It Tells On Him

HELLO FOLKS — A woman who has a temper she can't control usually has a husband she can.

--o--

FEW THINGS are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool.

--o--

HE CAME HOME from his first day at school.
"Ain't going tomorrow," he said.
"Why not, sonny?"
"Well I can't read, I can't write and they won't let me talk, so what's the use".

--o--

SUMMING UP the farm situation, as I see it, goes like this.

Dairying needs a good house cleaning, both from the standpoint of the dairyman and the government. Present government support prices are all to the benefit of the consumer. It gives them food cheaply. The dairy herds need cleaning up. More than half the cows are not returning the owner enough to be worth the effort. Were they to be cleaned out as fast as they start slowing up in production there would be a serious shortage of milk that would set prices soaring.

Beef finishing is in a tough spot and I don't see any hope for improvement in the near future. The consumer doesn't want his beef fat any longer. The rancher is doing a lot of his own finishing and so is the processor.

Hog raising is the brightest of all the livestock enterprises. There will be rough going there if these finishing units take the country by storm, just as did roto tubes, laying units and the like.

Poultry is on the decline in this area and likely to keep on declining.

Feed grains are in a brighter spot, as are soybeans. Now if we can just get a better program out of congress.

Overall, there is dire need for better farm economics. It is the blind spot in agriculture. Few farmers know what they are getting for an hour's work or for each operation. They would do some changing in their op-

Is Harmful Integration

HELLO FOLKS — One of the farmer's biggest enemies as far as hurting his income, today, is the feed company that has gone into the financing business and aims to tie the farmers into a program that assures the company of a ready market for their products.

Such firms started with the broiler business and from that went into egg raising. I have an idea that they are mostly responsible for the plight the turkey raisers are in today.

Now they are in the swine business. They encourage the farmers to go heavily into debt on a big setup that will keep him tied down for years.

They paint a big glowing picture of the huge profits to be made under such a program. They take what amounts to the most favorable years there are and use these as an example to convince their prospective victims of the advantages of using their program.

Naturally the feed companies are interested in their own well-being. The sharecropper, for that is what the farmer becomes, takes the risk. The fact that these companies are still hard at it is proof enough that they are coming out alright on it. What is bad is that it upsets the supply-demand balance and causes hardship to the whole industry.

Wherever and whenever these companies have have gone into this program they have ruined the markets. I think it is well for anyone interested to be very cautious about going into these programs. It is best to use local credit, start a little smaller and be more sure of doing the right thing.

I think it would be well for farmers to do business with companies that have not gone into the finance business and thereby are not injuring the farmer financially. There are lots of good brands of feeds on the market and it is easy to find one as good and perhaps cheaper than the ones who follow the integration pattern.

These companies are hitting heavily on swine integration now. A lot of this pressure is being done outside the regular swine raising area, probably because it is easier for them to convince their prospective customers where they know less about it. If they have as much success with this venture as they have had with broiler, eggs and turkeys we are in for trouble here in another year or two. This is apt to come at a time when the market is in it's bottom anyway.

This reminds me of the time when the farm implement companies went into the business of convincing the farmer to switch from horses to tractors. They encouraged the homesteaders to plow up the prairie sod and plant crops, showing with glowing pictures how much more could be made that way than by grazing the land. The farmers and many ranchers bit on it and spent years in bankruptcy. The dealers had taken the farmers' and ranchers' horses as down payment on the machinery. Then when the land started to blow and the added supply on the market broke the price the farmers were in a pitiable condition. The dealers and companies, for many years, had equipment on hand that they could not dispose of.

This all took place about the time that row crop tractors came out and probably had a lot to do with precipitating the big depression.

Happiness There If You Look For It

HELLO FOLKS — Happiness is not something at the end of the rainbow or at the end of the road — it is all along the way.

There are more people who lose their jobs because they can't get along with those they work with, than because they cannot do the job.

--o--

THERE IS wide speculation about who will be the next President of the U.S. Seems that most people think the Democats have the upper hand.

