1921.07 农民问题的某些方面

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Some Aspects of the Farmers' Problems
By Bernard M. Baruch
JULY 1921 ISSUE
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I
THE whole rural world is in a ferment of unrest, and there is an unparalleled volume and intensity of determined, if not angry, protest ; and an ominous swarming of occupational conferences, interest groupings, political movements, and propaganda. Such a turmoil cannot but arrest our attention. Indeed, it demands our careful study and examination. It is not likely that six million aloof and ruggedly independent men have come together and banded themselves into active unions, societies, farm bureaus, and so forth, for no sufficient cause.


Investigation of the subject conclusively proves that, while there is much overstatement of grievances and misconception of remedies, the farmers are right in complaining of wrongs long endured, and right in holding that it is feasible to relieve their ills with benefit to the rest of the community. This being the case of an industry that contributes, in the raw-material form alone, about one third of the national annual wealth-production and is the means of livelihood of about forty-nine per cent of the population, it is obvious that the subject is one of grave concern. Not only do the farmers make up one half of the nation, but the wellbeing of the other half depends upon them.

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So long as we have nations, a wise political economy will aim at a large degree of national self-sufficiency and self-containment. Rome fell when the food-supply was too far removed from the belly. Like her, we shall destroy our own agriculture and extend our sources of food distantly and precariously, if we do not see to it that our farmers are well and fairly paid for their services. The farm gives the nation men as well as food. Cities derive their vitality and are forever renewed from the country, but an impoverished countryside exports intelligence and retains unintelligence. Only the lower grades of mentality and character will remain on, or seek, the farm unless agriculture is capable of being pursued with contentment and adequate compensation. Hence, to embitter and impoverish the farmer is to dry up and contaminate the vital sources of the nation.


The war showed convincingly how dependent the nation is on the full productivity of the farms. Despite herculean efforts, agricultural production kept only a few weeks or months ahead of consumption, and that only by increasing the acreage of certain staple crops at the cost of reducing that of others. We ought not to forget that lesson when we ponder on the farmer’s problems. They are truly common problems, and there should be no attempt to deal with them as if they were purely the selfish demands of a clear-cut group, antagonistic to the rest of the community. Rather should we consider agriculture in the light of broad national policy, just as we consider oil, coal, steel, dye-stuffs, and so forth, as sinews of national strength. Our growing population and a higher standard of living demand increasing food-supplies, and more wool, cotton, hides, and the rest. With the disappearance of free or cheap fertile land, additional acreage and increased yields can come only from costly effort. This we need not expect from an impoverished or unhappy rural population.

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It will not do to take a narrow view of the rural discontent, or to appraise it from the standpoint of yesterday. This is peculiarly an age of flux and change and new deals. Because a thing always has been so no longer means that it is righteous, or always shall be so. More, perhaps, than ever before, there is a widespread feeling that all human relations can be improved by taking thought, and that it is not becoming for the reasoning animal to leave his destiny largely to chance and natural incidence.

Prudent and orderly adjustment of production and distribution in accordance with consumption is recognized as wise management in every business but that of farming. Yet, I venture to say, there is no other industry in which it is so important to the public — to the city-dweller—that production should be sure, steady, and increasing, and that distribution should be in proportion to the need. The unorganized farmers naturally act blindly and impulsively and, in consequence, surfeit and dearth, accompanied by disconcerting price-variations, harass the consumer. One year potatoes rot in the fields because of excess production, and there is a scarcity of the things that have been displaced to make way for the expansion of the potato acreage; next year the punished farmers mass their fields on some other crop, and potatoes enter the class of luxuries; and so on.

Agriculture is the greatest and fundamentally the most important of our American industries. The cities are but the branches of the tree of national life, the roots of which go deeply into the land. We all flourish or decline with the farmer. So, when we of the cities read of the present universal distress of the farmers, of a slump of six billion dollars in the farm-value of their crops in a single year, of their inability to meet mortgages or to pay current bills, and how, seeking relief from their ills, they are planning to form pools, inaugurate farmers’ strikes, and demand legislation abolishing grain exchanges, private cattle markets, and the like, we ought not hastily to brand them as economic heretics and highwaymen, and hurl at them the charge of being seekers of special privilege. Rather, we should ask if their trouble is not ours, and see what can be done to improve the situation. Purely from self-interest, if for no higher motive, we should help them. All of us want to get back permanently to ‘normalcy’; but is it reasonable to hope for that condition unless our greatest, and most basic industry can be put on a sound and solid permanent foundation? The farmers are not entitled to special privileges; but are they not right in demanding that they be placed on an equal footing with the buyers of their products and with other industries?


II
Let us, then, consider some of the farmer’s grievances, and see how far they are real. In doing so, we should remember that, while there have been, and still are, instances of purposeful abuse, the subject should not be approached with any general imputation to existing distributive agencies of deliberately intentional oppression, but rather with the conception that the marketing of farm products has not been modernized.

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An ancient evil, and a persistent one, is the undergrading of farm products, with the result that what the farmers sell as of one quality is resold as of a higher. That this sort of chicanery should persist on any important scale in these days of business integrity would seem almost incredible, but there is much evidence that it does so persist. Even as I write, the newspapers announce the suspension of several firms from the New York Produce Exchange for exporting to Germany as No. 2 wheat a whole shipload of grossly inferior wheat mixed with oats, chaff, and the like.

Another evil is that of inaccurate weighing of farm products, which, it is charged, is sometimes a matter of dishonest intention and sometimes of protective policy on the part of the local buyer, who fears that he may ‘weigh out’ more than he ‘weighs in.’


A greater grievance is that at present the field farmer has little or no control over the time and conditions of marketing his products, with the result that he is often underpaid for his products and usually overcharged for marketing service. The difference between what the farmer receives and what the consumer pays often exceeds all possibility of justification. To cite a single illustration. Last year, according to figures attested by the railways and the growers, Georgia watermelon-raisers received on the average 7.5 cents for a melon, the railroads got 12.7 cents for carrying it to Baltimore, and the consumer paid one dollar; leaving 79.8 cents for the service of marketing and its risks, as against 20.2 cents for growing and transporting. The hard annals of farmlife are replete with such commentaries on the crudeness of present practices.

