan bonds representing class legislation. But how much are these same persons wrought up about the more than $4,000,000,000 of municipal bonds that are exempt from Federal taxation being class legis lation? Or the more than $1,750,000,000 worth of mortgages held by mutual building and loan associations that are exempt from taxation? Or the more than $2,000,000,000 worth of mutual savings banks mortgages that are exempted? Or the stock in the Federal Reserve Banks and the income therefrom that are exempt from all taxation?

Where the money-grabbers have one chance to secure a farm bond free from taxation they have twenty or more chances to secure municipal and other bonds free from taxation. Then how about Government aid furnished in the form of a protective tariff for manufacturers and their employees since the days of Alexander Hamilton? Isn't it about time agriculture was given as much consideration as other business?"

ATTEMPT TO SUPPRESS CROP REPORT No less an authority than the Secretary of Agriculture has recently made public that certain food interests, particularly the large food speculators, have at times attempted the suppression of the crop reports. What difference would it make to the consuming public if these reports were suppressed? The Secretary holds, in substance, that speculation in food products depends and thrives upon lack of information, uncertainty, and confusion on the part of farmers and the public. Were it not for the crop reports, the public would be at the mercy of the speculators, who would be free to issue any sort of misleading reports designed to influence prices. Congress has played right into the hands of the food speculators by refusing to appropriate sufficient funds to make the Federal crop reporting service more useful.

The Secretary of Agriculture complains that the last Congress failed by about $6,000,000 to appropriate the money necessary to carry on fifty essential activities of the Department. This has proved harmful both to our domestic needs and to our export trade. Lack of funds has seriously handicapped the eradication of hog cholera and footand-mouth disease. It has interfered with co-operative cow testing. It has. checked the prevention of cereal diseases and the enforcement of the Federal Pure Food and Drugs Act. The sweet-potato weevil gets a new lease on

(C) Underwood & Underwood

life. Tropical and sub-tropical plant insects are again enabled to flourish in California, Florida, and other Gulf States. One wonders why there are not more farmers and fewer lawyers in Congress.

"America is over-industrialized," complains one farmer. "Factories are turning out luxuries, frills, and nonessentials. Our wealth must be replenished-we need more capital rather than more credit. We need more bumper crops. The Government should make it easier for industrious people to own farms. The Federal Farm Loan System cannot because it is limited to loaning to those who already own land and can offer security amounting to at least forty per cent of the loan. Through Federal, State, and local co-operation a loaning system might be modeled after building and loan associations."

One Maine farmer wants it made a crime punishable by imprisonment to speculate in farm products; he adds that marketing can never become satisfactory until we have a Government standard in grades. Another demands clarification and amendment of the anti-trust laws.

Here are six planks which the farmers of America asked the Republican and Democratic parties to put into their platforms :

1. We recognize agriculture as the fundamental industry, and we pledge

ourselves to give it practical and adequate representation in the Cabinet and in the appointment of Governmental officials, and of commissions on a bi-partisan basis.

2. We pledge to all farmers the full, free, and unquestioned right of cooperative maketing of their farm products and purchase of their supplies and protection against discrimination.

3. We pledge effective National control over the packers and all other great inter-State combinations of capital engaged for profit in the manufacturing, transportation, and distribution of food and other farm products and farm supplies.

4. We pledge legislation that will effectively check and reduce the growth and evils of farm tenancy. We pledge the perpetuation and strengthening of the Federal Farm Loan System, the improvement of facilities for loans on farm commodities, and the inauguration of a system for co-operative personal credit that will enable farmers to secure short-time credit on more favorable terms.

5. We pledge comprehensive studies of farm-production costs, at home and abroad, and the uncensored publication of facts found in such studies.

6. We pledge ourselves to accord agriculture the same consideration in tariff legislation as is accorded to other interests.

