Stock and stalks

by James Russel Roberts

A man in Arizona looked down over a ledge of rocks on a cliff and saw several rattle snakes sunning themselves on a ledge thirty feet below. Having a small pistol he shot a bullet down among them. Immediately there started a battle at the end of which all the rattlesnakes were bitten. In a few minutes they were all dead. An examination showed that the bullet had apparently not hit any snake. The snakes had all lost their lives as a result of a misunderstanding.

I heard Major General Wood make a speech in favor of universal military training but his argument had a different meaning for me than he intended it should have. He argued that there will be war as long as people have honest differences of opinion—therefore always be prepared for war. To me it seems that since no amount of preparation and war equipment can insure peace we must prevent that honest difference of opinion. We must keep with all people a better understanding. Wars are misunderstandings and well meaning people murder each other because the misunderstandings are kept up with censorship and propaganda. People are armed with poisons more deadly than the rattlesnake and all will fight at the drop of the hat if they feel that they are wronged. What then brings any hope of things better? It is the spirit that says “Come let us reason together” that points the way to “Peace on earth, good will toward men.”

There is one thing that all should remember and that is that we are all of us the public. There is no corporation “without a heart and without a soul” more heartless than the public. All men strive to do the thing the public wants most to have done for only those who please the public’s fancy get paid for their efforts. The public pays no one interest on investment. It pays no one for time or effort spent. It pays for the service it wants at the time it wants it and all who misjudge the public demand may get nothing. Any new process or new invention puts many people out of business for the public turns coldly from the old to the new service which it more desires. If we produce too much of anything the price always goes below cost. Where there is an undersupply of any thing, there is the best market and the more profitable business. So it is that by paying or withholding the price this great Dame Public keeps all courting her favor and doing the things she wants most to have done. She wins with every winner and then taxes his income, and lets the loser lose alone.

But although we are all up against the same general laws that govern business there is a difference between farming and most other business. A contractor will build a building for us if we agree to pay a price that he figures will pay his cost plus a profit. Otherwise he will not do the work. Contracting is supposed to be a somewhat hazardous business but it is not so risky as farming for the builder knows before he starts what price he is to get. A farmer can not tell until he is ready to market his crop what the market will be. The farmer must pay the cost, hoping. Weather has a great deal to do with results in farming operations and that makes the business more risky.

Business men in cities as a rule can work much closer to their pay checks. This makes it possible for them to come much nearer a system of always getting cost plus a profit. Manufacturers usually aim to take orders ahead of their output so that knowing their cost and having their goods already sold at a profit leaves them comparatively clear sailing. How the farmer can get on the same basis I do not know.

But city business is not all a round of pleasure, for city competition is keen. If one farmer raises forty bushels of corn per acre and another can raise sixty, each receives compensation in proportion to his crop. But if one merchant had that much advantage over his competitor the unfortunate one would be put clear out of business. Customers to a merchant are as valuable as pigs are to a farmer and it is perfectly legal to get the other fellow’s customers in broad daylight. So we in competitive business keep busier than some people think.

I have often been asked what I think of farmers’ organizations. Well, most business men in other lines of business have associations. They usually result in some good. It is those who expect too much that are disappointed. So simple a thing as an organization can not cure all of the difficulties in farming. Some farmers in Kentucky organized to boost the tobacco market by agreeing among themselves to plant fewer acres. After the agreement many expected a high price for tobacco and planted more acres. This is about the kind of co-operation we all have learned to expect in associations where money interests are involved. These farmers were right, however, in realizing that in order to boost the market they had to limit the supply of the product. The law of supply and demand always works. It works to the advantage of him who can limit the supply or can increase the demand.

Let me tell you how a trust operates. There is an agreement to fix prices and production is limited to what will sell at the fixed price. Then there are fights made against any one outside of the combination who undertakes to produce that line of goods. The trust magnate knows well that to control a market he must limit the amount of goods for sale by combining to fight competition. Without that feature trusts would be harmless. A trust is a “combination in restraint of trade”—a fighting organization. Common business men are not afraid to compete with trusts. It is always the trust that is afraid. To compete means to race. Trusts always want to hamstring the fellows against whom they are racing.

To go back to farmers’ organizations, on account of the nature of their business farmers can never successfully organize to fight down competition of other farmers and prevent them from producing. They can not then create an artificial market. Others can sometimes combine to take advantage of farmers. Farmers can never “get even.” But here is a truth that many do not realize and it is that although some may have a less difficult business than farming, not one person out of a thousand can avoid competition or has any unfair advantage over other people. Those who would differ from this statement could only change the figures in the proportion. Change them as you like, and yet we must agree that it is a good thing that a majority must earn a living in which there is no graft for they will stand for truth and fairness in the land. We want freedom in the country and there cannot be freedom without fair competition—equal opportunities for all as nearly as the law can insure them.

Where co-operation among farmers can increase efficiency they should co-operate. The same is true of any other business. For any one to co-operate in a legitimate way for legitimate purpose is always a legitimate thing to do. Co-operation need not interfere with free competition or fair play. I have no word of warning to give to farmers’ organizations that I would not apply as well to others. But I have a warning that I would like to sound to all the world. Beware of him who accuses all others of guilt. Beware of him who sees only bad in the world. There are those “reformers,” they may be called, who would poison us against our fellows. Watch closely the suggestions of such. Test their advice by the golden rule. A propaganda of hate is never needed in a good cause. Peace on earth can only come by fairness and good will. We need each other’s point of view.