Nature prescribes that the farmer’s ‘goods’ must be finished within two or three months of the year, while financial and storage limitations generally compel him to sell them at the same time. As a rule, other industries are in a continuous process of finishing goods for the markets; they distribute as they produce, and they can curtail production without too great injury to themselves or the community; but if the farmer restricts his output, it is with disastrous consequences, both to himself and to the community.

The average farmer is busy with production for the major part of the year, and has nothing to sell. The bulk of his output comes on at the market at once. Because of lack of storage facilities and of financial support, the farmer cannot carry his goods through the year and dispose of them as they are currently needed. In the great majority of cases, farmers have to entrust storage — in warehouses and elevators — and the financial carrying of their products to others.


Farm products are generally marketed at a time when there is a congestion of both transportation and finance — when cars and money are scarce. The outcome, in many instances, is that the farmers not only sell under pressure, and therefore at a disadvantage, but are compelled to take further reductions in net returns, in order to meet the charges for the services of storing, transporting, financing, and ultimate marketing — which charges, they claim, are often excessive, bear heavily on both consumer and producer, and are under the control of those performing the services. It is true that they are relieved of the risks of a changing market by selling at once; but they are quite willing to take the unfavorable chance, if the favorable one also is theirs and they can retain for themselves a part of the service charges that are uniform, in good years and bad, with high prices and low.

While, in the main, the farmer must sell, regardless of market conditions, at the time of the maturity of crops, he cannot suspend production in toto. He must go on producing if he is to go on living, and if the world is to exist. The most he can do is to curtail production a little, or alter its form, and that — because he is in the dark as to the probable demand for his goods — may be only to jump from the frying-pan into the fire, taking the consumer with him.

Even the dairy farmers, whose output is not seasonal, complain that they find themselves at a disadvantage in the marketing of their productions, especially raw milk, because of the high costs of distribution, which they must ultimately bear.


III
Now that the farmers are stirring, thinking, and uniting as never before to eradicate these inequalities, they are subjected to stern economic lectures, and are met with the accusation that they are demanding, and are the recipients of, special privileges. Let us see what privileges the government has conferred on the farmers. Much has been made of Section 6 of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which purported to permit them to combine with immunity, under certain conditions. Admitting that, nominally, this exemption was in the nature of a special privilege, — though I think it was so in appearance rather than in fact, — we find that the courts have nullified it by judicial interpretation. Why should not the farmers be permitted to accomplish by coöperative methods what other businesses are already doing by coöperation in the form of incorporation? If it be proper for men to form, by fusion of existing corporations or otherwise, a corporation that controls the entire production of a commodity, or a large part of it, why is it not proper for a group of farmers to unite for the marketing of their common products, either in one or in several selling agencies? Why should it be right for a hundred thousand corporate shareholders to direct 25 or 30 or 40 per cent of an industry, and wrong for a hundred thousand coöperative farmers to control a no larger proportion of the wheat crop, or cotton, or any other product?

The Department of Agriculture is often spoken of as a special concession to the farmers, but in its commercial results, it is of as much benefit to the buyers and consumers of agricultural products as to the producers, or even more. I do not suppose that anyone opposes the benefits that the farmers derive from the educational and research work of the Department, or the help that it gives them in working out improved cultural methods and practices, in developing better-yielding varieties through breeding and selection, in introducing new varieties from remote parts of the world and adapting them to our climate and economic condition, and in devising practical measures for the elimination or control of dangerous and destructive animal and plant diseases, insect pests, and the like. All these things manifestly tend to stimulate and enlarge production, and their general beneficial effects are obvious.

It is complained that, whereas the law restricts Federal Reserve banks to three months’ time for commercial paper, the farmer is allowed six months on his notes. This is not a special privilege, but merely such a recognition of business conditions as makes it possible for country banks to do business with country people. The crop-farmer has only one turn-over a year, while the merchant and manufacturer have many. Incidentally, I note that the Federal Reserve Board has just authorized the Federal Reserve banks to discount export paper for a period of six months, to conform to the nature of the business.

The Farm Loan banks are pointed to as an instance of special government favor for farmers. Are they not rather the outcome of laudable efforts to equalize rural and urban conditions? And about all the government does there is to help set up an administrative organization and lend a little credit at the start. Eventually the farmers will provide all the capital and carry all the liabilities themselves. It is true that Farm Loan bonds are tax-exempt; but so are bonds of municipal light and traction plants, and new housing is to be exempt from taxation, in New York, for ten years.

On the other hand, the farmer reads of plans for municipal housing projects that run into the billions, of hundreds of millions annually spent on the merchant marine; he reads that the railways are being favored with increased rates and virtual guaranties of earnings by the government, with the result to him of an increased toll on all that he sells and all that he buys. He hears of many manifestations of governmental concern for particular industries and interests. Rescuing the railways from insolvency is undoubtedly for the benefit of the country as a whole, but what can be of more general benefit than encouragement of ample production of the principal necessaries of life and their even flow from contented producers to satisfied consumers?

While it may be conceded that special governmental aid may be necessary in the general interest, we must all agree that it is difficult to see why agriculture and the production and distribution of farm products are not accorded the same opportunities that are provided for other businesses; especially as the enjoyment by the farmer of such opportunities would appear to be even more contributory to the general good than in the case of other industries. The spirit of American democracy is unalterably opposed, alike to enacted special privilege and to the special privilege of unequal opportunity that arises automatically from the failure to correct glaring economic inequalities. I am opposed to the injection of government into business, but I do believe that it is an essential function of democratic government to equalize opportunity so far as it is within its power to do so, whether by the repeal of archaic statutes or the enactment of modern ones. If the antitrust laws keep the farmers from endeavoring scientifically to integrate their industry, while other industries find a way to meet modern conditions without violating such statutes, then it would seem reasonable to find a way for the farmers to meet them under the same conditions. The law should operate equally in fact. Repairing the economic structure on one side is no injustice to the other side, which is in good repair.