An agricultural economist from Pennsylvania declares that the hope of America lies in the harmonious devel

opment of her resources instead of special privileges for certain other industries at the expense of agriculture. In Springfield, Massachusetts, the agricultural center of the North Atlantic States, the policy advocated is being worked out by the Hampden County Improvement League and the Eastern States Agricultural and Industrial League. Their effort is to bring about a better understanding between country and city, to rebuild the dying agricultural life, to promote general business prosperity. To the League belong leading manufacturers, merchants, bankers, and farmers. All are conscious of the interdependence of manufacturing, banking, and farming.

"More agricultural products are consumed here in the East than are produced here," a large manufacturer of Springfield tells me. "The cost of food and of manufacturing is constantly increasing as the population increases. In finance and manufacturing the West is the competitor of the East. But the East imports the greater part of its foodstuffs as well as most of its raw materials for manufacturing, while the West, in addition to raising most of its own foodstuffs, exports great quantities of them. The West also has most of its raw manufacturing materials nearer at hand than the East."

The Eastern manufacturer, as a result, has to pay his employees higher wages and has to pay more for his raw materials. When he goes into the market with his goods in competition with the Western manufacturer, this double differential is greatly to the Easterner's disadvantage. Abundant crops raised in the East would help offset this disadvantage and would mean greater social contentment on the part of employees through reduction of their cost of living. New England manufacturers cannot continue much longer to increase wages more rapidly than their Western competitors. Driven by these conditions, some New England industries have moved West and some South, but either an extensive exodus of industries from New England or a lowering of standards of living of New England wage-earners would be fatal to New England. Manufacturers and bankers have begun to comprehend that their prosperity is fundamentally dependent upon that of the farmer.

dairy farming; to-day the League has imbued dairymen with new confidence. Production of eggs has increased. Carloads of sheep have been brought from the West. Balanced rations for animals, modern farm plants, drainage, and sanitation are now the rule. Co-operative buying and marketing have saved these farmers thousands of dollars, and have headed off the tendency toward too great an individualism among farmers. The Granville Apple By-Products Plant has recently been organized on co-operative lines, and will save the farmers thousands of bushels of apples heretofore almost given away or not even picked. The plant will manufacture apple juice, apple butter, vinegar, and jellies.

A farmers' co-operative market has been organized at Springfield to sell direct to the consumers only. The League has established through two loan associations a credit system which is patronized liberally by the farmers. It is striking at the solution of one of the biggest farm problems, that of labor. Farms have a knack of demanding that they be operated by human. beings. A perfectly amazing system of boys' and girls' clubs has been established with a membership of nine thousand for the single county of Hampden. All of these young Americans are actively engaged under expert supervision in the care of chickens, pigs, calves, sheep, bees, and gardens. I was amazed at the zest, the eagerness, and the spirit of play these young people put into their new-found earning power. They are catching the farm spirit, and many of them are already laying plans to become owners of farms.

The Home-Making Department of the League lays great stress upon the relation of foods to health. In four years fifty groups of women have taken up this subject. The importance of milk as a food is widely taught and advertised. The League is fighting malnutrition, lack of teeth care, the housefly, and poor clothing habits. It introduces labor-saving devices, and teaches household accounting and budgetmaking. Each woman pledges herself to pass on to others what she herself learns. All these and other activities

are carried on among the foreignspeaking populations as well.

This significant programme is for city people as well as for country folk. Teaching and practicing sound economics of production and distribution, making better and brighter homes, bringing city and country into better understanding and closer co-operationsuch are the services of the Hampden County League.

The Eastern States Agricultural and Industrial League, Incorporated, now operating in the ten North Atlantic States, was organized about two years ago. It has thousands of members. They believe that farmers need pros

THE REMEDY

What should our future policy toward agriculture be? What programme of agricultural reconstruction do we need?

1. The vital relation of agriculture to National and personal wellbeing should be taught to the 25,000,000 or more people attending our schools.

2. The number of our agricultural schools should be greatly increased at once, and a truly National system of agricultural education effected.

3. Our rural school system needs to be overhauled and reorganized, and city-bred boys and girls should have the chance to learn farming.

