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 Farm organizations.Hearing before the Co 
 
 3 1924 013 716 414 
 
ARM ORGANIZATIONS 
 
 COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CUEEENCY 
 OF THE HOUSE OF EEPEESENTATIYES 
 
 HEARING 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 "^ 
 
 
 FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1921 
 
 STATEMENT OF 
 
 MR. T. C. ATKESON 
 
 Representative of the National Grange 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 i'l.- L 
 
 .'I'V! 
 
 srm2 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
 
 1921 
 
COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY. 
 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 sixty-sixth congress, third session. 
 
 LOUIS T. MoFADDEN, 
 POETEB H. DALE, Vermont. 
 
 ROscoE c. Mcculloch, Ohio. 
 
 EDWARD J. KING, Illinois. 
 FRANK D. SCOTT, Michigan. 
 ADOLPHUS P. NELSON, Wisconsin. 
 JAMES G. STRONG, Kansas. 
 L. S. ECHOLS, West Virginia. 
 EDWARD S. BROOKS, Pennsylvania. 
 WILLIAM H. HILL, New York. 
 ROBERT LUCE, Massachusetts. 
 CLARK BUEDICK, Rhode Island. 
 
 Pennsylvania, Chairman. 
 MICHAEL F. PHELAN, Massachusetts. 
 JOE H. EAGLE, Texas. 
 OTIS WINGO, Artansas. 
 HENRY B. STEAGALL, Alabama. 
 JAMES A. HAMILL, New Jersey. 
 AUGUSTINE LONERGAN, Connecticut 
 CHARLES H. BRAND, Georgia. 
 W. F. STEVENSON, South Carolina. 
 
 Fsedeb:c H. BLACEFOhD, Clerk. 
 
FAKM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 Committee on Banking and Cueeency, 
 
 House of Eepeesentatives, 
 Washington, D 6*., Friday, January SI, 1921. 
 The committee met, pursuant to the call of the chairman, at 2 
 o'clock p. m., in the committee room in the Capitol, Hon. Louis T. 
 McFadden (chairman) presiding. 
 
 The Chairman. The committee will come to order. Dr. Atkeson 
 is here to be heard, and he will proceed. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. T. C. ATKESON, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE 
 NATIONAL GRANGE IN WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I am the representative of the National Grange in 
 Washington. I am just a little at a loss, Mr. Chairman, to loiow 
 what this committee wants. 
 
 The Chaieman. Well, just so that it may be clear: Your coming 
 before the committee is the result of a letter which I received from 
 you asking that you be permitted to be heard, and I think that we 
 had, perhaps, better put your letter right in the record at this point. 
 
 (The letter referred to is here printed in the record, as follows:) 
 
 National Okange, 
 Wmhinijton, D. C, Jatiuary 12, 19Z1. 
 Hon. Louis T. McFadden, 
 
 Chairman Committee on Banking and Currency, 
 
 House of Rcprctientatires, Washintiton, D. C. 
 Deab Sik: We note a reference in the newspapers to the (act that your com- 
 mittee is to make an investigation " to ascertain who finances the various farm 
 organizations which call upon Congress with great frequency to enact ' special 
 legislation.' " 
 
 The National Grange is a farmers' organization which maintains a Washing- 
 ton office and a Washington representative who appears frequently before con- 
 gressional committees in the interests of legislation which is deemed to be of 
 national importance and opposed to legislation which is deemed to be in the 
 interest of personal or class interests. 
 
 It may be that this activity of the National Grange brings this organization; 
 within the list of farm organizations relative to which your committee wishes 
 to ascertain the sources of their financial support. 
 
 Whether this is true or not. I will welcome the fullest possible investigation 
 and stand ready to submit not only a detailed statement of the receipts and 
 expenditures of this office, but also a detailed statement as to the source of the 
 financial support of the entire Grange organization. 
 
 Will you not advise me as to when hearings are held on this matter, so that I 
 may be present at these hearings. 
 
 Tours, sincerely, T. C. Atkeson, 
 
 Washington Representative. 
 
 Mr. Aticeson. I am perfectly willing to have that letter in the 
 record, as it discloses the purpose of the hearing. 
 
 The Chairman. I might say in addition to that that we have been 
 hearing Mr. Benjamin C. Marsh, secretary and director of the 
 
* FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 Farmers' National Council, and that we have also heard Mr. Gray 
 Silver, the Washington representative of the American Farm Bureau 
 i ederation, and in addition to the matters which they presented to 
 the committee we have been asking them some pertinent questions 
 regarding who they are and what they are doing, and we would like 
 to get that same information from you, together with any other facts 
 that you may care to present to the committee. 
 
 Mr. Atileson. Then, Mr. Chairman, I want, in the first place, to 
 thank the chairman and the committee for hearing what I may have 
 to say in answer to the letter that I sent. I think I will state the 
 occasion of my writing that letter. 
 
 The Chairman. Very well. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. We saw in the newspapers that an investigation was 
 to be rnade of the farmers' representatives in Washington, and we 
 immediately addressed this letter to the chairman of this committee, 
 saying that if they wanted to know what we were doing here in 
 Washington, we were perfectly willing to state to the committee why 
 we were here. 
 
 Mr. Brand. Mr. Chairman, if you will permit me just a minute, I 
 want to know, for my own information, if any such statement as that 
 went out of our committee? I was not here when we adjourned for 
 the holidays. 
 
 The Chairman. Which statement do you mean? 
 
 Mr. Brand. Was there a request from this committee that all 
 these organizations should be called before us to show cause why they 
 were operating here in Washington? 
 
 Mr. WiNGo. I think not. 
 
 The Chairman. I never heard of it. 
 
 Mr. King. Certainly not. 
 
 Mr. ^ViNGO. I thought of that, and it might be well to ask the wit- 
 ness what statement he refers to. 
 
 As a matter of fact, these hearings started by Mr. Marsh coming 
 down and requesting a hearing ; and then it was stated that any other 
 organizations would be perfectly free to come in and we would be 
 glad to hear them on any suggestions that they had to make with 
 reference to any oending legislation or any legislation that they 
 thought proper to initiate. There was no agreement by this com- 
 mittee or no suggestion that we were going to undertake to investi- 
 gate the numerous organizations that were in Washington purport- 
 ing to represent the farmers. This committee is not sitting here 
 because they are bringing anybody in, but they are here because they 
 are hearing people who have asked to be heard. Is not that true, 
 Mr. Chairman? 
 
 The Chairman. I think so. Mr. Marsh, in answering some ques- 
 tions propounded by myself and members of this committee, said 
 that he did not object to answering those questions, if the same ques- 
 tions were asked of the other organizations. I said to him that when- 
 ever these organizations came before us we would endeavor to find out 
 the very same things we were endeavoring to find out from him. 
 That covers the matter so far as my knowledge goes. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Would it not be well to remove the impression that 
 our asking minute questions as to the organizations and whom they 
 are representing before the committee arises from any desire to look 
 
FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 5 
 
 into their business, but instead that the committee wants to knoAv 
 for whom they speak, so as to know what weight to give to their 
 statements, so as to knoAv to what extent they really speak the 
 thought of the farmers of the country; that it is not out of any 
 criticism of the organizations or their methods, but just to find out 
 whom they represent ? 
 
 The Chairman. That is what I said to Mr. Marsh, that it was not 
 in a spirit of animosity but for the purpose of getting information. 
 
 Mr. Silver appeared before this committee largely because of a 
 letter which the Federation of Farm Bureaus sent out to Members of 
 Congress. He came here before the hearing, and I discussed with 
 him that letter, and he suggested that it would be a good plan to be 
 heard, so that the farmers of the country could know exactly what 
 their organization was; and that hearing was arranged, and he was 
 here this morning as a result of that situation. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think we understand each 
 other. 
 
 The Chairman. Now, you make your statement, Doctor, in your 
 own way. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. So far as I am concerned, I was rather in the dis- 
 position to seek this opportunity to say whom we represent and who 
 we are. 
 
 In the first place, I think I may say to this committee tliat I have 
 touched the jjroblems of agriculture at more angles than any other 
 living man. Maybe it is because I have lived longer than most other 
 living men and have had more opportunity, but I think that is true. 
 
 I am a practical farmer. I have been engaged in the business, 
 directly and indirectly, all my life, and I am now. 
 
 Now, then, I have been a member of this organization known as 
 the Patrons of Husbandry for just about 40 years. I have been 
 officially connected with it one way and another for 38 years, and I 
 think i know its history from start to finish. I do not know just 
 how much of that history I ought to put into this record, but it 
 seems to me that it is worth while that this committee and other com- 
 mittees of Congress should know that this organization has been in 
 existence for 55 years, or nearly 55 years. Its last session, which 
 met at Boston, Mass., November 10-20, 1920, was the fifty-fourth 
 annual session. 
 
 It is a fraternal, educational, and social organization — a secret 
 fraternal organization of farmers — and Ave initiated in the highest 
 degree of this organization at the Boston session 9,838 farmers ; and 
 we had in that city at least 15,000 members during the session, rep- 
 resenting practically all the States in the Union, except a few of 
 the cotton-growing States. We extend from Maine to California, 
 across the continent. 
 