My personal opinion is that the Republicans are the ones to have the first say and that if they do the right thing we will have another Republican Administration. Here is how I think it stacks up.

There are a lot of good men in both parties — men who would be good administrators in their own right. The Democrats have a machine that is well oiled and no matter who runs there the candidate will pull a lot of votes.

The Republicans on the other hand are the only unorganized group in the U.S. They have used poor publicity. There is no discipline in the party and too many of them are confused. Therefore there is no rallying point (so far). There are too many of the Republicans who are so un-Republican that they are actually a liability to the party. The hard core of the party is afraid to really come out swinging because they would be hitting their own members, in many cases.

The Republicans therefore must have not only a party man but must have a personality; one who has not had his hands too badly dirtied in the political battles and who will pull a lot of personal votes such as did President Eisenhower.

If the Republicans really want to win this election they must remember that had they not had a personality running in 1952; meaning Dwight D. Eisenhower, they would not now be in power.

That leaves them but one choice. A man who has proved his vote getting power in a Democratic year; a man with peronality, stability, and political acumen, and a man who is respected by all segments of our society — such a man is Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York. I believe he and he alone can win for the Repbulicans. Therefore if they are to win they must. choose him. With any other man they cannot win. Not in 196O
 
That gives them first choice. If they fumble they are out and the Democrats have the say. It would hardly seem likely that they would choose a man who could not reach the people, not again anyway.

I have been an admirer of Nelson Rockefeller for some time, He comes from one of the most stable families in the United States. The Rockefellers are a family who money has not spoiled, a family who has its sights on the real worth in life and who has the inate belief that money is something to be used for the benefit of humanity and not thrown away in selfish squandering.

I have studied some of the Rockefeller reports on the various phases of our economy and I find them devoid of prejudices, broad minded and respectful of all peoples.

On top of this I think Nelson Rockefeller is the one man who would have the prestige to bring the nation's economy into balance without sacrificing political integrity or alienating or irritating some segments of our society.

He has proved his ability to legislate wisely, handle politicians am; do it all efficiently.

Our Influence On Our Children

HELLO FOLKS —
Sons and daughters—in their teens Think their parents—don't know beans.
Which would not be—hard to face
Were it not—so oft the case.

--o--

PARENTS AND people in general wonder what the coming generation is going to amount to.

It is becoming increasingly clear, to anyone who observes, that we are literally creatures of habit. To often we overlook the maxims 'like father like son' or 'like mother like daughter' when we might add, 'only more so.' For the most part our children grow up to be just what we teach them to be; and that teaching happens to be more by example than anything.

Republican parents genera11y have Republican children. Democratic parents generally have democratic children. Roman Catholic parents have Roman Catholic children. Protestant parents generally have Protestant children.

But whether they have good Republican, Democratic, Roman Catholic or Protestant children is another matter.

There are enough proofs given to show that strong tendencies can be built into children by strong parents and weak tendencies can be built into children by weak parents.

Man by nature tends to degenerate. We have to counter this by being continually on guard against our weaknesses — to bestir ourselves when we find weak tendencies in ourselves or our children.

The parent who realizes that he should do this or that or correct this or that in his son or daughter and fails to do so does not only himself and his family a disservice. He is a liability to the whole human race in varying degrees. The reason for this is that anything we do tends to help or hinder all those around us, just as weeds in one farmer's field tend to blow or creep into another farmer's field.

It seems to me that many of our children tend to be better than their parents. I believe the reason for this is that our schools, churches, teachers and public spirited citizens have a great influence on them.

While there arc a lot of signs of a degenerating society, there are more signs of a regenerating society. Perhaps we are entering a period of greater extremes. Certainly we have mounting problems, as our world shrinks, but we are solving them pretty well, I think.

In the surveys taken of teenagers, most of them think that parents do not give them enough leadership. They think parents are too weak. They want parents to restrict them in their questionable. activities. They don't really want to get into bad habits, but without the restraining hand of the parent they full into the traps against their own will.

It all points up the importance of good leadership in all phases of our society. We need our extremes but the extremes must never be in control, whether they be the fanatics of religion or the dross of the mobs.