Your pay envelope

by John Richard Meader

Once upon a time there was reason to fear that agriculture was to be concentrated in the “bonanza” farms, but the years have gone and the danger is past, “bonanza” farming having proved a failure. Instead, we now have “intensive” farming—a method of raising crops that calls for smaller, rather than larger, farms.

To get a clear view of the agricultural situation in this country, we shall not go back in the records to the date of Marx’s prediction. Such figures would “show him up” in so ridiculous a light that I haven’t the heart to subject his prophesy to this test. Instead, we will simply retrace our steps to 1900, when we find that there were 5,737,372 farms in the United States, the average size being 146.2 acres. In 1910—just ten years later—the number of farms had increased to 6,340,357, and the average holdings had decreased to 138 acres.

If you desire to examine more detailed statistics, turn to The Common Cause, (July, 1912), and read the evidence that Mr. West has accumulated. “While the so-called law of concentration fails absolutely to work out under these acreage statistics,” he says, “its failure is still more complete when we compare the movement of acreage with the movement of farm values. The average number of acres in the farm came down from 146 in 1900 to 138 in 1910; but farm land (exclusive of buildings), which was valued at $13,100,000,000 in 1900, rose to $28,400,000,000 in 1910, an increase of 117.4 per cent. In other words, the farm wealth of the country more than doubled during the ten-year period while the average size of farm holdings considerably decreased. The conclusion from these figures is, of course, inevitable: not only has there been no concentration of wealth in land but, on the contrary, there has been an astonishingly great and rapid diffusion of wealth.”

Even Spargo, who is admittedly a well-informed Socialist, recognizes the weakness of the Marxian theory when applied to agriculture, for he says (“Socialism,” p. 134): “One thing seems certain, namely that farm ownership is not on the decline. It is not being supplanted by tenantry: the small farms are not being absorbed by larger ones.”

This is in direct contradiction to the assertions of the majority of Socialist agitators. With voice and pen they are still predicting the downfall of the farmer, and this in spite of the frank admissions of the more fair-minded and informed Socialists that the conditions they describe do not exist.

Quite as contrary to the facts are the Socialist assertions that the slight increase in the proportion of mortgaged farms is proof of the absorption of American farms by the “interests.” In asking us to believe that this is what is happening, Socialists assume that we are so ignorant as to real conditions that we can credit the theory that a mortgage is an inevitable shortcut to bankruptcy, when, as a matter of fact, it is more often the means by which the farmer rises from the ranks of tenantry to the property-owning class. Indeed, Spargo himself admits that this is so. In “Socialism” (p. 134), he says: “Now while a mortgage is certainly not suggestive of independence, it may be either a sign of decreasing or increasing independence. It may be a step toward the ultimate loss of one’s farm or a step toward the ultimate ownership of one. Much that has been written by Populist and Socialist pamphleteers and editors upon this subject has been based upon the entirely erroneous assumption that a mortgaged farm meant loss of economic independence, whereas it often happens that it is a step towards it.”

Having seen how all the predictions of Marx break down when put to the test of practical experience, we shall now consider one more fatal mistake made by this great prophet of “scientific” Socialism. This is what we may term the “verge of starvation” theory.

According to this doctrine of the Socialists, the accumulation of misery is keeping pace so literally with the accumulation of wealth that the great mass of the workers are constantly sinking deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of their own class (see “Communist Manifesto”). As a result, it is asserted, there are to-day but comparatively few workers who are more than a week or two removed from destitution, whereas, as Skelton shows (“Socialism: A Critical Analysis,” p. 147), “no social fact is better established than that the forty years which have passed since Marx penned this dismal forecast have brought the working classes in every civilized country not increasing degradation, misery, and enslavement, but increasing material welfare, freedom and opportunity of development.”

How is it in your case, John? Are you living on the verge of starvation? If you were to be taken ill, or were to lose your job, would your family be on the town within a week or two? I thought not, and what is true in your case, is just as true in the majority of cases.

There are statistics, too—and plenty of them—to prove that the Socialists have an entirely erroneous impression of the financial condition of the “masses.” First, let us take the savings bank deposits; for, as you know, it is in this kind of a bank that the worker usually puts his savings for safe keeping. The very rich do not bother with a string of little accounts, and, accordingly, savings bank deposits have always been accepted as a measure of the wealth of the people of small or moderate means. Admitting this, what do we find? That, in 1911, more than one in every ten persons in the United States—counting all men, women and children—possessed a bank account, the total amount of these accounts being no less than $4,212,584,000.