The Labors of Legge

(See front cover) Legend tells that when great, good, wise Paul Bunyan was inventing and perfecting the logging industry in Real America, he thought up most of his profound ideas and amazing devices all by himself. But now and then there would be something that stumped him, and besides, keeping the great 100,000-page ledgers of his business took up too much of his time. So Paul Bunyan was a very happy man the day he found John Rogers Inkslinger sitting bemused on a cliff with one foot damming up the Twin Rivers, and added him to his camp crew as chief bookkeeper, surveyor, inventor, doctor, and general efficiency expert. And Johnny Inkslinger was very glad to meet Paul Bunyan, too, despite that hero's carelessness in mistaking the great scribe's supply of fresh-sharpened pencils for a pine forest and having them all chopped down. One of the very first reforms that Johnny Inkslinger proposed in Old Paul's camp economy was to diminish the loggers' rations and build some ships and send the surplus produce from Old Paul's great supply farms to European markets. Old Paul did not adopt this idea because, as he said in an historic phrase, "A logging crew works on its stomach." But he did listen to Johnny Inkslinger, and hailed him as a hero, the time Johnny made possible the Onion River drive. There the wild onions were so big and strong that the loggers were blinded with tears in the woods and could scarcely work at all. Johnny Inkslinger simply discovered that Italy's garlic crop had failed that year, made a contract with the Italian Government, which sent over shiploads of laborers and paid Paul Bunyan a handsome profit in addition to making the Onion River district loggable for him. Bunyan, Inkslinger and their deeds were times and times ago, of course, and Real America--the whole world, in fact-- is now a very different place. But it would not be thought foolish or unmanly of the man now in charge of perfecting the U. S. agricultural industry if he were to long, now and then, for the return of Johnny Inkslinger and his incomparably astute ideas, especially on what to do with surplus farm produce. For the U. S. farm situation never looked less happy than it did last week when Chairman Alexander Legge of the Federal Farm Board returned to Washington from a swing through the suntanned wheat belt (TIME, July 21). Chairman Legge had harangued planters on the economic necessity of reducing wheat acreage to eliminate their surplus. Their retort, through their Governors and Senators, was a demand for the farm board to buy more wheat and more and more until the surplus vanished and the price went up from 60-c- per bu. Already staggering under more wheat than the whole state of Nebraska produces in a year. Chairman Legge had flatly refused.

"Bunk." When he got back last week to his large Washington office on the seventh floor of the old Southern Railway Building one block from his room at the Willard Hotel, Chairman Legge summoned newsmen and told them what he thought. Said he:

"The farm board was created to assist the farmer and not for politics. From now until November politicians will be so busy saving the farmer, it might be just as well to take a vacation. . . .

"I notice the Democratic National Committee has adopted as a slogan 'the failure of the farm board.' This seems to be copied almost word for word from the grain dealers and the Chamber of Commerce of the United States,. . . .

"Certain interests [he meant the grain brokers] which seem to feel they have a God-given right to handle the products of the farmers, and who have accumulated immense fortunes in doing so ... doubtless will be easy picking for any politician of any party who is willing to play their game.

"However, farmers as a class . . . seem to be aware that their present unhappy condition is a result of long years of unregulated production, while they listened to gigantic schemes that high-powered statesmen have had to offer.

"Present and future orations ... to broadcast the alleged failures of the farm board are only more of the same kind of political bunk. . . ."

"Pulmotor." Asked if the farm board would buy more wheat now as Senators from Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Oklahoma were asking, Chairman Legge replied: "No, Stabilization will work admirably on seasonal surpluses but it can't be made to work on permanent cumulative surpluses. To buy 100,000,000 bu. of wheat would only encourage Kansas farmers to plant more and make a bad situation worse. We can apply a pulmotor and give temporary aid, but we're looking for a more permanent remedy."

No Skirts For Legge. Someone suggested that he ought to report his findings to President Hoover. Mr. Legge's eyes narrowed sharply as he replied: "The farm board isn't going to hide behind the President's skirts. If he wants to see me he knows where to find me. Business is going on as usual."