 We started — that is, this organization started — without any inten- 
 tion of engaging in commercial enterprises or legislative influences, 
 but purely with a view of developing better men and better women 
 and better conditions in the country. I ha^e here a little pamphlet 
 which gives this information about it more briefly than I can 
 frame it. 
 
 The National Grange is a farmers' fraternitj'. The full title of 
 this organization is " The National Grange of the Patrons of Hus 
 bandry." 
 
O FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 Instead of calling its various units by names used by other fra- 
 ternities, such as lodges or camps or posts, the National Grange has 
 named its units " Granges," and by common consent the term "the 
 Grange," while technically meaning only a single unit of the Na- 
 tional Grange, has come to be the generally accepted, commonly used 
 term to designate the entire order, now many hundred thousand 
 strong. 
 
 The fundamental purposes of the Grange are to promote the spirit 
 of fraternity among its members and to secure economic, educational, 
 and social benefits, and to fairly present agricultural problems for 
 legislative consideration. 
 
 I want to say before going any further that we rather object to 
 being called " lobbyists "- — the representatives of this organization. 
 
 For more than half a century the Grange has been speaking for 
 the best interests of its members, who are engaged in the business 
 of farming. Its representation at the National Capital is not a 
 " lobby " in the commonly accepted meaning of that term, and never 
 has been. There are no doubtful or ulterior interests to be served 
 by the representative of the National Grange, and no unclean dol- 
 lars to pay for such services as are rendered. 
 
 This committee is perhaps interested to know how much salary I 
 get and how much our office expenses are and the source of our 
 support. 
 
 The entire expenses of the National Grange office in this city, in 
 round figures, are about $6,000 a j'ear; including my own salary 
 and the pay of a stenographer, my secretary, and office rent, print- 
 ing bills, and all other incidental expenses were last year just a frac- 
 tion above $6,200. On the 1st of February we will move our offices 
 fi'om where they, now are to the National Bank of Washington Build- 
 ing, and we will be glad to see any Congressman there at any time, 
 and we will guarantee that you will not be corrupted and that you 
 will be just as happy as you ever were when we separate. 
 
 The reason I say that we are not lobbyists is that our purpose has 
 never been to unduly influence Congress for any particular or spe- 
 cial interest. We think we have an organization that is broad- 
 minded enough and comprehensive enough to consider the welfare, 
 first, of the people of the whole United States and then to concen- 
 trate our efforts in prodiicing better conditions on the farms and 
 better citizenship in the open country. 
 
 The Chairman. Will you not just tell the committee how this 
 $6,000 is provided? The testimony this morning disclosed how the 
 funds were raised to support the Federation of Farm Bureaus. I 
 think it will be well for you to tell us just how your money is raised 
 in support of your organization. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Under the plan of our organization we have local 
 or community organizations, and then we have county or district 
 organizations and State organizations, and then the national or- 
 ganization. 
 
 The dues, in the first place, paid by each individual member for 
 his annual dues are $1.20 a year, or 10 cents a month ; and out of that 
 24 cents a year is paid to the State grange for the support of the 
 State organization, and out of that 24 cents 5 cents a year — up to 
 the last quarter, when the fee has been raised from 5 to 8 cents — 
 
FARM ORGANIZATIONS. i 
 
 ]ias been contributed to the support of the national organization. 
 Up to the last quarter, for more than 50 years all the money that 
 was ever contributed by any one of the farmers of America for the 
 support of the national grange was the price of one very poor cigar — 
 or not half the price of a poor one nowadays — in other words, 5 
 cents a year. Now, no farmer in this country has contributed to the 
 support of the national grange, up to the last quarter, more than 
 5 cents a year; and the expenses of our office in this city have not 
 cost the farmers, members of this organization, as much as one and a 
 half cents apiece annually; so that it is not a very burdensome 
 organization. 
 
 The total expense of any member is $1.20 a year for all purposes, 
 including the subordinate, the State, and the national organizations. 
 We derive no means from any other source whatever except these 
 small contributions by this large membership. 
 
 The subordinate granges meet weekly. There are nine or ten thou- 
 sand of them in the country. The State granges meet annually, and 
 the national grange meets annually, as I said before, the last session 
 having been in Boston. The next one will be in Portland, Oreg. 
 We met in Washington in 1916, which was the semicentennial 
 meeting. 
 
 The Chaieman. Will you explain to the committee how the farmer 
 gets his word to you as to legislation which he is desirous of having 
 passed? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. In my legislative or representative capacity here 
 I depart at no time, except in case of emergency, from the declara- 
 tions made by the national grange. Those of you who will do us 
 the honor to read a little booklet which is now in the hands of the 
 printer — this is the one issued last year which I have here — will find 
 that it contains the action of the national grange at the Boston 
 session on all public questions, and when I appear before committees 
 I always read into the record the action taken by this organization 
 of farmers, and I am here as a representative, but not as a propa- 
 gandist. I am not here trying to tell the farmers what they ought 
 to do. I waste no time in trying to tell them. 
 
 Over at Boston they told me what they wanted me to do, and we 
 will sumbit in a little booklet to all the Members of Congress this 
 information. 
 
 Mr. King. What is that booklet. You might state that for the pur- 
 poses of the record. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. It it entitled " National Grange of the Patrons of 
 Husbandry — National Legislative Recommendations." Now, you 
 will find here a statement of all these subjects. 
 
 Mr. Brand. When was that session held at Boston ? 
 Mr. Atkeson. We held that meeting on the 10th to 20th of Novem- 
 ber last. We meet on the second Wednesday after the second Monday 
 in each year. While I shall not read this booklet into the record, 
 this just gives the action. This was the action of the session at Grand 
 Eapids a year ago last winter. The first subject is "Americanism " ; 
 second, " Orderly Government " ; third, " The Condition of Agri- 
 culture " ; fourth, " Economy " ; fifth, " Nationalization " ; sixth, " In- 
 dustrial Controversies"; seventh, " Land' Ownership," and so on. I 
 think I will read just one of these titles. I will read the fifth, on 
 
8 FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 nationalization, because this title may put suspicion in some of your 
 minds. [Beading :] 
 
 While recognizing the evils of uncurbed power growing from swollen fortunes 
 In the hands of unscrupulous and ambitious individuals, the National Grange 
 declares that in the Government of a free democracy is lodged ample power to 
 curb all such evils. We declare our opposition to Government ownership and 
 to nationalization of business and industry unless clearly required in the public 
 interest. We favor the safeguarding and protection of every right of private 
 property on the broad ground that only by the full development of the right of 
 private property can there be perpetuated the full measure of individual initi- 
 ative and emulation upon which a democracy is based, and by which its future 
 is assured. 
 
 Some people who claim to represent farmers will not agree with 
 that declaration. 
 
 The seventh item is " Land ownership," involving the whole ques- 
 tion. Then we have " Natural resources," " Education," " Taxation," 
 " Production and distribution," " Cooperative marketing," " Corpora- 
 tion control," " Price fixing," and so on. 
 
 I may say that war-time price fixing may have been necessary. In 
 peace times the grange regards price fixing as unjustifiable. 
 
 Then we have " Packer legislation," " Sepresentation of agricul- 
 ture," " The Secretary of Agriculture." 
 
 We say on that subject, which might interest the committee, that 
 the Secretary of Agriculture should be a practical farmer and should 
 be not only in sympathy with farmers but so identified by ideas, 
 vocation, and effort that farmers will recognize him as one of them- 
 selves. The head of the department must be a man around whom 
 agricultural interests and workers will rally with confidence in his 
 leadership. We pledge ourselves to secure the appointment of a 
 Secretary fulfilling these conditions, regardless of politics. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. What success are you having ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Well, I do not know. You will have to probe the 
 intellect of the President elect. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. His intellect or the intellect of the " master minds " ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Well, I went over to Marion and had a little chat 
 with the President elect. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Oh, you are one of the " master minds " ? [Laughter.] 
 So that I was really more practical in my question than I thought. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes; I was over there, and I tried to get at what 
 was in his mind. We did not hesitate to tell him what was in ours, 
 but he was a little bit more careful in expressing himself. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. There is no question that you did not find out what 
 was in his mind, did you ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. But if I had, I do not think I should have told this 
 committee. 
 
 Mr. WiNGo. I would not have expected you to, any more than I 
 should have done it. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I should not have done that. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I say that I would not have expected you to. Doctor. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. No. Another thing I want to say to this committee, 
 that the course pursued by our organization for nearly half a cen- 
 tury toward these legislative matters was, when something was pend- 
 ing in Congress that was of special interest to our people — our people 
 includes all these interests like the orange growers in California, the 
 
I-'AIIM OKGANIZATIOlSrS. 9 
 
 potato growers of Maine, and others, and everybody in between, but 
 when any special interest was in view in matters of legislation — the 
 legislative committee would come down to Washington, and when 
 they had finished what they came down here to do they would fold 
 their tents and go back home. During those years, nearly half a 
 century, our organization indorsed and promoted practically every 
 act of legislation that had any very direct connection with the agri- 
 cultural interests of the country. 
 
