Stomach Strike

With demand naturally set by hungry city stomachs and supply controlled by him and his kind. Farmer John Chalmers of Boone County, Iowa, did not see why agricultural producers could not hold their food stuffs off the urban markets, give townsmen a taste of starvation and thus raise farm prices to a decent level. Tall, thin-lipped Milo Reno, belligerent former president of Iowa Farmers' Union, did not see why, either. Somebody, he argued, was bound to starve at current prices. Last May at the Des Moines Fair Grounds bushy-haired Milo Reno, in baggy trousers and a five-gallon Stetson hat. made a loud, fiery speech to 10,000 farmers in behalf of a producers' strike. In cowbarn language he proposed a Farmers Holiday Association to execute the strike. He would organize and head it--at $5 per day, to be paid by a 50-c- levy on all members. A radical exhibitionist who claims to be "as poor as the rest of you farmers," Mr. Reno began passing out pledge cards wherein husbandmen agreed to withhold their goods until prices reach a level above the cost of production. First focus of the Holiday Association's activity was Sioux City where a strike began fortnight ago. More than 2,000 farmers picketed the seven highways into town. Produce trucks were turned back by logs and cables across the road, nails in boards, sticks and stones, strong language. There was some rowdyism but no real violence. Sixty armed deputies patrolled the roads to preserve peace. Most nonstriking farmers were persuaded to retreat peacefully; a few succeeded in rushing the blockade. Two freight trains were temporarily held up. Most of Sioux City lived out of cans. But the Holiday failed to up prices. The average farmer is an intense individualist whom even the Federal Farm Board has failed to organize fully into cooperatives. Many an Iowa producer out of sympathy with Agitator Reno's strike shipped his stuff by rail to unaffected markets elsewhere. Thus, though Sioux City's daily hog receipts fell from 2,000 to 500, the price of hogs for the State did not rise, dropped instead 25-c-. The Holiday idea trickled across the Missouri into Nebraska, made further headway in the Dakotas. Illinois. Minnesota, where Governor Floyd B. Olsen favored aiding the strikers with martial law. Separate from the Reno movement but parallel with it in purpose was last week's milk strike at Sioux City. Local dairymen were in despair about the $1 per cwt. they were being paid. That meant about 2-c- per qt. They too banded together to withhold milk from Sioux City distributors. Joining the other pickets along the roads, they held up milk trucks, dumped their contents into the ditches. Only hospitals could get fresh dairy supplies through the lines. Because milk is a comparatively local product which cannot be shipped long distances by rail on a moment's notice. Sioux City felt the pinch and its distributors agreed to bargain with the producers. At first dairymen demanded $2.17 cwt. Last week they compromised on $1.80 which meant about 3.6-c- per qt. for them. Sioux City housewives will, pay 9-c- per qt. for milk instead of 8-c-.

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