We have traveled a long way from the old conception of government as merely a defensive and policing agency; and regulative, corrective, or equalizing legislation, which apparently is of a special nature, is often of the most general beneficial consequences. Even the First Congress passed a tariff act that was avowedly for the protection of manufactures; but a protective tariff always has been defended as a means of promoting the general good through a particular approach; and the statute books are filled with acts for the benefit of shipping, commerce, and labor.

IV
Now, what is the farmer asking? Without trying to catalogue the remedial measures that have been suggested in his behalf, the principal proposals that bear directly on the improvement of his distributing and marketing relations may be summarized as follows: —

First: storage warehouses for cotton, wool, and tobacco, and elevators for grain, of sufficient capacity to meet the maximum demand on them at the peak of the marketing period. The farmer thinks that either private capital must furnish these facilities, or the state must erect and own the elevators and warehouses.




Second: weighing and grading of agricultural products, and certification thereof, to be done by impartial and disinterested public inspectors (this is already accomplished to some extent by the federal licensing of weighers and graders),to climinate underpaying, overcharging, and unfair grading, and to facilitate the utilization of the stored products as the basis of credit.

Third: a certainty of credit sufficient to enable the marketing of products in an orderly manner.

Fourth: the Department of Agriculture should collect, tabulate, summarize, and regularly and frequently publish and distribute to the farmers, full information from all the markets of the world, so that they shall be as well informed of their selling position as buyers now are of their buying position.

Fifth: freedom to integrate the business of agriculture by means of consolidated selling agencies, coördinating and coöperating in such way as to put the farmer on an equal footing with the large buyers of his products and with commercial relations in other industries.

When a business requires specialized talent, it has to buy it. So will the farmers; and perhaps the best way for them to get it would be to utilize some of the present machinery of the largest established agencies dealing in farm products. Of course, if he wishes, the farmer may go further and engage in flour-milling and other manufactures of food products. In my opinion, however, he would be wise to stop short of that. Public interest may be opposed to all great integrations; but, in justice, should they be forbidden to the farmer and permitted to others? The corporate form of association cannot now be wholly adapted to his objects and conditions. The looser coöperative form seems more generally suitable. Therefore, he wishes to be free, if he finds it desirable and feasible, to resort to cooperation with his fellows and neighbors, without running afoul of the law. To urge that the farmers should have the same liberty to consolidate and coordinate their peculiar economic functions, which other industries in their fields enjoy, is not, however, to concede that any business integration should have legislative sanction to exercise monopolistic power. The American people are as firmly opposed to industrial as to political autocracy, whether attempted by rural or by urban industry.


For lack of united effort the farmers, as a whole, are still marketing their crops by antiquated methods, or by no methods at all; but they are surrounded by a business world that has been modernized to the last minute and is tirelessly striving for efficiency. This efficiency is due in large measure to big business, to united business, to integrated business. The farmers now seek the benefits of such largeness, union, and integration.

The American farmer is a modern of the moderns in the use of labor-saving machinery, and he has made vast strides in recent years in scientific tillage and efficient farm management; but as a business in contact with other businesses, agriculture is a ‘one-horse shay’ in competition with high-power automobiles. The American farmer is the greatest and most intractable of individualists. While industrial production and all phases of the huge commercial mechanism and its myriad accessories have articulated and coördinated themselves, all the way from natural raw materials to retail sales, the business of agriculture has gone on in much the one-man fashion of the backwoods of the first part of the nineteenth century, when the farmer was self-sufficient and did not depend upon, or care very much, what the great world was doing. The result is that the agricultural group is almost as much at a disadvantage in dealing with other economic groups as the jay farmer of the funny pages in the hands of sleek urban confidence men, who sell him acreage in Central Park or the Chicago City Hall. The leaders of the farmers thoroughly understand this, and they are intelligently striving to integrate their industry so that it will be on an equal footing with other businesses.


As an example of integration, take the steel industry, in which the model is the United States Steel Corporation, with its iron mines, its coal mines, its lake and rail transportation, its ocean vessels, its by-product coke ovens, its blast furnances, its open hearth and Bessemer furnaces, its rolling mills, its tube mills, and other manufacturing processes that are carried to the highest degree of finished production compatible with the large trade it has built up. All this is generally conceded to be to the advantage of the consumer. Nor does the Steel Corporation inconsiderately dump its products on the market. On the contrary, it so acts that it is frequently a stabilizing influence, as is often the case with other large organizations. It is master of its distribution as well as of its production. If prices are not satisfactory, the products are held back, or production is reduced or suspended. It is not compelled to send a year’s work to the market at one time and take whatever it can get under such circumstances. It has one selling policy, and its own export department. Neither are the grades and qualities of steel determined at the caprice of the buyer; nor does the latter hold the scales. In this single integration of the Steel Corporation is represented about 40 per cent of the steel production of America. The rest is mostly in the hands of a few large companies. In ordinary times the Steel Corporation, by example, stabilizes all steel prices. If this is permissible (it is even desirable, because stable and fair prices are essential to solid and continued prosperity), why would it be wrong for the farmers to utilize central agencies that would have similar effects on agricultural products? Something like that is what they are aiming at.

Some farmers, favored by regional compactness and contiguity, such as the citrus-fruit-raisers of California, already have found a way legally to merge and sell their products integrally and in accordance with seasonal and local demand, thus improving their position and rendering the consumer a reliable service of ensured quality, certain supply, and reasonable and relatively steady prices. They have not found it necessary to resort to any special privilege, or to claim any exemption under the anti-trust legislation of the state or nation. Without removing local control, they have built up a very efficient marketing agency. The grain, cotton, and tobacco farmers, and the producers of hides and wool, because of their numbers and the vastness of their regions, and for other reasons, have found integration a more difficult task; though there are now some thousands of farmer’s coöperative elevators, warehouses, creameries, and other enterprises of one sort and another, with a turn-over of a billion dollars a year. They are giving the farmers business experience and training, and, so far as they go, they meet the need of honest weighing and fair grading; but they do not meet the requirements of rationally adjusted marketing in any large and fundamental way.