 . I remember very distinctly when there were vigorous efforts made 
 to establish a Department of Agriculture with a Secretary in the 
 President's Cabinet. And I think we may claim, without any fear 
 of serious controversy or objection, that our organization was largely 
 responsible for the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Com- 
 mission; and practically all the legislation that has followed since 
 the late sixties and early seventies that has had for its object the 
 control of the railroad or legislation to prevent exploitation of the 
 people; and some railroad securities are still distinguished in the 
 market as those of the granger roads. The grange paid for the cost 
 of litigation in one case which was carried to the Supreme Court, 
 which finally settled the question that the railroads were not public 
 utilities when they were securing a right of way over the farmers' 
 land^ and became private property afterwards. And that decision 
 established in the Supreme Court the proposition that the creature 
 could not be greater than the creator, and the railroads being the 
 creature of legislation must always remain subject to that creator. 
 You are all familiar with that. 
 
 The Chairman. You are apparently the pioneer of these organiza- 
 tions located here in Washington. 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes, sir. 
 
 The Chaieman. Do you care to express an opinion as regards these 
 other organizations which have grown up? Is their growth due to 
 the fact that your organization has failed to represent the wishes of 
 the farmers in regard to these matters, or do you care to comment on 
 them, and as to why this great federation of farm bureaus is organ- 
 ized now, which according to the testimony has for its purpose the 
 swallowing up of all other organizations ? Do you want to touch on 
 that? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I do not care, Mr. Chairman, to discuss the farm 
 bureaus. I think I can, in fairness to them and everybody else — 
 because I want to be fair to everybody — say that the grange repre- 
 sentatives, these grange legislative committees, began, practically, 
 the agitation of the question of the Federal Government paying part 
 of the expenses for agricultural education. The first record that I 
 have anywhere discovered, of a suggestion that agriculture be taught 
 in the public schools, came from our organization, made by a gentle- 
 man by the name of Harwell, from Tennessee, in 1872, and we have 
 favored everything, for 50 years, which had for its purpose the im- 
 provement of the humanitarian conditions of the country rather than 
 raising better hogs and better corn and better cattle. When Senator 
 Page introduced his vocational educational bill in Congress a good 
 many years ago I was a member of the National Grange legislative 
 committee, and came down here in support of that measure, which 
 had in it two features. One was an agricultural extension feature and 
 
10 FARM OKGANIZATIONS. 
 
 the other was vocational education which was to include other people 
 than farmers. It included mechanics, and things of that sort. 
 
 The thing ran along with more or less growing favor until about 
 eight years ago, when the new administration came in and the old 
 Page bill, with its variations, was divided, and it is now on the 
 statute book with variations, one part of it known as the Smith-Lever 
 bill and another part as the Hughes vocational educational bill. And 
 most of them claim that the Page proposition was a Republican 
 measure, while the laws as passed were Democratic. I mean the per- . 
 sonality of the people who introduced the bill. 
 
 Mr. King. But not as shown by the votes in the respective parties. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. What is that ? 
 
 Mr. King. That is, as to those who introduced the bill ; but not as to 
 the votes in the two Houses. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. No ; I said as to the persons who introduced the bill. 
 I did not mean to say that that had anything to do with the vote in 
 the House when it was passed. Of course, they were absolutely non- 
 political propositions, and there could have been no political lines 
 drawn, and I do not think there was any attempt to draw political 
 lines. 
 
 Now, when the hearings were held before the committee in support 
 of the Smith-Lever bill, it was my privilege to present the grange 
 viewpoint without any effort to influence the committee. We never 
 do seek to influence a committee of Congress beyond the mere matter 
 of presenting what seems to us to be a fair statement of the farmers' 
 understanding of the problem. That is up to Congress, and let Con- 
 gress use its own responsibility. 
 
 As nearly as I remember— and the record will, of course, bear me 
 out or fail to do so, as the case may be — I was the only farmer in 
 America that appeared before a congressional committee in support 
 of the Smith- Lever bill, which created the agricultural-extension de- 
 partments in our agricultural colleges. 
 
 I said a while ago that I thought I had touched this agricultural 
 problem at more angles than anyone else. It was my fortune, or mis- 
 fortune, to be connected with our agricultural college for 23 years, 
 and so I have seen the whole system grow up, with all its develop- 
 ments, educational and otherwise. Most of the people who are now 
 county agents and engaged in agricultural extension enterprises were 
 school boys when some of us were trying to secure the passage of the 
 Smith-Lever bill. 
 
 As to the relation of farm bureau development and these govern- 
 mental activities, I take it the farm bureaus are able to handle that. 
 That phase of the question I do not care to discuss at all. 
 
 The Chairman. Would you care to discuss it this far : Is it your 
 understanding that the United States Department of Agriculture 
 authorizes the farm-bureau organizations as under their authority 
 under the Smith-Lever bill ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. No ; they do not. 
 
 The Chairman. They do not ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. So far as I know, in an official way. I do not know 
 that they object to them. 
 
 The Chairman. The work of the county agents is along educational 
 lines entirely, as you understand it ? 
 
TARM ORGANIZATIONS. 11 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I understand that they are expected to do just what 
 the Smith-Lever bill provides that they shall do— that is, that they 
 are limited and governed, or should be, by the Smith-Lever Act of 
 Congress. 
 
 The Chairman. You are in very close touch with the operations in 
 these various bureaus. Do you care to tell the committee whether or 
 not, in your judgment, they are living up to. the strict letter of the 
 law in that resjDect ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I do not think, Mr. Chairman, that I ought to answer 
 that question. I have no particular objection to answering it. It is 
 just that those people are here, and they can answer for themselves. 
 Any information connected with their organization I would rather 
 you would get some other way. 
 
 I want to say this, if that is satisfactory : I am not going to stop 
 short of satisfying everybody if I can, but I would rather not answer 
 those questions. 
 
 The grange had its beginning just following the Civil War, when 
 there was a great period of unrest in the country ; a condition of 
 emotionalism, more or less sensationalism, and very largely radi- 
 calism. 
 
 Following that period we had the development of the Greenback 
 Party, and the Social Labor Party ; and then came along the Popu- 
 list Party. Our organization had its own troubles during those 
 years, and everybody had troubles during the peculiar conditions 
 that developed. 
 
 In a generation or two, and when the great World War was over, 
 we found in this world, not limited to our country, that the whole 
 system of economics was somehow out of joint; enormous debts; 
 a period of unrest ; lots of people making a noise abovit the high cost 
 of living, which is about the most foolish thing that the American 
 public ever did, because there was not any such thing as the high 
 cost of living, relatively. The only time that I have ever known 
 hard times was when the cost of living was at its lowest. The other 
 way around it was always pretty comfortable. 
 
 We were confronted with these conditions of unrest, and the devel- 
 opment was more or less sensational, emotional, and semiradical, and 
 radical organizations that naturally and normally follow the condi- 
 tions, and I do not see any way to have preventing their manifesting 
 themselves. 
 
 We have lots of laws in this country, but I do not know any that 
 prevents a man from making a darned fool of himself if he wants 
 to. We have unlimited opportunity to do that not only among farm- 
 ers but among other people. 
 
 Mr. King. Lots of the laws help him to do that. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. That is right. Now, these are conditions that you 
 have been confronted with and that we are confronted wjth, and 
 that the whole country is confronted with in connection with these 
 farm organizations, and that should be considered in connection with 
 the conditions prevailing in the country. When some of these condi- 
 tions pass, some of these organizations will pass; and some of the 
 thino-s they are doing and saying now thej will not do and say as 
 they are confronted with more normal conditions. 
 
12 
 
 FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 My own state of mind is that no legislation can stop or revolu- 
 tionize the laws of economics, or the law of supply and demand, or 
 that legislation can make everybody rich or can provide livings for 
 everybody or anybody without some measure of labor; and this 
 world was here before I came to it and before our organization came 
 to it, and it will be here after we are all gone; and that the people 
 who are here then will be confronted with economic conditions^ 
 periods of unrest, periods of uncertain future 
 
 The Chairman. Well, Doctor, in that connection you are not 
 attempting to state that the American Farm Bureau Federation is 
 the result of a situation of unrest in this country, are you ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Very largely. 
 
 The Chairman. Very largely ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Very largely. 
 
 The Chairman. Is it not your opinion that it is the outgrowth of 
 the appropriations under the Smith-Lever law that made this fed- 
 eration possible, or do you think it would have come anyway ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Well, I think you got all the information you need 
 about that this morning. 
 
 The Chairman. The committee, I am sure, would be glad to know, 
 because of the contrast which has been drawn here by your statement 
 and that of the gentleman appearing for the American Farm Bureau 
 Federation, because of the fact that you state that your expenses, all 
 told, are $6,000 per year, and that it was stated before this committee 
 this morning that the total receipts from the American Farm Bureau 
 Federation are now $750,000 a year on a membership of 1,500,000, and 
 that the expense of the maintenance of the Washington oiRce is 
 $30,000 a year. The committee would be interested to know how your 
 organization views this tremendously powerful organization coming 
 in to represent the farmers. Do j'ou care to express yourself along 
 those lines? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I expect it would satisfy you best by stating that 
 they are six times as influential as we are in Washington ; that is, they 
 have six times the amount of the cost, according to your statement. 
 