Wheat Problem. Johnny Inkslinger's solution of the onion problem could not serve Chairman Legge as a model for the wheat problem. Italy has a tall new tariff to keep out wheat. Likewise France, where wheat last week was selling at $1.71 per bu. Advanced by idealists has been the idea that the farm board donate its heavy wheat holdings to famine-stricken China, but practical-minded Mr.

Legge declares: "We've no authority to give anything away, to China or any other country. . . . I've discussed these proposals with President Hoover but no solution has been found.'' Others have suggested that wheat be fed to cattle since it is now cheaper than some other feeds. Mr. Legge rejects that scheme as unfair to the raisers of other feeds.

Whether Chairman Legge thought it was "bunk" or not, the wheat surplus last week continued to brew strong politics. Republican Senators criticized the board for its "do-nothing" policy. There was talk that Senator Borah of Idaho who last week was ordered to northern Maine for a month's rest by his physician would take the stump this autumn in the North-west against the farm board and the Administration's farm relief program, in bitter contrast to his 1928 campaigning for Herbert Hoover. The acreage-reduction scheme was belittled on the ground that a smaller crop at a higher price wo'uld not put more money in the planter's pocket, that a 100 acres of 60-c- wheat is the same as 50 acres of $1.20 wheat. A more captious, unfair cry was that Chairman Legge, onetime head of International Harvester Co., wanted to reduce U. S. farm production so foreign husbandmen could make big crops, buy more U. S. agricultural implements. Department of Commerce figures were adduced showing farm implement exports for the first six months of 1930 were $78,997,334 compared to $72,068,581 for the same period last year.

The Board's Year. In its first year (ended June 30) the farm board advanced $195,000,000 of the $250,000,000 appropriated by Congress to co-operatives and stabilization corporations. Of this sum $40,000,000 had been repaid up to last week.

Six national co-operative selling agencies, borrowing from the board, have been established:

1) Farmers National Grain Corp., of Chicago; Clarence Elmer Huff, president. F. N. G. C. sells wheat for members or loans them 85% of the spot price. Last week it said it was handling one-third of all wheat through Kansas City, predicted it would handle half the U. S. crop next year, claimed that in the foreign field it was already the world's biggest factor.

2) American Cotton Co-operative Association of New Orleans; Allen Northington, president. Estimated membership: 200,000 planters.

3) National Wool Marketing Corp. of Boston; L. B. Palmer, president. This agency handled about 10% of the clipped wool last year, plans to handle 30% this year.

4) National Bean Marketing Association of Oxnard, Calif.; Ralph Logan Churchill, president.

5) National Livestock Marketing Association of Chicago; C. A. Ewing, president.

6) National Pecan Marketing Association of Brownwood, Tex.; Henry Gaillard Lucas, president.

Next week a seventh national co-operative is expected to be formed when beet sugar producers from 17 states meet at Greeley, Col.

Two stabilization corporations to buy and sell commodities in the open market now exist:

1) Grain Stabilization Corp.; George S. Milnor, general manager. This agency bought and now holds for the farm board 69.000.000 bu. of wheat.

2) Cotton Stabilization Corp.; E. Fitzgerald Creekmore, general manager. This agency at a heavy loss took over 1,000,000 bales of 1929 cotton from the national cooperative.

The livestock co-operative does its own buying and selling. The wool association trades through Draper & Co. of Boston. The bean and pecan organizations are still developing their marketing system.

Though no national co-operatives have yet been formed, for handling dairy products, tobacco, potatoes, apples, rice, fruits and vegetables, honey, poultry & eggs, grapes & raisins, sour cherries, the farm board has done business with local marketing associations.

Weather. In the days of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Inkslinger the weather of Real America was not systematized. Many years had two winters and all four seasons were sometimes crowded into one month. In the day of Chairman Legge the weather is more regular, but it is still freakish enough to offer the farm board its one prospect of higher agricultural prices before the November elections. A record-breaking drought with abnormally high temperatures for weeks gripped the growing areas east of the Rockies. Such weather reduced crop production, how much nobody yet dared to estimate. Corn prices soared last week after some 50.000.000 bu. had been damaged by hot weather. Weather men had to go back to 1901 to find a drier season in the Mid-West.

Chairman Legge disclaimed credit for any price rise due to the drought as firmly as he disclaimed blame for the general price drop due to overproduction.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.