The next step, which will be a pattern for other groups, is now being prepared by the grain-raisers through the establishment of sales media which shall handle grain separately or collectively, as the individual farmer may elect. It is this step — the plan of the Committee of Seventeen — which has created so much opposition and is thought by some to be in conflict with the antitrust laws. Though there is now before Congress a measure designed to clear up doubt on this point, the grain-producers are not relying on any immunity from anti-trust legislation. They desire, and they are entitled, to coördinate their efforts just as effectively as the large business interests of the country have done. In connection with the selling organizations, the United States Grain Growers Incorporated is drafting a scheme of financing instrumentalities and auxiliary agencies which are indispensable to the successful utilization of modern business methods.


It is essential that the farmers should proceed gradually with these plans, and aim to avoid the error of scrapping the existing marketing machinery, which has been so laboriously built up by long experience, before they have a tried and proved substitute or supplementary mechanism. They must be careful not to become enmeshed in their own reforms and lose the perspective of their place in the national system. They must guard against fanatical devotion to new doctrines, and should seek articulation with the general economic system rather than its reckless destruction as it relates to them.

V
To take a tolerant and sympathetic view of the farmers’ strivings for better things is not to give a blanket indorsement to any specific plan, and still less to applaud the vagaries of some of their leaders and groups. Neither should we, on the other hand, allow the froth of bitter agitation, false economics, and mistaken radicalism to conceal the facts of the farmers’ disadvantages, and the practicability of eliminating them by well-considered measures. It may be that the farmers will not show the business sagacity and develop the wise leadership to carry through sound plans; but that possibility does not justify the obstruction of their upward efforts. We, as city people, see in high and speculatively manipulated prices, spoilage, waste, scarcity, the results of defective distribution of farm products. Should it not occur to us that we have a common interest with the farmer in his attempts to attain a degree of efficiency in distribution corresponding to his efficiency in production? Do not the recent fluctuations in the May wheat option, apparently unrelated to normal interaction of supply and demand, offer a timely proof of the need of some such stabilizing agency as the grain-growers have in contemplation?


It is contended that, if their proposed organizations be perfected and operated, the farmers will have in their hands an instrument that will be capable of dangerous abuse. We are told that it will be possible to pervert it to arbitrary and oppressive price-fixing from its legitimate use of ordering and stabilizing the flow of farm products to the market, to the mutual benefit of producer and consumer. I have no apprehensions on this point.

In the first place, a loose organization, such as any union of farmers must be at best, cannot be so arbitrarily and promptly controlled as a great corporation. The one is a lumbering democracy and the other an agile autocracy. In the second place, with all possible power of organization, the farmers cannot succeed to any great extent, or for any considerable length of time, in fixing prices. The great law of supply and demand works in various and surprising ways, to the undoing of the best-laid plans that attempt to foil it. In the third place, their power will avail the farmers nothing if it be abused. In our time and country power is of value to its possessor only so long as it is not abused. It is fair to say that I have seen no signs in responsible quarters of a disposition to dictate prices. There seems, on the contrary, to be a commonly beneficial purpose to realize a stability that will give an orderly and abundant flow of farm products to the consumer and ensure reasonable and dependable returns to the producer.


In view of the supreme importance to the national well-being of a prosperous and contented agricultural population, we should be prepared to go a long way in assisting the farmers to get an equitable share of the wealth they produce, through the inauguration of reforms that will procure a continuous and increasing stream of farm products. They are far from getting a fair share now. Considering his capital and the long hours of labor put in by the average farmer and his family, he is remunerated less than any other occupational class, with the possible exception of teachers, religious and lay. Though we know that the present general distress of the farmers is exceptional and is linked with the inevitable economic readjustment following the war, it must be remembered that, although representing one third of the industrial product and half the total population of the nation, the rural communities ordinarily enjoy but a fifth to a quarter of the net annual national gain. Notwithstanding the taste of prosperity that the farmers had during the war, there is to-day a lower standard of living among the cotton farmers of the South than in any other pursuit in the country.

In conclusion, it seems to me that the farmers are chiefly striving for a generally beneficial integration of their business, of the same kind and character that other business enjoys. If it should be found, on examination, that the attainment of this end requires methods different from those which other activities have followed for the same purpose, should we not sympathetically consider the plea for the right to coöperate, if only from our own enlightened selfinterest, in obtaining an abundant and steady flow of farm products?


In examining the agricultural situation with a view to its improvement, we shall be most helpful if we maintain a detached and judicial viewpoint, remembering that existing wrongs may be chiefly an accident of unsymmetrical economic growth, instead of a creation of malevolent design and conspiracy. We Americans are prone, as Professor David Friday well says in his admirable book, Profits, Wages and Prices, to seek a ‘criminal intent behind every difficult and undesirable economic situation.’ I can positively assert, from my contact with men of large affairs, including bankers, that, as a whole, they are endeavoring to fulfill, as they see them, the obligations that go with their power. Preoccupied with the grave problems and heavy tasks of their own immediate affairs, they have not turned their thoughtful personal attention or their constructive abilities to the deficiencies of agricultural business organization. Agriculture, it may be said, suffers from their preoccupation and neglect rather than from any purposeful exploitation by them. They ought now to begin to respond to the farmers’ difficulties, which they must realize are their own.

On the other hand, my contacts with the farmers have filled me with respect for them — for their sanity, their patience, their balance. Within the last year — and particularly at a meeting called by the Kansas State Board of Agriculture and at another called by the Committee of Seventeen — I have met many of the leaders of the new farm movement, and I testify, in all sincerity, that they are endeavoring to deal with their problems, not as promoters of a narrow class-interest, not as exploiters of the hapless consumer, not as merciless monopolists, but as honest men bent on the improvement of the common weal.