 Mr. King. You think the more money they have the more influen- 
 tial they are? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson, Yes; money talks. 
 
 Mr. King. I do not believe that is true, Doctor. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I can not get away from the conviction that this sud- 
 den and rather phenomenal growth of the farm bureaus is largely 
 the result of conditions. I think I may say this, in fairness to the 
 Farm bureau people, that in the beginning of this agricultural exten- 
 sion work nobody had any expectation that the farm bureaus would 
 be more than an advisory organization for the county agents, made 
 up of farmers in the counties. I do not think that anybody con- 
 templated anything beyond that purpose. They sometimes, in the 
 first place, called them clubs; and then I do not know who invented 
 the name " farm bureau," but the county was made the unit, and 
 they had cqunty bureaus and the county agent called a meeting, and 
 was always active in cooperation with these farm organizations. 
 
 The Chairman. Can you tell us anywhere where the movement of 
 the establishment of county farm bureaus originated ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. How is that? 
 
FAEM ORGANIZATIONS. 13 
 
 The Chair ji AN. Where and when and how did the county farm 
 bureau start? Did it start originally after the appropriation under 
 the Smith-Lever law in 1914? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Oh, yes. We had nothing — no farm county bureaus 
 that I know of — until after that law; and I never heard the term in 
 connection with the agricultural organizations until after that. 
 The Chairman. Where was the movement first started? 
 Mr. Atkeson. Probably in New York. But if you mean the county 
 agent movement 
 
 The Chairman. No ; I mean these, the present farm bureaus. 
 Mr. Atkeson. You go back to an appi'opriation made by the 
 Rockefeller General Education Board, I believe it was, which sent 
 Seaman A. Knapp to the South — and they called them advisers in 
 those days — to teach somebody down there how to grow better crops, 
 how to be more efficient farmers, and that sort of thing. Mr. Knapp 
 made quite a success of his undertaking in the South, and the ques- 
 tion was raised of having some one who was competent in each 
 county in the country to advise with the farmers with the view of 
 promoting agricultural production. Theoretically, they justified 
 taking the taxpayers' money to support county agents and agricul- 
 tural work, on the theory that the men in towns and the taxpayers 
 everywhere must eat, and if by using a certain amount of the public 
 funds they could increase agricultural production and make the 
 country a more attractive and a more desirable place to live, it justi- 
 fied entirely that use of the jDublic funds. I do not think anything 
 else was contemplated by the Smith-Lever law. 
 
 What has happened since I have not had much contact with. As 
 I said before, I think it is perfectly fair to everybody to say that 
 when the farm bureaus were first organized no one contemplated 
 more than an advisory body — a local county unit — an advisory body 
 to cooperate with and advise with the county agents, who were paid 
 •partly by the Smith-Lever appropriations and partly by State ap- 
 propriations. 
 
 I have understood in a general way in my own State that between 
 the national and the State appropriations for agricultural exten- 
 sion, it foots up somewhere about $90,000 a year. Of course, with 
 that much money they are able to do a lot of things in the way of 
 encouraging agricultural production. Now, just how much that was 
 responsible for the farm bureaus or the farm bureaus were re- 
 sponsible for it it is not my business, perhaps, to discuss; and we 
 have no quarrel or criticism to make of the farm bureau people, and 
 as far as I am concerned we have no criticism to make of Congress. 
 
 Before I knew Congressmen as well as I do now I used to hear 
 a lot of things said about Congressmen and about their being in- 
 fluenced by this illegitimate means and the other; but somehow, since 
 I have known Congressmen pretty well, I have concluded that so 
 far as the average of humanity goes they are above the average. I 
 think that is perfectly true. I have a brother who was elected as 
 the Eepresentative from the sixth congressional district of Missouri, 
 and I am not pleased with the idea that his predecessor can not come 
 back — that is, I think I would like to have both come back. Now, 
 I think he is just as honest as I am, as I think the average Member 
 of Congress is, as they go, and I have never, for myself, allowed 
 
14 FARM OEGANIZATIONS. 
 
 myself to believe that Congressmen were bad; I niean to say all 
 Congressmen, because they are just human, and subject perhaps to 
 all the human weaknesses. But, being above the average of hu- 
 manity, they are on the average less liable to be improperly in- 
 fluenced in any of their actions. 
 
 That is, I think, the state of mind of our organization, and that 
 the responsibility is on Congress after we have presented our view 
 as we see it, perhaps with a special interest or biased interest in our 
 views, that the responsibility is on Congress; and, as I said to some 
 agricultural friends the other day, if Congress were to abdicate, or 
 to come down to my office and say to me, " You write into the statutes 
 any blamed things that you want on agriculture," I would say^ 
 "Let it pass.'" I do not want that job. There are so many things 
 that some people know that are not so that it kind of staggers me 
 once in a while. I gave an illustration of that the other day. When 
 Congress in its wisdom submitted the prohibition amendment and 
 then enacted the Volstead Act some of my farmer friends, espe- 
 cially those who are largely interested in growing wine grapes, were 
 much disturbed. It happens, in Chautaugua County, N. Y., where 
 they grow wine grapes, that our organization is very strong, and the 
 head of our organization is a grape grower in Chautauqua County,, 
 N. Y. When prohibition camo along those grape growers concluded 
 that was their ruination. A howl went up from all of the grape 
 growers. Up to that time a fair or satisfactory price to the grape 
 growers was from $10 to $25 a ton. Twenty-five dollars was the top 
 notch and a very satisfactory price. They sold their grapes last 
 year around about $125 a ton. Now, they thought prohibition was 
 going to ruin those darned grape growers. 
 
 A gentleman from California explained to me a few days ago 
 how it came about that these wine grapes were selling at $125 a 
 ton now. He said you could not make raisins out of wine grapes,, 
 but you can evaporate part of the water out of them so that they 
 can be shipped and kept over, and he said, "When you pour some 
 more water on them they absorb that, and when they have fermented 
 sufficiently they have kick enough to satisfy anybody." And so 
 wine grapes have gone up to $125 a ton instead of selling for $10, $15,. 
 or $20 a ton. 
 
 Now, the grape growers were mistaken about that legislation. I 
 always use that as a rather humorous illustration of the fact that 
 there are so many things that we know, or think we know, that when 
 reduced to a demonstration turn out some other way. 
 
 I remember a rather distant relative of mine, who lived a number 
 of years ago, when log rollings and house raisings were common in 
 West Virgmia, and everybody was in the habit of drinking too 
 much on occasions like that. This old relative — we called, him 
 " Uncle Billy "—was at a log rolling, and he got pretty full, and he 
 concluded he wanted to sit down, so he backed up to a log and sat 
 down, and he sat down just a little too far over and fell down flat on 
 his back. The old man raised up on one elbow, and he says " WelL 
 boys, it is the easiest thing in the world to be mistaken" He 
 thought he was going to sit on that log, and he sat down flat on his 
 back on the other side. 
 
FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 15 
 
 Now, in all seriousness, the conditions confronting American agri- 
 culture to-day are serious enough, and they are serious, not from 
 the standpoint of the farmer alone, but when we say that the 
 condition of agriculture is serious enough it also means that the 
 economic conditions of everybody in the country are serious enough. 
 That is, we are confronted with abnormal, phenomenal, economic 
 conditions. It is my conviction that if Congress would write into 
 the statutes everything that everybody wants we would have a 
 miscellaneous mass of heterogeneous incongruities that nobody could 
 quite understand. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. Doctor, do you not think that farmers are getting 
 loaded down with too many organizations? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Too many farmers' organizations? 
 
 Mr. Bbooks. Yes. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Well, I will agree to that, but it is just as certain 
 that there are too many church organizations. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. There is no doubt about that. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. And I am inclined to think there are too many 
 jiolitical organizations. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. Yes ; I agree with you. 
 
 Mr. King. We have reduced them now. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. This has come up to us in various ways. We are 
 asked, "Why don't you farmers all get together?" During the 
 days of Mr. Hoover and his Food Administration, on one occasion 
 Mr. Hoover wanted to know who would speak for the farmers, any- 
 way, and he put it a little different, but if I may put it just the 
 way he had it, he said, "This organization claims to speak for the 
 farmers of the country, and the other organization claims to speak 
 for the farmers" — referring to these numerous organizations — and 
 he reached such a degree of enthusiasm that he said, " Who in the 
 h does represent the farmers anyway ? " I wonder if these Con- 
 gressmen have not absorbed a little of that problem. 
 