4. All newspapers and magazines in the United States should keep their readers consistently informed as to the real problems of agricul ture, and should make constructive criticisms.

5. The existing system of distributing food products from the country to the cities and towns, which has been organized without the slightest consideration of the farmers, should be reorganized in the interest of both producers and consumers. Our present system is costly, inefficient, wasteful, and unfair.

6. Some sound system of effecting ownership of farms by those who wish to own farms, but cannot on account of lack of capital, should be devised. In this system the capitaliz ing of approved character must be an essential part.

7. Farming must be so reorganized that it can pay wages and grant working conditions that will compare favorably with other industries.

8. Both National and State legislation should recognize and encourage collective bargaining among

farmers.

9. The farmer must have actual and practical voice in government by appointment and election to public positions, and should be called into council when questions affecting commerce, trade, and transportation, both National and international, are being discussed and decided.

10. The Government should keep men in all foreign countries studying the methods and the tendencies of agriculture, and widespread notice should be given of the results of such studies.

11. Farmers and consumers should organize throughout our country for direct dealing with each other.

perous industries and thriving customers, and that manufacturers, bankers, merchants, and urban consumers need prosperous farmers.

The League is accomplishing its purposes through six special means. The Eastern States Farmers' Exchange purchased at wholesale for farmers $1,725,518 worth of farm supplies. The Eastern States Consumers' Exchange buys at wholesale prices for scores of employees' co-operative stores; new stores are constantly being established, especially in manufacturing centers. The Farm Finance Bureau has established the Eastern States Agricultural Trust and has arranged credit among bankers and business men sufficient to finance $10,000,000 of farm business annually. The credit can be expanded to almost any amount as the business of the Farmers' Exchange increases; and this phase of the work of the League alone is a great factor in getting city and country to understand each other. The Home Bureau of the League operates along lines similar to those pursued in Hampden County.

The League is organizing rural and urban boys and girls into Junior Achievement Clubs. Although this ef fort is only a few months old, over one hundred thousand boys and girls already belong to the clubs, and more than $300,000 of the $500,000 asked for the work has been subscribed. In Springfield seventy leading business men have volunteered as leaders in this work. Its objects are to set a standard of achievement in work programmes; to make work popular through club projects under trained leadership; to develop a sportsmanlike attitude toward produc tive work; to capitalize industry, commerce, and agriculture for the benefit of boys and girls; to assist young people to earn money and own property; to acquire habits of thrift and be businesslike. To attain independence at fifty is another aim.

Had I not seen with my own eyes, it would be rather difficult for me to believe what these clubs are achieving.

To the manufacturer it means more and better food supplies for his em ployees at lower cost efficiency. To the employee it means more purchasing power in his dollar, better living conditions, and greater efficiency. To the banker it means a steadily increasing field for his operations due to greater industrial and farming prosperity. To the merchant it means more sales and quicker payment of bills. To the farmer it means more economic production, more satisfactory marketing accommodations, greater prosperity, and better home and community life.

"The well-being of the people is like a tree-agriculture is its root; manufacture and commerce are its branches and life," wrote a Chinese philosopher. "If the root is injured, the leaves fall, the branches break, and the tree dies."

W

HEN Simon Lee, the shoemaker, left Blue Hill Village on his strange quest, he seemed to steal away. It is a curious fact that you cannot get out of Blue Hill Village even in the daytime without seeming to steal away. When you walk down the only street, which twists exactly like the letter S, you are never visible from more than one house at a time. A branch which you have disturbed sweeps into place behind you, or an oak tree shadows you, or the corner of a log cabin conceals you. If you step out of the village in any direction, north or south or east or west, meaning to descend into the valley or to ascend the mountain, you are swallowed up, even in the narrow road, by a sea of verdure.