We can and must meet such men and such a cause half-way. Their business is our business — the nation’s business.



农民问题的某些方面
作者：Bernard M. Baruch
1921年7月号
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I
整个农村世界正处于动荡不安的状态，坚定的、甚至是愤怒的抗议的数量和强度都是空前的；职业会议、利益集团、政治运动和宣传也是不祥之兆。这样的动荡不能不引起我们的注意。事实上，它需要我们仔细研究和审查。不可能有六百万冷漠和粗犷独立的人，在没有充分理由的情况下，走到一起，结成活跃的工会、协会、农场局等等。


对这一问题的调查最终证明，虽然有很多对不满的夸大和对补救措施的误解，但农民对长期忍受的错误的抱怨是正确的，并且认为缓解他们的痛苦并使社会其他成员受益是可行的。在这种情况下，仅原材料一项就占全国年财富生产量的三分之一，并且是约49%的人口的生计手段，显然，这个问题是一个令人严重关切的问题。农民不仅占了国家的一半，而且另一半人的福祉也取决于他们。

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只要我们有国家，明智的政治经济学就会以很大程度的国家自给自足和自我封闭为目标。当食物供应离肚子太远时，罗马就倒下了。像她一样，如果我们不确保我们的农民得到良好和公平的报酬，我们将破坏我们自己的农业，并将我们的食物来源延伸到遥远和不稳定的地方。农场为国家提供人和食物。城市的生命力来自于乡村，并不断得到更新，但贫穷的乡村输出的是智力，保留的是非智力。除非农业能够得到满足和充分的补偿，否则只有低级别的心理和性格才会留在农场，或寻求农场。因此，使农民苦恼和贫穷就是使国家的重要资源枯竭和受到污染。


战争令人信服地表明，国家是多么依赖于农场的全部生产力。尽管做出了巨大的努力，但农业生产只比消费领先几周或几个月，而这只是通过增加某些主食作物的种植面积，以减少其他作物的种植面积为代价。当我们思考农民的问题时，我们不应该忘记这个教训。它们是真正的共同问题，不应试图把它们当作纯粹是一个明确的群体的自私要求来处理，与社会的其他成员对立。相反，我们应该从广泛的国家政策的角度来考虑农业，就像我们把石油、煤炭、钢铁、染料等视为国家力量的筋骨一样。我们不断增长的人口和更高的生活水平需要越来越多的食品供应，以及更多的羊毛、棉花、皮革和其他产品。随着免费或廉价肥沃土地的消失，额外的种植面积和产量的增加只能通过昂贵的努力来实现。这一点我们不需要从贫穷或不快乐的农村人口中期待。

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狭隘地看待农村的不满情绪，或者从昨天的角度来评价它，都是不可取的。这是一个特殊的变化和新交易的时代。因为一件事一直如此，并不意味着它是正确的，或将一直如此。也许，现在比以往任何时候都更普遍的感觉是，所有的人类关系都可以通过思考得到改善，而对于有理性的动物来说，把自己的命运主要留给机会和自然事件是不合适的。

根据消费情况谨慎而有序地调整生产和分配，被认为是除农业以外的每项业务的明智管理。然而，我敢说，没有任何一个行业对公众--对城市居民--来说是如此重要，生产应该是确定的、稳定的和不断增长的，分配应该与需求成比例。无组织的农民自然会盲目和冲动地行动，结果是供应过剩和短缺，伴随着令人不安的价格变化，骚扰着消费者。有一年，由于生产过剩，土豆烂在了田里，为了给土豆种植面积的扩大让路，那些被取代的东西出现了短缺；明年，受到惩罚的农民将他们的田地大量用于种植其他作物，而土豆则进入了奢侈品的行列；如此类推。

农业是我们美国最伟大和最重要的产业。城市不过是国家生活之树的树枝，其根深深扎入土地。我们都与农民一起繁荣或衰退。因此，当我们在城市里读到农民目前的普遍困境，读到他们的农作物价值在一年内下滑了60亿美元，读到他们无力偿还抵押贷款或支付当前的账单，以及读到他们如何寻求解脱困境。他们计划组成联合体，发起农民罢工，并要求立法废除谷物交易所、私人牛市等，我们不应该急于把他们打成经济异端和强盗，并指责他们是寻求特殊特权的人。相反，我们应该问一问他们的麻烦是不是我们的，并看看能做些什么来改善这种状况。如果没有更高的动机，我们应该纯粹从自身利益出发，帮助他们。我们所有人都希望永久地回到 "正常状态"；但是，除非我们最大的、最基本的产业能够建立在一个健全和坚实的永久基础上，否则希望达到这种状态是合理的吗？农民无权享有特殊的特权；但他们要求将他们与他们产品的购买者和其他行业置于平等的地位，难道不是正确的吗？


二
那么，让我们考虑一下农民的一些不满，看看它们在多大程度上是真实的。在这样做的时候，我们应该记住，虽然过去和现在都有故意滥用的情况，但在处理这个问题的时候，不应该笼统地指责现有的分配机构故意压迫，而应该想到农产品的销售还没有现代化。

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一个古老的罪恶，也是一个顽固的罪恶，就是农产品的等级过低，结果是农民卖出的是一种质量，转手卖出的是更高的质量。在这个讲究商业诚信的时代，这种欺诈行为竟然还在大规模存在，这似乎是不可思议的，但有很多证据表明它确实在持续存在。就在我写作的时候，报纸宣布纽约农产品交易所的几家公司因将整船严重劣质的小麦与燕麦、谷壳等混在一起出口到德国而被暂停营业。

另一个弊端是农产品称重不准确，据说这有时是不诚实的意图，有时是当地买家的保护政策，他们担心自己 "称出来的 "比 "称进去的 "多。


更大的不满是，目前田间地头的农民对其产品的销售时间和条件几乎没有控制权，结果是他的产品往往报酬不足，而营销服务的费用通常过高。农民得到的报酬和消费者支付的费用之间的差异往往超出了所有可能的合理性。仅举一例说明。去年，根据铁路部门和种植者提供的数字，佐治亚州的西瓜种植者平均得到一个西瓜7.5美分，铁路部门将西瓜运到巴尔的摩得到12.7美分，而消费者支付1美元；剩下79.8美分用于营销服务及其风险，而种植和运输则为20.2美分。艰苦的农业生活史充满了对目前做法的粗糙性的这种评论。