 Now, farmers could get together just like the churches could get 
 together. They are all trying to get to the same place, and they all 
 read the same book; and there are about 300 so-called orthodox 
 religious organizations in this country. Now, they could all get 
 together if all of them would come into my church ; but I wondered 
 if it was possible to get the farmers together, with some such irre- 
 concilable opinions as we find between some farmer organizations. 
 There are farm parties and farm organizations in this country that 
 believe in Government ownership of everything, even to the point 
 of total destruction of ownership of private property. We find 
 among farmers, like we find among everybody else, or in every other 
 class, a great difference in states of mind, shading off from the most 
 radical — I do not know just wliat name to use because I do not want 
 to use an offensive term — to the most reactionary ; and then you will 
 find farm organizations partaking more or less of those wide differ- 
 ences of states of mind. And new organizations, wherever they 
 exist — and that does not mean that they are wrong— are always 
 more or less radical, with reformers, and new leaders, undisciplined 
 leadership, and a following that does not know where it is going 
 but just knows it is on the way, always more or less emotional and 
 radical. That is so in affairs of religion, of statesmanship or States, 
 
16 FARM OEGANIZATIONS. 
 
 and it is so in every human undertaking, that when a new thing, a 
 new organization, is developed, it must of necessity develop these 
 fippeals to human emotional sensationalism and more or less 
 
 That was true at the beginning of the Republican Party, if I may 
 use that as an illustration. I lived through the beginning of it. I am 
 as old as it is. In the days when it was a new party they certainly 
 were rantankerous enough to satisfy most anybody. They carried 
 fanaticism, radicalism, to the limit. But as it became older and began 
 to steady itself it changed, until some people say that it is a reac- 
 tionary party now. It has run all the gaits, from rank radicalism to 
 where it is now. Why, they used to call it a radical party — these 
 fellows over in my State did, the people south of Mason and Dixon's 
 line. They not only called it the Republican Party but they called 
 it the " Black " Republican Party. I use that as an illustration only 
 to show that in all great human movements there is always the ele- 
 ment of radicalism or of uncertainty, and frequently they burn them- 
 selves up; just like a number of farm organizations. We had the 
 Farmer's Alliance a few years ago that swept the country over. They 
 got into politics and came back with the support of the Populist 
 Party; and they had a candidate for President and polled quite a 
 number of electoral votes. I refer to these things to show that it is 
 only natural to expect, as the product of the present times and con- 
 ditions, a condition that is more or less unstable, a radical state of 
 mind among the farmer people, because it is among all other people, 
 and it is bound to manifest itself somewhere in some way. 
 
 Take an organization as old as ours, which is now more than a half 
 century old. It has seen organizations come and go. It has seen 
 hundreds of them, first and last. Some of them have come up and 
 stormed the ramparts of public opinion and passed away. Like 
 Jonah's gourd, they grew up in the night and some kind of worm 
 bit them — political worm, usually — and as it was with Jonah, when 
 the sun came out the next day there was not any gourd vine to shade 
 him. 
 
 I remember when the Farmers' Alliance had thirty or forty thou- 
 sand members in West Virginia; and within something like 12 
 months they did not have more than thirty or forty members. And 
 I have seen other organizations come about in the same way as the 
 result of human emotionalism. We believe, so far as the grange is 
 concerned, that whether it is right or wrong in the position it takes, it 
 certainly does not assume that other people and other organizations 
 are wrong ; because the fact that all of us are inclined to think that 
 people who think differently from us are wrong does not prove that 
 they are wrong. They may be right. It may be that socialism is the 
 salvation, really. I shall not discuss that furthei-. 
 
 But, so far as our organization is concerned, it has reached a time 
 of life, with its experience with the various relations in life and the 
 emotional movements in the country, and with its trained and de- 
 veloped leadership, so that it can not be thrown off its feet suddenly. 
 It IS not possible. A man can npt reach the leadership in our organ- 
 ization overnight. He first serves and shows his abilitv to the people 
 who employ him in his local organization, and then he attends year 
 after year the State organization, and the representatives from the 
 
I'ARM ORGANIZATIONS. 17 
 
 various locals come up from the States; and after a while he reaches 
 the leadership or head of his State organization. 
 
 The master of the National Grange, who preceded the present one 
 a year ago, was 18 years master of the Illinois State Grange, and he 
 laecame master of the National Grange, where he served for 8 years. 
 Now, you can not throw men like that off their feet. They may be 
 w^rong, of course ; they may be reactionary ; but the things they do 
 they do deliberately, and our organization is a deliberative organiza- 
 tion. We do not meet in a mob or mass and let somebody put over 
 a pre-prepared set of resolutions. Our sessions last 10 days always, 
 and every resolution offered is referred to a committee, just, as vou 
 do with your bills in Congress. 
 
 We are a deliberative body for these 10 days. Everything, every 
 kind of thing, finds its ^vay into the hopper for consideration. It 
 is referred to the proper committee. The committee considers it and 
 reports favorably or unfavorably on the matter, and then it is dis- 
 cussed in open session and the body takes some action, and when the 
 Tjody has acted and has made it a matter of record it is expected, I 
 believe, that I should come to Congress and present the things that 
 this organization has acted upon are up for consideration, in a large 
 measure I have discharged my duty. When I ask committees of 
 Congress to listen to me I read the action of that national organiza- 
 tion, and then, so far as I may do so properly, I present the argu- 
 ments in support of the measure. 
 
 The Chairman. You get your chart and directions from the reso- 
 lutions of the National Grange at its annual meetings? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Absolutely, and I do not assume to advocate any 
 measure that they have not passed upon, unless in an emergency some 
 new thing came up, and in cases of that Irind, being familiar with 
 the history of the organization and the precedents that may have 
 more or less bearing, I am left to judge as best I can as to what 
 would be the attitude of our organization if they were confronted 
 "with that proposition. But the proposition is always presented, even 
 in that case, to the organization at its next annual meeting, and they 
 act upon it. If they should take an adverse position to that I had 
 taken under this special condition, why, at once I accept the deci- 
 sion of the National Grange. 
 
 I would like for the committee — and after this I am through — ^to 
 get this one proposition straight, that T am here representing respon- 
 sible people, and only to represent what they are responsible f or,_ and 
 that I am responsible to them if I misrepresent them on the position 
 they have taken at any time. 
 
 Now, then, I am not here for propaganda purposes. I am not 
 liere to advocate the Ealston-Nolan bill, for instance, which is a land- 
 tax proposition. Our organization is on record against it. There- 
 iore I am against it. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. In other words, you do not favor propaganda work? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. We absolutely do no propaganda work from Wash- 
 ington. We are here as representing this responsible organization. 
 I mean that we think we are the peers of the average Congressman, 
 in all respect to Congress. We believe that our peo])le are big enough 
 to be Congressmen. And I want to say that there are at least three 
 •or four or five of the Senators who are members of our organization, 
 36512—21 2 
 
18 FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 and there are, among Members of Congress, about a dozen members 
 of our organization. 
 
 But the point I want to emphasize is that we are not propagand- 
 ists — I mean, our Washington office. We are not here to convert the 
 American farmers or the American public as to what they ought to 
 do. If there is any one thing that I would like for this committee 
 to get and retain, it would be that we are representatives and not 
 propagandists. We will not try to teach the American public that 
 Government ownership of railroads is a good thing, and we are not 
 trying to teach the American public that it is not a good thing. But 
 we will -try to convince Congress, if we may, that this organization 
 of farmers for themselves and as loyal Americans, at their annual 
 session, have taken a certain position upon an economic question; 
 and we do not want to argue it with you gentlemen. We have no 
 complaints to make, no requirements to make. We have never 
 allowed ourselves to intimate — we never use the words "big busi- 
 ness " if we can get around it. I would not know how to think about 
 Congress thinking about being influenced in any illegitimate way. 
 I am willing to assume that, being human, it is possible that it might 
 be so; but only on the broad ground that any human being is subject 
 to go wrong. Even Judas Iscariot, who was in mighty good com- 
 pany, did ; and that might happen to Congress. But we have never 
 allowed our organization to believe anything but what Members of 
 Congress are trying to serve the American Nation and the best in- 
 terests of American people, but with the conflicting interests and 
 with the conflicting impulses, all of which come in to influence men ; 
 and that we are dealing with men who are of the highest type of 
 American citizenship; and we only want to sit down with you gen- 
 tlemen and talk this thing over, in the interests, first of all, of Ameri- 
 canism; and then, if I can not defend the position we take on the 
 general grounds of public policy and the national welfare, I do not 
 want you to accept any of these statements I make, at any time. 
 
 I deprecate any class consciousness and any effort to develop class 
 consciousness in the country. We are American citizens. We are 
 entitled to a fair hearing as men, even if we are farmers. And then, 
 since agriculture is the basic industry of the country, and everybody, 
 the Congressman and the humble citizen in the country, depends 
 upon the products of the farm, if we are ever led into assuming a 
 special purpose, or what some might call a special purpose, for agri- 
 culture, if I am not able to advocate it upon the ground of public 
 policy or to justify it upon the ground of public policy, I shall not 
 attempt to justify it at all. 
 
 I can conceive of conditions — and this is one illustration of what 
 I mean — that would justify it. The statistics of the last census show 
 that 52 per cent of the farms in the State of Illinois are noW in the 
 hands of nonresident owners. That means that largely the best 
 farms of Illinois are in the hands of nonresident owners. Now, just 
 how many of those farms will be in the hands of nonresident owners 
 50 years from now I do not know, but at the present rate of increase 
 in tenancy in Illinois, they will all be in the hands of tenants. They 
 will all be in the hands of nonresident owners, in 50 years from now ; 
 and if there is any one thing that is now threatening the founda- 
 tions of American democracy, it is that one thing. When you de- 
 
FARM ORGAlSriZATIONH. 19 
 
 stroy the farm homes in the open country, or the homes of the people 
 who live in the open country, when that passes away our democracy 
 becomes uncertain. 
 
