For Controls Or Against?

HELLO FOLKS — The nicest thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

"When you speak of Heaven" the lecturer on public speaking advised the class, "let your face light up with a heavenly gleam, let your eyees shine with reflected glory. But when you speak of Hell, your ordinary expression will do."

—o—

FARMER'S WILL have a chance to vote on the choice of corn program they want to have for the next year and future years at a referendum to be held next Tuesday, the 25th.

The choice will be whether we want the same program that we have had the past years with corn, grown under the government controls, set at a prices of around $1.25 a bushel, or whether we want a new program that will abolish all alottments and set the price at approximately $1.10 for 1959.

The old program is the number 2 choice. The new program is the No. 1 on the ballot.

This year farmers have planted mostly as they pleased, with only about 20 per cent of the farmers staying under the allotment and getting the higher price. The number of farmers staying under government controls planted approximately 13 per cent of the total acreage.

Those figures show pretty much what farmers are thinking. That are not at all satisfied with controls. They have seen the cotton farmers lose their markets to foreign countries and plant corn instead. They have seen the tobacco market go off to South Africa and the wheat acreage go to non-wheat states. While they sit there and can't get off first base with their own crops.

The corn farmers have watched the rice, cotton, tobacco and wheat farmers grow corn and feed up the livestock that they would ordinarily handle. They now see the cotton farmers calling for lower supports on cotton so that he can get the market back that he lost to synthetics and foreign growers.

Farmers left with a free hand in this will probably vote government controls. However, there is a good chance that special interest groups will pour on the heat and get many to vote against their best judgment as happened in the last referendum when a two-thirds majority was required. Then more farmers voted against higher supports but the heat applied by the special interest groups who stood to make fortunes on grain storage was enough to keep the referendum from passing.

My suggestion is for all farmers to vote for Program No 1. at the election Nov. 25.

—o—

The Weather Man

Consider calmly, if you can. The weather-beaten weatherman.

If he says rain and it is sunny, we ridicule him, think it's funny.

If he said fair and skies are grim, our day is spoiled, and we b[la]me him.

If he said fair and fair's the clime, we say we knew it all the time.

Although he charges his highs and lows and studies figures ranger in rows.

And telephones a friend long-distance and checks with capable assistants.

And takes a final hurried glance, he knows he doesn't have a chance.

Controls Not The Answer

HELLO FOLKS! — The mink in the closet is sometimes responsible for the wolf at the door.
"Elmer, Do you love me?"... "I'll say"... "Do you think I'm beautiful?"... "You bet"... "Are my eyes the loveliest you have gazed into?"... "Shucks, yes"... "Is my mouthlike a rosebud?"... "Sure it is"... "Is my figure divine?"... "Uh-huh"... "Oh, Elmer, you say the loveliest things! Tell me some more!"

—o—

HOG PRICES are in a depression right now for the first time in four years. Should they and cattle prices remain that way for long the nation as a whole would be in a depression in a couple of years. But I don't hear farmers calling for government intervention and the reason is obvious.

Nearly eight years ago hog prices were really in a bad way. They slipped to $10 a hundred and farmers and politicians were ready to go for government supports. Wiser heads prevailed and in the intervening seven years hog prices have averaged about $4.00 hundredweight more than they would have had the government stepped in. Besides that, we would probably have had pork supplies up to our collective ears and politicians clamoring for controls.

This is just another incident of how the free market works to get all concerned more for the money and hour than any other system.

We will ride this one out and have a higher net income than a politically manipulated market can ever give.

—o—

RECENTLY ON TV a nationally known figure, in order to prove his point that farmers are the only group that have to take what the consumer offers, said that when one goes into a store to buy a hat he pays the price that the storekeeper sets. When he sells a product he takes what is offered.

I didn't know if the man really believes what he says but the fact of the matter is that nobody sets his own price. There may be selected instances when that is not true, but for the most part we are all in a competitive world. Even labor, which has had a monopoly in setting wage prices, has come to realize recently that they are in competition with other workers. Sometimes it is the workers in their own town, some times it is the workers across the continent and if not then it is the workers in other countries. 

For a nationally known figure to make such an untrue statement can be very harmful. He is expected to be factual and his statements bear a lot of weight. His following will be misled and much hard feeling can be generated because of not knowing the facts. He will do himself much harm if he persists in such untruths whether he believes it himself or not.

The saying that what you don't know won't hurt you is false. What you don't know can hurt you just as bad and sometimes more than what you do know. What you do know you can avoid.