自然界规定，农民的 "货物 "必须在一年中的两三个月内完成，而财政和储存方面的限制通常迫使他在同一时间出售这些货物。一般来说，其他行业都在不断地为市场完成货物；他们边生产边分配，可以在不对自己或社会造成太大伤害的情况下减少生产；但如果农民限制自己的产量，就会对自己和社会造成灾难性的后果。

一般农民在一年的大部分时间里都在忙于生产，没有什么可卖的。他的大部分产量都是一次性进入市场的。由于缺乏储存设施和财政支持，农民无法在一年中携带他的货物，并在目前需要的时候处理这些货物。在大多数情况下，农民不得不委托他人在仓库和升降机中储存，并将其产品的资金运送给他人。


农民的产品一般都是在交通和金融拥挤的时候销售的--汽车和金钱都很匮乏。在许多情况下，结果是农民不仅在压力下销售，因此处于不利地位，而且被迫进一步减少净收益，以支付储存、运输、融资和最终销售服务的费用--他们声称，这些费用往往过高，对消费者和生产者都有很大影响，而且是在提供服务者的控制之下。诚然，他们可以通过立即销售来解除市场变化的风险；但他们非常愿意抓住不利的机会，如果有利的机会也是他们的，而且他们可以为自己保留一部分服务费，这些服务费在好年景和坏年景、高价和低价时都是统一的。

虽然从根本上说，农民必须在作物成熟时出售，而不管市场条件如何，但他不能完全中止生产。如果他要继续生活下去，如果世界要存在下去，他就必须继续生产。他最多只能减少一点生产，或改变其形式，而这--因为他对其商品的可能需求一无所知--可能只是从油锅里跳进火里，把消费者也带上。

即使是那些产量没有季节性的奶农也抱怨说，他们发现自己在销售他们的产品，特别是原奶方面处于不利地位，因为他们最终必须承担高昂的分销费用。


三
现在，农民们正在为消除这些不平等现象而激动、思考和团结起来，他们受到了严厉的经济教训，并被指责为他们在要求和接受特殊的特权。让我们看看政府赋予了农民哪些特权。人们对《克莱顿反托拉斯法》第6条做了很多解释，该条旨在允许他们在某些条件下进行豁免性联合。我们承认，从名义上看，这种豁免具有特殊特权的性质--尽管我认为它只是表面上的，而不是事实上的--我们发现，法院已经通过司法解释使其失效。为什么不应该允许农民通过合作的方式来完成其他企业已经通过合作的形式来完成的公司？如果人们通过融合现有的公司或其他方式形成一个控制某种商品的全部或大部分生产的公司是合适的，为什么一群农民在一个或几个销售机构中联合起来销售他们的共同产品就不合适呢？为什么十万个公司股东指导一个产业的25%、30%或40%是正确的，而十万个合作农民控制小麦作物或棉花或任何其他产品的更大比例是错误的？

农业部经常被说成是对农民的特殊优惠，但就其商业结果而言，它对农产品的购买者和消费者的好处与对生产者的好处一样多，甚至更多。我想没有人反对农民从农业部的教育和研究工作中得到的好处，也没有人反对农业部在以下方面给予他们的帮助：制定改进的文化方法和做法，通过育种和选种开发产量更高的品种，从世界偏远地区引进新品种并使其适应我们的气候和经济条件，以及制定实际措施消除或控制危险和破坏性的动植物疾病、虫害等方面。所有这些事情都明显地倾向于刺激和扩大生产，其普遍的有益影响是显而易见的。

有人抱怨说，法律规定联邦储备银行的商业票据只能有三个月的时间，而农民的票据可以有六个月的时间。这不是一种特殊的特权，而只是对商业条件的一种认可，使乡村银行有可能与乡村居民做生意。庄稼人一年只有一次周转，而商人和制造商有许多次周转。顺便说一下，我注意到联邦储备委员会刚刚授权联邦储备银行对出口票据进行为期六个月的贴现，以符合业务的性质。

农场贷款银行被指出是政府对农民的特殊恩惠的一个例子。难道它们不是为实现农村和城市条件的平等所做的值得称赞的努力的结果吗？政府在那里所做的一切就是帮助建立一个行政组织，并在开始时提供一点信贷。最终，农民将提供所有的资本并自己承担所有的债务。诚然，农场贷款的债券是免税的；但市政照明和牵引厂的债券也是免税的，而且在纽约，新的住房将在十年内免税。

另一方面，农民读到了数以十亿计的市政住房项目计划，以及每年用于商船的数亿资金；他读到了政府对铁路的青睐，提高了费率，并实际保证了收益，其结果是他出售的所有物品和购买的所有物品都要增加收费。他听说政府对特定行业和利益的关注有很多表现。将铁路从破产中拯救出来无疑是为了整个国家的利益，但还有什么比鼓励大量生产主要生活必需品并将其从满意的生产者手中均匀地流向满意的消费者更具有普遍意义呢？

虽然可以承认，为了普遍利益，政府的特别援助可能是必要的，但我们都必须同意，很难理解为什么农业以及农产品的生产和销售不能获得与其他行业相同的机会；尤其是农民享受这种机会似乎比其他行业更有助于普遍利益。美国的民主精神是不可改变的，它既反对颁布的特权，也反对因未能纠正明显的经济不平等而自动产生的不平等机会的特权。我反对将政府注入商业，但我确实认为，只要是在其权力范围内，使机会平等是民主政府的一项基本职能，无论是通过废除古老的法规还是制定现代法规。如果反托拉斯法使农民无法科学地努力整合他们的产业，而其他产业在不违反这些法规的情况下找到了满足现代条件的方法，那么为农民找到一种在相同条件下满足这些条件的方法似乎是合理的。法律应该在事实上平等地运作。修复一方的经济结构并不是对另一方的不公正，因为另一方的经济结构已经得到了良好的修复。