 As a matter of public policy, if my assumption be correct, if this 
 Congress or any other Congress could by legislation devise some 
 plan that would maintain the farms owned, the farms occupied by 
 our citizenship in the open country, in my opinion they would have 
 done the most patriotic thing, so far as our institutions are con- 
 cerned, that it is humanly possible to do. 
 
 I can conceive to-day that this would be perhaps called class legis- 
 lation, and in a sense it would be class legislation, and I am not going 
 to advocate it, but I just make a suggestion of this as one thing that 
 would do it. I think that it is humanly unattainable, in the state of 
 mind of the American, at least; that is, to have a graduated land 
 tax, which has nothing to do with the single tax, but is based on our 
 graduated income tax, a graduated land tax. A low tax on the first 
 unit of value, which, of course, would have to be arbitrarily fixed 
 at, say, $5,000, provided a man lives on the land and cultivates that 
 unit of value. Then, for every additional unit of value, to increase 
 the tax until you reach the place where a man could not get enough 
 out of it to pay the taxes on it. Now, maybe that would be class 
 legislation, but I am thoroughly convinced that as a matter of public 
 policy it may some time be justified. Perhaps that is not the remedy, 
 or there may be a better one ; but I think I do know that it is greatly 
 to be deprecated that the lands in this country are getting to be 
 owned by people who do not live on and cultivate them. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. May I ask you, right there : Do you think people are 
 moving from the farms because of the taxes they have to pay? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. That has something to do with it. The sugges- 
 tion of taxation, though, is to reach the point of taxation where a 
 man could not pay the taxes, and therefore could not own the land. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. No; but you said that so many of the farms were 
 being owned by nonresidents; by city people, I suppose you mean. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Nonresidents. They are not city people many times 
 through the Central West; they are people who inherited those 
 lands, in many cases, and who have moved off to the towns and 
 rented the lands to tenants. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. The people see a profit in them or they would not 
 buy them, even though they have to pay the taxes on them. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. It does not make any difference how they got the 
 farm ; the point I am trying to make is this — that it would be better 
 for the Government as a matter of public policy if the people who 
 owned the land lived on the land. That is what I was trying to illus- 
 trate. 
 
 I have a son in southern Alabama living on a farm, and he is sur- 
 rounded with Negroes, and he does not like to live out there. But 
 if our farms are to be occupied and cultivated by a ramshackle 
 tenantry, that is the end of churches and schools in the country; 
 and the country ceases to be a desirable place for an American to 
 live and raise his family. That is where our best people have been 
 raised heretofore. 
 
 1 am referring to these matters to show that by public policy you 
 may justify what would seem to be class favoritism. I believe it 
 
20 FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 good public policy, and if somebody can devise a way to keep the 
 people of this country on the lands who own them and have them 
 occupy them and become permanent citizens in order that they may 
 maintain good country schools and good country churches and social 
 conditions, it is the greatest thing that could be done for the Nation. 
 
 Change those conditions, and there will be further migrations 
 to the towns. 
 
 Now, I think you had in mind the question as to why so many 
 people are leaving the country and going to town. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. I had in mind this, that I did not believe the people 
 Avere leaving the farms because they had to pay taxes. 
 
 Mr. Atkesox. No ; I do not believe that. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. I believe if they were tax free they would still leave 
 the farms and go to town. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Not because they have to pay taxes there ; but the 
 reason, outside of the social question that comes in to influence them, 
 why they are leaving the farms is, they are mainly leaving the farms 
 because they think they can do better somewhere else ; and I would 
 ■think they were all fools, if they think that, if they did not leave the 
 farms. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. Any adjustment of the tax question would not keep 
 them there. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Possibly not. I would use the tax remedy, if at all, 
 to induce ownership of lands by those who occupy them. 
 
 Now, there seems to be no serious reason for regretting so many 
 people going to town. I have not worried because farm hands were 
 scarce on the farms. The indications now are that we have raisea 
 too much stuff already ; and, as a farmer, if half the people who are 
 now on the farms would go to town I would like it. I am a farmer, 
 pretty largely engaged in actual production, and it would be an ad- 
 vantage to me if half the people that are engaged in production 
 would hike off to town and go to selling peanuts. We have grown too 
 much stuff in this country; more than we can get a price for that 
 will pay the cost of production. 
 
 Now, suppose that half of the people on the farms were to go to 
 town ; they would still keep on eating, wouldn't they ? And it would 
 reduce production. And if enough of them go to town, we would 
 get a profitable price for our products. It reminds me of the old- 
 fashioned spelling class, where they were all lined up, and every 
 time there was a little disorder in the class, somebody would be sent 
 down to the foot of the class, and the fellow that had always stayed 
 at the foot of the class looked up toward the head and said, "If those 
 fellows keep on goin'g down, I will be up head after a while." If 
 all these fellows will just keep on leaving the farms, I will be up 
 head after a while; there is not any question about that. Now, they 
 will keep on leaving the farm as long as they can do better some- 
 where else, and they ought to. But the time must come, if this flow 
 continues to the towns, when it will turn the other way, because they 
 can do better outside. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. After all, the question of supply and demand regu- 
 lates all these economic conditions? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Undoubtedly. A gentleman from Baltimore 
 came into my office a while ago and wanted me to favor the passage 
 
FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 21 
 
 of a bill which would provide that people could not leave the country 
 and, go to town. That was one remedy; if Congress would enact a 
 bill that would not let the son of John Smith, living out in the 
 country, go to town. Well, I do not know what kind of anarchist 
 he was. But as long as we are a democracy and people may go 
 where they think they can do best, they will continue to go to town 
 when they want to. I have not felt much like weeping, and my 
 organization has not shed any tears, over this migration of the coun- 
 try people to the towns. 
 
 Now, if anybody thinks— this is a little foreign to the question 
 I was talking about — if anybody thinks that the farmers are the only 
 people who are going to get hurt, they are mistaken. I lived through 
 the period following the Civil War, when I saw, with variations 
 and modifications, this same condition that we have now, and I 
 helped drive the nails in an old-fashioned plank fence that my father 
 paid $8 a keg for. A few years later I helped to drive the same kind 
 of old-fashioned, cut, 8-penny nails, made at Clifton, on the Ohio 
 River, that my father paid only 90 cents a keg for. There is nothing 
 left there now but the foundations, where those nails were made.. 
 The factory went bankrupt. There have never been any nails made 
 there since. When we were arguing about the high cost of living, 
 Mr. Gompers said, " Wages will have to keep on going up because 
 of the high cost of living." But I said, " That is all right, Mr. 
 Gompers. Admitting that the cost of living is twice what it was 
 in the prewar days, wages ought to be, on that basis, twice as much. 
 But what about it when normal conditions are restored and the cost 
 of living comes down to half what it is; what about the Avages of 
 labor then?" He went right up in the air. Labor could never come 
 down. Well, it has got to come down. There is not any escape from 
 it, without other things are to go up and a high level of prices main- 
 tained. All these fellows that have been raising something to eat 
 are going to come to Washington to work at the carpenter trade, or 
 something else, at a dollar or more an hour, if those wages are paid 
 here. They can not get that out in the country. Wages have got to 
 come down — that is all there is to it — or the other thing has got to go 
 up, or it means somebody has got to go hungry. 
 
 Mr. Brooks. It has come now to where a lot of people are wanting 
 legislation from Congress to help the farmer, and there is not any 
 legislation possible for Congress to pass that will help very much. 
 That is my opinion. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes. Many people expect too much of legislation. 
 These things will equalize themselves. Our organization tries to take 
 a broad view of all these problems, and we talk them over among 
 ourselves. We think we have developed some measures, submitted by 
 our organization, which, in a perfectly confidential and frank manner, 
 we are here to talk over with Members of Congress ; not to bluff nor 
 to bulldoze nor to threaten, or anything else, but to meet you on the 
 dead level and present as best we can from our standpoint the views 
 of our organization with reference to this basic industry upon which 
 every other industry in America depends. Now, if we can be of 
 service to Congress or to our country, we are here for that purpose, 
 as representatives and not as propagandists. 
 Mr. WiNGO. How many members have you in your organization ? 
 