W

HEN young John McIntyre and Benny Lucas marched away early one summer evening, there could be no formal procession, because there was no place in which to march. There was, however, an escort. Grandfather McIntyre walked first, tooting on an old fife, and then came the boys, each with a little bundle, and then the fathers and mothers and the few young girls and the children. They kept close together, and the group was so small that they never occupied at one time more than one limb of the letter S.

Not only did elderberry bushes and early shadows and corners of house walls hide their bodies, but a loud sound drowned out their voices and made their little celebration seem ridiculous. The sound was that produced by whip poorwills whooping above their heads. The whippoorwills seemed to mock them and jeer at them. It is to be regretfully recorded that Will Lucas, who could not go to war because he was lame, turned and put out his tongue in the direction of a particularly scornful bird.

Simon Lee, sitting in his little house, tapped and tapped and did not bestir himself. But Blue Hill Village knew that Simon Lee had given each boy twenty-five dollars, a princely gift, and that it was he who would look after Gran'pa McIntyre. What Blue Hill Village did not realize was that Simon, seeing a faint glow of amazement and disapproval in the breasts of Blue Hill Village in the summer of 1914, had watched it and sheltered it and put fuel delicately upon it, so that in this summer evening of 1917 it flamed to a consuming fire in the hearts of John and Benny and other Blue Hill Villagers. Simon had books and newspapers and knowledge of the outside world; he was Blue Hill Village's only Mercury.

He was also Blue Hill Village's only

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"Don't you give trouble!" cried Simon. There are words must be forgotten, like Yank' and 'Reb.' They can be forgotten if you think of what you. have to do now. You must be peacemakers if you can. Simon trembled. The proximity of boys from Maine and boys from Alabama was to his mind full of peril; the action of the Government in placing them together a tragic mistake.

"But we were right," said John McIntyre, earnestly.

Simon Lee rose from his old bench. "As right as right,” said he.

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They say there was folks in this State didn't think so," said Benny Lucas. "My pop says that. He says there was none of them round here, though. They were going to betray the North even though they were Northerners. 'Sons of Liberty,' they called themselves, and Knights of the Golden Circle.' But the Government found them and took their names, and made a record of them, thousands and

thousands. I wouldn't like to have my name on that record."

Simon Lee began to put away his tools. He looked very pale; it seemed that the perfidy of Sons of Liberty was too much for him.

"God bless Abraham Lincoln !" said he, apropos of nothing at all.

W

HEN the procession was over and John and Benny had been swallowed up and the whippoorwills seemed to grow hysterical in their mockery, and doors closed and shut out the cool evening air, Simon Lee laid down his hammer and put his shop in order for the night and took off his leather apron and went up the rough street. It was a starless night, and he made his way slowly to Grandfather McIntyre's door. There he lifted the latch and went in with an explanatory "It's me." Inside he locked the door and then sat down heavily in the unoccupied chair of the two which were all the little kitchen could accommodate.

Grandfather McIntyre looked up with tearful eyes. They had been boys together, but Simon Lee did not show his years, and Grandfather McIntyre, white-bearded and tremulous, looked much older than he was.

The cries of the whippoorwill penetrated here; they seemed to mock, before they were uttered, any thoughts or plans which were to be expressed.

"You seen 'em go?" said Gran'pa McIntyre at last. He spoke like the rest of Blue Hill Village in a patois which had in it now a Southern drawl and now a Yankee crispness.

Simon made no direct answer; he said, "God help me!" not profanely, but as though he were actually calling upon God, and covered his face with his hands.

"Don't, Simon!" protested Gran'pa McIntyre. He did not know the reason for his friend's depression, but he was always sympathetic.

Though he had only just come, Simon rose from his chair.

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You've got John," said he, bitterly. "I have nobody, and never will have nobody."

"It'll be made right in heaven, Simon."

Heaven!" Simon Lee lifted his hands high above his head. "I don't care nothing for heaven."

Gran'pa McIntyre put out his hand to take a book at his elbow. It was bedtime, and emotion had tired him out. He knew that Simon did not mean what he said.

"You join with me in my Scripture reading?"

Simon did not care to hear the Scrip