我们已经走过了一段很长的路，不再像以前那样认为政府只是一个防御和维持治安的机构；管制性、纠正性或平等化的立法，表面上是特殊性质的，但往往具有最普遍的有益后果。即使是第一届国会通过的关税法案，也是公然为了保护制造业；但保护性关税总是被辩护为一种通过特殊方式促进普遍利益的手段；法令书上充满了有利于航运、商业和劳工的法案。

四
现在，农民在问什么？我不想把为他提出的补救措施编成目录，但对改善他的分销和销售关系有直接影响的主要建议可以归纳如下。-

第一：棉花、羊毛和烟草的储存仓库，以及谷物的升降机，其容量足以满足销售高峰期对它们的最大需求。农民认为，要么私人资本必须提供这些设施，要么国家必须建立并拥有这些电梯和仓库。




第二：由公正和无私的公共检查员对农产品进行称重和分级，并对其进行认证（联邦对称重员和分级员的许可已经在一定程度上实现了这一点），以防止少付、多付和不公平的分级，并促进利用储存的产品作为信贷的基础。

第三：有足够的信用确定性，使产品的销售有条不紊地进行。

第四：农业部应收集、制表、总结、定期和经常公布并向农民分发来自世界所有市场的全部信息，这样他们就会像现在的买家一样充分了解他们的销售状况。

第五：通过统一的销售机构，自由地整合农业业务，以这种方式进行协调和合作，使农民与他的产品的大买家和其他行业的商业关系处于平等地位。

当一个企业需要专门的人才时，它必须购买这些人才。农民也将如此；也许他们获得这种人才的最佳方式是利用目前最大的既定机构的一些机器来处理农产品。当然，如果农民愿意，他可以更进一步，从事面粉加工和其他食品的制造。不过，在我看来，他最好不要这样做。公共利益可能会反对所有的大整合；但是，为了公正起见，是否应该禁止农民而允许其他人这样做？公司形式的协会现在不能完全适应他的目标和条件。较松散的合作形式似乎更适合。因此，他希望在他认为可取和可行的情况下，能够自由地与他的伙伴和邻居进行合作，而不触犯法律。敦促农民应该有同样的自由来巩固和协调他们特有的经济功能，而其他行业在他们的领域中也享有同样的自由，然而，这并不是承认任何商业整合应该得到立法的认可来行使垄断权力。美国人民像反对政治专制一样坚决反对工业专制，无论是农村还是城市工业的企图。


由于缺乏统一的努力，农民作为一个整体，仍然在用陈旧的方法或根本没有方法来销售他们的作物；但他们周围的商业世界已经现代化到最后一刻，并且正在不知疲倦地努力提高效率。这种效率在很大程度上归功于大企业，归功于联合企业，归功于综合企业。农民现在寻求这种大、联合和一体化的好处。

美国农民在使用省力机械方面是现代人中的现代人，近年来他在科学耕作和有效的农场管理方面取得了巨大的进步；但作为一个与其他企业接触的企业，农业在与大功率汽车的竞争中是一个 "单马车"。美国农民是最伟大和最难缠的个人主义者。当工业生产和巨大的商业机制的所有阶段及其无数的配件已经衔接和协调起来，从天然原料到零售，农业的业务已经在很大程度上以19世纪上半叶的落后地区的单人方式进行，当时农民是自给自足的，并不依赖或非常关心大世界在做什么。其结果是，农业团体在与其他经济团体打交道时，几乎处于不利地位，就像滑稽书中的鸦片农在光滑的城市自信者手中一样，后者在中央公园或芝加哥市政厅向他出售耕地。农民的领袖们彻底明白了这一点，他们正在明智地努力整合他们的产业，使之与其他企业处于平等地位。


作为整合的一个例子，以钢铁业为例，其中的典范是美国钢铁公司，它有铁矿、煤矿、湖泊和铁路运输、海船、副产品焦炉、高炉、明炉和贝塞麦炉、轧钢厂、钢管厂以及其他制造工艺，这些都达到了与它所建立的大型贸易相适应的最高程度的成品生产。所有这些都被认为是对消费者有利的。钢铁公司也没有不顾一切地向市场倾销其产品。恰恰相反，它的行为经常是一种稳定的影响，就像其他大型组织经常出现的情况一样。它是其分销和生产的主人。如果价格不理想，产品就会被搁置，或者减少或暂停生产。它不会被迫一次将一年的工作送到市场上，在这种情况下能得到什么就拿什么。它有一个销售政策，还有自己的出口部门。钢材的等级和质量也不是由买方任性决定的；买方也不掌握天平。在钢铁公司的这一单一整合中，代表了美国约40%的钢铁产量。其余的大部分在几家大公司手中。在平时，钢铁公司以身作则，稳定了所有的钢铁价格。如果这是允许的（甚至是可取的，因为稳定和公平的价格对稳固和持续的繁荣至关重要），为什么农民利用中央机构对农产品产生类似的影响会是错误的？类似这样的事情就是他们的目标。

一些受到区域紧凑性和毗连性青睐的农民，如加利福尼亚的柑橘类水果种植者，已经找到了一种合法的方式，根据季节和当地的需求来合并和销售他们的产品，从而改善他们的地位，为消费者提供可靠的服务，确保质量，确定供应，以及合理和相对稳定的价格。他们没有发现有必要诉诸任何特殊的特权，或要求根据国家或民族的反托拉斯立法获得任何豁免。在没有取消地方控制的情况下，他们已经建立了一个非常有效的营销机构。谷物、棉花和烟草种植者，以及皮革和羊毛的生产者，由于他们的数量和他们地区的广袤，以及其他原因，发现整合是一项更困难的任务；尽管现在有成千上万的农民合作电梯、仓库、奶油厂和其他这样或那样的企业，每年的营业额达10亿美元。它们给农民提供了商业经验和培训，而且，就它们而言，它们满足了诚实称重和公平分级的需要；但它们没有以任何大型和基本的方式满足合理调整营销的要求。

