McKelvie v. Lowden

Members of the Rotary Club of Rapid City, S. Dak., took luncheon seats one day last week, waited expectantly for onetime Governor Samuel McKelvie of Nebraska to address them on the topic of the beauty of the Black Hills. But Mr. McKelvie gave no beauty talk. Instead, he assailed onetime (1917-21) Governor Frank O. Lowden of Illinois for telling farmers that such federal organizations as the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Reserve Banks were examples of what the government might, if so inclined, do for farmers. Mr. McKelvie was grieved to think that Mr. Lowden had supposed that farmers would like a federal commission poking into their affairs.

"The farmer," he said, "wants no governmental price-fixing on his products and he courts the minimum of state control of his affairs. (Government control of crop surplus and government price-fixing for its disposition were outstanding features of the McNary-Haugen bill.) "I can see," added Mr. McKelvie, "the possibility, aye, the probability, of a system of cooperative marketing fostered by the government under which the farmer may retain his independence and initiative while working out his problems." The Lowden program, Mr. McKelvie observed, "shows how far afield politically minded men will go" when discussing the topic of farm relief.

Newspaper correspondents were inclined to believe that Mr. McKelvie had become something in the nature of a White House spokesman. Last fortnight (TIME, Aug. 1) the President visited the McKelvie camp at Mystic, S. Dak., the only private invitation which President Coolidge has accepted. Mr. & Mrs. McKelvie were also the first overnight guests at the State Lodge. Also, Mr. McKelvie had been at the President's South Dakota Executive Office just before making his speech and was reported to have gone over it with Everett Sanders, Secretary to the President. Thus reporters, logical, deductive, concluded that he had officially . opened fire on the Lowden boom and prophesied that the onetime Governor of Nebraska would be the sometime pre-convention Coolidge Manager in the farm belt.

Last week Dr. Henry C. Taylor of the Institute of Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities of Northwestern University, published the results of a year's investigation on farm incomes and farm prosperity. According to Dr. Taylor, farmers in 1924 received 10.6% of the national income; 10.2% in 1925 and 9.7% in 1926. There were, he said, 444 farm bankruptcies for every working day of 1926; agricultural population shrank 2,000,000 between 1920 and 1925, though the U. S. population increased 8,500,000 in the same period; 31,000,000 acres of land went out of agricultural use in 1920-25; and at the present rate of agricultural shrinkage the time will soon come when poor crops will mean a serious food shortage.