22 FARM OKGANIZATIONS. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. In round numbers, we claim about a million. We 
 have about 9,000 subordinate organizations, and organizations in 35 
 of the States, running clear across the country. It was at one time 
 very strong in the South, but the farmers' union and the farmers' 
 agents coming along kind of squeezed us out ; but our national master 
 is in North Carolina now, and we are organizing Virginia and going 
 down into North Carolina. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I was very much interested and, of course, appreciate 
 the fundamental philosophy imderlying your discussion of the rea- 
 sons why you have so many different farm organizations, the chief 
 of which was that there is a difference in opinions. There are honest 
 differences of opinion. Necessarily, that has led to conflict in the 
 convictions and views of your different organizations. Your organi- 
 zation honestly and sincerely believes certain things. Another or- 
 ganization honestly believes that Government ownership — to take 
 that as an illustration — is the proper thing. In your opinion, is that 
 the chief reason why you have so many different organizations? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I think so. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I have no desire to try to bring out offensive ideas, 
 and I know that you have not either. We have just covered that. 
 But we will take one of the organizations just mentioned, the Farm- 
 ers' Union. As far as you care to go, and with proper regard to the 
 proprieties, which I judge you wish to conform to, what are the 
 fundamental conditions and conflicts of opinions and views between 
 your organization and the Farmers' Union ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Well, there are a number of differences. In the 
 first place, we are a fraternal order. You might ask what is the 
 difference between the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows, and why 
 do they not get together? Could you answer that question? 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Well, I belong to both, but shall not discuss them, 
 though I could suggest this to you, that 90 per cent of the Odd Fel- 
 lows are Masons. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. That is, there are certain human interests, local, 
 or wider than local, that bring people of a similar state of mind 
 together 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. You realize the point I want to get — possibly I did 
 not make myself clear. It is not a question of argumentation, but 
 for a question, purely of differentiation; for consideration for what 
 it is worth, what are the fundamental differences? Take the things 
 that you stand for and the things they stand for, what are the 
 fundamental differences between your fundamental principles and 
 lines of effort, those of the Farmers' Union ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. As I understand, the Farmers' Union is devoted 
 almost entirely to commercial interests, in promoting 
 
 Mr. WiNGO (interposing). You mean material interests? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson (continuing). Promoting the financial interests of 
 the farmers. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Yes. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Then, there are some other organizations of farm- 
 ers. One of them, the Nonpartisan League, say that they are de- 
 voted primarily to the promotion of the political interests of the 
 farmers. And people of a similar state of mind, whatever the ques- 
 
FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 23 
 
 tion involved may be, naturally gravitate together; and, then, pos- 
 sibly they develop more or less a state of rivalry of leadership. 
 
 They used to tell a story of a certain prominent citizen who went 
 to Hades, and he wanted to get in, and the gatekeeper said, " No ; I 
 couldn't let you in here." He said, " If I did you would want to 
 run the whole institution inside of a week, and we can't have that. 
 But I'll tell you what I will do. I will let you have a little fire and 
 brimstone, and you can go off by yourself and have your own little 
 hell if you want to." 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. As I understand, you make the distinction that the 
 Farmers' Union is trying to promote the commercial and financial 
 interests of its members as contradistinguished from the purposes 
 of your organization, which are trying to promote the social wel- 
 fare? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. And educational and fraternal. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. And fraternal ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. You frequently find yourselves in conflict in your 
 opinions on pending legislation, I believe ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Not very generally with the Farmers' Union. I 
 think on most questions of legislation we are in pretty close accord. 
 
 Mr. WiNGo. I believe as a rule you two are more nearly together. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. You are more nearly together than, for instance, 
 than and you and Mr. Marsh are ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes. As a general proposition, but not always, 
 when you know where Mr. Marsh is you know where I am not. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I have suspected that. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. It is no use to ask me. Usually when you know 
 where he is you know where I am not. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Now, apropos of your statement, that economic con- 
 ditions, and the law of supply and demand, are the controlling 
 factors; you do think, though, that legislation, proper legislation, 
 can have something to do with the effect of economic forces and the 
 effect and application of the law of supply and demand? You do 
 think that, do you? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I do think so, and I think we can mterfere tem- 
 porarily, absolutely, with the law of supply and demand. The law 
 of gravity is interfered with every time an aeroplane leaves the 
 earth. It has interfered with the law of gravity, temporarily and 
 artificially. But there never was an aeroplane that went up from 
 this earth that will not come down some time or other, some place, 
 and if the condition which exists interferes with the law of supply 
 and demand, it must find its level some way. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. By the same token, do you think certain prices are 
 going to come down? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes, sir; that is, they will all come d6wn or ail 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. They have got to do that. After all, the farmers, like 
 any other group in America, are more interested in the uniform level 
 of prices than in the prices themselves. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes ; and stable prices. 
 
24 FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 Mr. WiNGo. I say, stable prices; the relative condition of prices. 
 In other words, prosperity can not exist when farm products come- 
 down low and the manufactured goods the farmer has to buy arfr 
 away up; nor does the wage earner or the manufacturer prosper 
 when his wages and costs of manufacture are low, and then he has 
 to pay a high price for his foodstuffs. Your idea is that it is better 
 to have a higher level than a low level ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. That is my opinion, that the higher level is better 
 than the low. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. It gives a greater opportunity for saving ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes. Every time I have known hard times it was 
 not when the cost of living was at its lowest. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. You were a little bit lonesome, I guess, a year ago,, 
 when everybody wanted to bring everything down ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. No; I thought they were mistaken. Everybody 
 was talking about the high cost of living. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I had reference to the fact that about a year ago every- 
 body was clamoring for the reduction of prices. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes ; and I do not know any way to reduce them and 
 keep them up at the same time. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I do not, either. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I give it up. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I, myself, have been impressed by a few fundamentals 
 as I have gone along. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. So that if we were to reduce the price of living, all 
 the things we live on had to come down. But there was one thinf> 
 I would like for this committee to remember. These matters are 
 getting a little off of what I wanted to talk about, but your questions 
 bring it out. About 18 months ago we had on my farm, my son and 
 myself, in partnership, a lot of sheep, high-grade Southdown ewes. 
 He came to me and said, " How about selling these ewes ? " I said,. 
 " Well, they are pretty fine, and we can not do any better. I do not 
 know about it." He said, " Well, you can keep your half if you 
 want to, but I am going to sell. I will sell you mine if you want to- 
 keep them." He insisted on selling them, so I said, "All right, you sell 
 them all." He sold those sheep for $16 a head, and the man who 
 bought them had to sell them for $6 a head within less than a year, 
 and now he would do well to get $3 a head. Now, the price of living 
 was going down so far as mutton was concerned on that farm, but 
 during these two years I have been here in Washington, every once- 
 in a while I eat lamb chops, and the price of lamb chops in Washing- 
 ton has run along from 60 cents to $1.50 for two little chops. Now, 
 I paid just the same price for lamb chops when he sold those sheep- 
 for $16 a head that I paid yesterday when the sheep would not sell 
 for more than $3 a head. I am wondering if I would not still have to 
 pay 65 cents to $1.50 a lamb chop if the sheepgrower did not get: 
 anything for the sheep. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I suspect you would. That brings up another ques- 
 tion. 
 
 What, of a practical nature, can you suggest that might be done 
 by the Congress enacting legislation along the line of marketing'^ 
 That is one of the problems of the farmer. What can we do that will' 
 
FAKM OKGANIZATIONS. ■ 25 
 
 be practical, that will be of real benefit, and that will not add an ex- 
 pensive machinery without granting any economic relief ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Take the lamb chop for an illustration. If the com- 
 mittee is willing to take its time for these things, I am; I enjoy it. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I do not know how the rest of the committee feel, but 
 I am interested in your viewpoint. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. There are just two things that enter into the cost of 
 anything. The tariff people talk about raw material. There is no 
 raw material in this world but what the Creator made, and where He 
 made it. The plant food in the soil is raw material. As it develops 
 into corn, the man who produces the corn has produced the finished 
 
 Eroduct, so far as that is concerned, and so he is interested in mar- 
 eting that. 
 
 But nowada3's the bulk of the sheep of this country are out on the 
 plains. There are some scattered over the farms all over the coun- 
 try.. So far as 1 know, everybody in the United States, of our 
 105,000,000 people, can have Iamb chops for breakfast to-morrow 
 moi-ning if they have got the price. Now, when we take into con- 
 sideration that these 105,000,000 people are to have distributed the 
 products of the plains of this country in the shape of lamb chops, the 
 machinery of distribution must be enormously expensive. We talk 
 a good deal of loose talk about what happens between the producer 
 and the consumer of farm products. 
 
 There are just two things that enter into the price that the con- 
 sumer pays, and two things only, and they are labor and profits. 
 From the raw material^ — and on the farm the raw material is the 
 plant food that nature puts into the soil that makes grass grow, and 
 growing grass makes lambs grow — at every stage it is the finished 
 product of somebody. 
 
 What we pay for lamb chops in Washington is covered in just two 
 things, labor and profits. Now, maybe labor is getting too much for 
 these various items all the way through, operating the railroads and 
 the packing plants, and the retail stores, and the hotels*, and jobbers. 
 Maybe the labor item is getting too much money. If that is not true, 
 then maybe the profits are too large somewhere along the tortuous 
 route from the plains of Wyoming to the breakfast tables of Wash- 
 ington. But those items are the only two items that enter into the 
 cost. Now, when we philosophize on this matter and undertake to 
 talk about the marketing question, we are in the habit of doing a lot 
 of loose talk — Congressmen and all of us. Whenever you attack that 
 problem, you attack just those two things. Everybody that con- 
 tributes labor to the movement of these farm products to the ulti- 
 mate consumer, and everybody that secures a profit, will put their 
 cards on the table and say, "Am I a profiteer?" And every one of 
 them will prove an alibi. We have done that over and over before 
 courts, and still there is the deep-seated conviction in our organiza- 
 tion and in the public mind that the spread between the producer 
 out in the country and the ultimate consumer in the city in thi^s coun- 
 try is too great ; that the cost of distribution is too great. Now, we 
 have dug into that from many angles— I mean our organization— 
 and we have tried to deal with it without any looseness. We have 
 tried to get at the facts as to where the trouble is, and we have to 
 confess that we are not wise enough to determine where the trouble is. 
 