下一步，将成为其他团体的模式，现在正由谷物种植者通过建立销售媒介来准备，这些媒介将根据个别农民的选择，单独或集体地处理谷物。正是这个步骤--17人委员会的计划--引起了如此多的反对，并被一些人认为是与反托拉斯法相冲突的。尽管现在国会有一项旨在消除这方面疑虑的措施，但谷物生产者并不依赖任何反托拉斯立法的豁免权。他们希望并有权像国家的大型商业利益集团那样有效地协调他们的努力。与销售组织有关，美国谷物种植者协会正在起草一个融资工具和辅助机构的计划，这对成功利用现代商业方法是必不可少的。


重要的是，农民应该逐步实施这些计划，并力求避免在他们拥有经过试验和证明的替代或补充机制之前，就废除现有的营销机制，这些机制是通过长期经验辛苦建立起来的。他们必须小心，不要陷入自己的改革中而失去对自己在国家体系中的地位的看法。他们必须防止对新学说的狂热崇拜，并应寻求与总体经济体系的衔接，而不是不顾一切地破坏它，因为它与他们有关。

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对农民争取更好的东西采取宽容和同情的观点，并不是对任何具体的计划给予全面的支持，更不是对他们的一些领导人和团体的无常行为表示赞赏。另一方面，我们也不应该让痛苦的煽动、虚假的经济和错误的激进主义的泡沫掩盖农民不利的事实，以及通过深思熟虑的措施来消除这些不利因素的可行性。也许农民不会表现出商业智慧，也不会发展出明智的领导力来实施合理的计划；但这种可能性并不能成为阻挠他们向上努力的理由。作为城市人，我们在高价和投机性操纵的价格中，看到了腐败、浪费、稀缺，这些都是农产品分配缺陷的结果。难道我们不应该想到，在农民试图达到与其生产效率相适应的分配效率的过程中，我们与农民有着共同的利益？最近5月小麦价格的波动，显然与正常的供求关系无关，难道不是及时证明了需要一些像谷物种植者所考虑的那样的稳定机构吗？


有人争辩说，如果他们提议的组织得到完善和运作，农民手中的工具将有可能被危险地滥用。我们被告知，它将有可能被扭曲为任意和压迫性的定价，而不是用于订购和稳定农产品流向市场的合法用途，从而使生产者和消费者共同受益。在这一点上，我没有任何顾虑。

首先，一个松散的组织，如任何农民联盟充其量也必须是这样的组织，不可能像一个大公司那样被任意和迅速地控制。一个是笨重的民主，另一个是灵活的专制。其次，即使有一切可能的组织力量，农民也无法在很大程度上或在相当长的时间内成功地确定价格。伟大的供求法则以各种令人惊讶的方式发挥作用，使试图挫败它的最佳计划化为乌有。第三，如果他们的权力被滥用，对农民来说将毫无益处。在我们的时代和国家，权力只有在不被滥用的情况下才会对其拥有者产生价值。可以说，我在负责任的部门中没有看到支配价格的迹象。相反，似乎有一个共同的有益的目的，即实现稳定，使农产品有秩序地大量流向消费者，并确保生产者获得合理和可靠的回报。


鉴于繁荣和满足的农业人口对国家福祉的极端重要性，我们应该准备通过启动改革，帮助农民从他们生产的财富中获得公平的份额，以保证农产品的持续和增长。他们现在还远远没有得到公平的份额。考虑到普通农民及其家庭的资本和长时间的劳动，他的报酬比任何其他职业阶层都要低，可能只有教师、宗教人士和非宗教人士除外。虽然我们知道，目前农民的普遍困境是特殊的，与战后不可避免的经济调整有关，但必须记住，尽管占工业产品的三分之一和国家总人口的一半，农村社区通常只享有国家年度净收益的五分之一至四分之一。尽管农民在战争期间尝到了繁荣的滋味，但今天南方棉农的生活水平比全国任何其他地区都要低。

总之，在我看来，农民们主要是在争取对他们的业务进行普遍有利的整合，与其他业务所享有的类型和性质相同。如果在审查中发现，实现这一目的需要采取与其他活动为同一目的所采取的方法不同的方法，那么我们是否应该同情地考虑合作权利的请求，即使只是出于我们自己开明的自我利益，以获得丰富和稳定的农产品？


在审查农业状况以改善其状况时，如果我们保持一种超然的司法观点，记住现有的错误可能主要是不对称的经济增长的意外，而不是恶意的设计和阴谋的创造，那么我们将得到最大的帮助。正如David Friday教授在他令人钦佩的《利润、工资和价格》一书中所说，我们美国人很容易寻找 "每一个困难和不理想的经济状况背后的犯罪意图"。从我与包括银行家在内的大人物的接触中，我可以肯定地断言，作为一个整体，他们正在努力履行他们所看到的、与他们的权力相关的义务。他们专注于自己眼前事务的严重问题和繁重任务，没有把他们深思熟虑的个人注意力或他们的建设性能力转向农业商业组织的缺陷。可以说，农业因他们的专注和忽视而受害，而不是因他们有目的的利用而受害。他们现在应该开始对农民的困难做出反应，他们必须认识到这些困难是他们自己的。

另一方面，我与农民的接触让我对他们充满了敬意--敬佩他们的理智、耐心和平衡。在去年--特别是在堪萨斯州农业委员会召集的一次会议和十七人委员会召集的另一次会议上--我见到了许多新农场运动的领导人，我真诚地证明，他们正在努力解决他们的问题，不是作为狭隘的阶级利益的推动者，不是作为无助的消费者的剥削者，不是作为无情的垄断者，而是作为致力于改善共同利益的诚实人。

我们可以而且必须与这样的人和这样的事业半途而废。他们的事就是我们的事--国家的事。