26 ' FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. So that you have no suggestion to make of any con- 
 crete plan that Congress might adopt that would meet that situation 
 practically ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. No ; we have not. But it is more a consumers' prob- 
 lem than a producers. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Have you in mind any legislation of a financial char- 
 acter that you think this committee could report out — proper legis- 
 lation — that would be of probable benefit to the American farmer? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Do you mean for this committee to recommend? 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. For this committee. 
 
 Mr. Aticeson. On Banking and Currency? 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Yes. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. There has been a good deal of loose talk in the coun- 
 try about financing the farmer. More farmers have been hurt in the 
 last year by being financed than in any other way. I had a concrete 
 illustration of this. My son was growing cotton down in southern 
 Alabama. When the slump in the price of cotton came on I thought 
 I would be generous to the boy, and I wrote to him and told him if 
 he thought he ought to keep his cotton — the atmosphere was full of 
 financing for the farmer — I would finance him. I thought I would 
 just finance the boy and let him make some money out of it, so I 
 wrote and told him if he wanted to keep his cotton for a better 
 price he could just call on me for what he wanted. I got a letter back 
 very soon, and he said he had just sold his cotton for 27 cents, and 
 he thought that was better than 15 cents, and he said that he could 
 not get 12 cents now, so that if I had financed him instead of his 
 selling his cotton at 27 cents he would have been selling it at 12 cents. 
 
 As a general proposition the farmers in this country who have 
 got large amounts of wheat or large amounts of anything else are in 
 position where nobody is going to crush them if they have the 
 collateral and are in condition to finance themselves for five or six 
 months and kgep it. But after going over the records kept by my 
 father and myself covering a period of 75 years — and that is worthy 
 of the greatest consideration — dealing with the wheat question, I 
 find that my father for more than 60 years kept a diary, giving the 
 price of wheat at thrashing time and the price of wheat when he 
 sold it, and he never did sell it from the thrashing machine. He 
 usually sold it the 1st of May, and the difference in prices of more 
 than 60 years in his earnings does not show an increase on the average 
 of 8 cents a bushel on wheat, and when you take into account the 
 extra risks from panics and storms and the risk from lightning and 
 fire — and he did not insure it — if he had paid insurance and interest 
 it would have brought him out in debt for the 60 years. There were 
 years when he made 50 cents a bushel, and there were years when 
 he lost more than 50 cents a bushel by not selling it at thrashing time. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. So that your idea is that the farmer does not need 
 financing now ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Financing did not help my father any. He did not 
 make anything by keeping his wheat. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. You spoke of your son. When was it that he sold his 
 cotton last fall ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. It was when it was about 27 cents. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. What month was that ? 
 
FAEM ORGANIZATIONS. 27 
 
 Mr Atkeson. I do not remember. It was about the time it was 
 ginned, though. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. He was in southern Alabama, was he not ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes ; down in the southeastern corner of the State. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. What is going to happen to the farmer who lived in 
 a belt where his cotton cost him— in money paid out in actual labor 
 and cost of mamtaining himself and family— from 23 to 30 cents a 
 pound, and who could get only 11 cents a pound for his cotton when 
 it came out ? What is going to happen to him ? 
 
 Mr Atkeson. Just what is going to happen to all of us when the 
 cost of living goes down. . 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Suppose he can not sell it at all, what is going to 
 happen to him and his farm? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. He is going to be adjudged in bankruptcy, and I 
 do not see any escape from it. 
 
 Mr. WiNGo. You do not see any escape from it? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Absolutely not, unless somebody is going to keep 
 him from it._ I could have kept my son from bankruptcy, because I 
 could have financed him. But how are you going — by legislation — 
 to make somebody pay more for that crop than somebody is willing 
 to pay ? In other words, in all of my experience I never was able 
 to sell anything if I could not find a buyer. I never found a buyer 
 that took into the account at all what it cost me to produce the 
 thing I wanted to sell. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Did you ever find a buyer that did not have current 
 cash, who offered you a credit that you could not use, and you had 
 to find another purchaser? In other words, did you ever find a 
 buyer, when you wanted to sell your wheat for cash, who said : " I 
 have no cash, but I have a horse and some sheep I will trade you " ? 
 Did you ever have trouble in finding the medium of exchange that 
 would affect the transaction ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. All of those problems concern the interests of the 
 farmer. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Yes, I know ; and they concern other people, too. 
 
 Mr. King. May I put a concrete case to you for advice? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes. 
 
 Mr. King. Two young men in my county in the early part of the 
 year went to farming, and they equipped themselves. Harness and 
 horses were high and all of their equipment was high in price. 
 They put in a crop of corn. It cost them 70 cents a bushel to put 
 the corn in. To-day it is worth only 50 cents. If they could have 
 carried that corn a little while they could have gotten out. Does 
 not the gentleman think they could have been relieved by some 
 legislation that would have extended credit to them the same as has 
 been given to the interests of the country who have been hoarding 
 corn, for instance, or other supplies? If the credit of the Govern- 
 ment had been extended in some way through the Federal Reserve 
 Board to those boys they would have been saved and they would 
 have stayed there. Now,' they have lost everything, they have gone 
 away, and they never will be able to get a start again to take a 
 farm — two good young farmers. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. You will find that same thing on a declining marke*-. 
 everywhere. It is not peculiar to the farmer. 
 
28 FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. You said that the farmer, if he had good collateral, 
 could finance himself anywhere in this country. You did not intend 
 to leave that impression, did you? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. What is that? 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. You did not intend to leave the impression with the 
 committee that anyone in the United States — a farmer — could bor- 
 row anything he needed to meet his legitimate needs ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. No; I said the man who was able to carry things 
 over and determine for himself when he would sell them, and very 
 frequently he was mistaken in holding things over and lost rather 
 than made by keeping them, and frequently .by financing a man who 
 might be induced to keep things he would lose by keeping them. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. After all, has he not as much right to decide when 
 he will sell his wheat or cotton as the millman has to decide when 
 he will run his mill and when he will stop it? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Is he not entitled on his own initiative and his own 
 responsibility to the same credit facilities as the millman ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Exactly the same. As a commercial proposition 
 the farmer is entitled to all the advantage that anybody else has, but 
 I do not believe that anybody would maliciously or deliberately dis- 
 criminate against the farmer. In a good many instances he has been 
 unwittingly discriminated against, and unintentionally, simply be- 
 cause of failure to understand the situation. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Would you think that a bank had discriminated if it 
 had discounted paper that would enable a man to buy 284 bales of 
 cotton and hold it until the price had gone up and the same banking 
 system had refused to grant the customary annual credits to the 
 farmers who produced that cotton to hold it when they wante^ to 
 assume that risk; that is, one they have a right to assume them- 
 selves ? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Unquestionably, if the bank did that, it was because 
 it was wanting or desiring to benefit the middleman or the holder 
 of the cotton. But maybe the bank had other reasons for pre- 
 ferring • 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Suppose the only reason it gave was that this bank 
 should not be used as an agency to enable the farmer to hold the 
 products off the market; would that be any justification? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I do not think so. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. Would there be any justification for a banker grant- 
 ing credits to men to carry liquor in bonded warehouses and saying, 
 " That class of paper is eligible for discounting across nay counter, 
 but the paper or the wheat growers of Kansas is not so. You ought 
 to have gone and sold it and let the other people get the profit." Is 
 there any justification for that? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. We object to discrimination under any circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. In other words, the point you want to make is this: 
 That you come here as a farmer, and you are not asking for any 
 special privileges, but you do ask that the same privileges may be 
 given to the farming class ; and you say that the public itself has an 
 interest in the basic industry of agriculture, so that legislation which 
 might appear sometimes to be class legislation, as a matter of fact 
 
FARM ORGANIZATIONS. 29 
 
 is justifiable on the ground of public policy because the benefit to the 
 •class spreads out and inures to the whole. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. Yes, sir. That is exactly my position. 
 
 Mr. WiKGO. I am glad to know that. I find a good many gentle- 
 men who frequent the halls of the Capitol who have not discovered 
 that. 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I said a while ago on that subject that I would not 
 undertake to defend a thing that we could not defend on the ordinary 
 level of commercial interest or on the ground of public policy; and 
 both those principles prevail. 
 
 The Chaiemak. Gentlemen of the committee, this is all very inter- 
 esting. Have you finished now, Doctor? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. I am through. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. I believe he has stated the position of his organization. 
 
 The Chairman. Yes. 
 
 Mr. WiNGO. And you have no specific request to make of this com- 
 mittee at this time for legislation? 
 
 Mr. Atkeson. No. 
 
 The Chairman. Unless there is something else, a motion to ad- 
 journ is in order. 
 
 (Thereupon, at 4 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned.) 
 
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