Family Trip

Farmer William L. Booth, a stocky, rugged-looking man, had read the ad in the Farm Bureau magazine. It sounded good: "HOOSIER HAWAIIAN AIR-A-VAN: Away from home only 22 days, yet 18 full BIG days of Hawaiian enjoyment. Actually see and visit Pearl Harbor, Diamond Head, huge volcanoes. Live on Waikiki Beach for a week and take part in a big broadcast." He decided to take his wife and eleven-year-old son, too. The price for the whole family was $2,300.

Bill Booth, like quite a few farmers these days, could afford $2,300 for a little family trip. At 61, he has the slow, big-knuckled hands and weather-beaten face of a man who has done tough, physical work all his life. "When I got back from my wedding trip to Niagara Falls in 1911," recalls Booth, "I was busted." His father gave him $1,000 and his blessing, and Booth was on his own. Fifteen years ago his wife inherited some land and the house. Now he has 600 acres of rich Indiana farm land outside Rushville; the house is full of shiny new equipment, and there is plenty of money in the bank. "What I've got is through hard work," said Booth. "Years of getting up at 4:30 in the morning and working until nightfall. And what we've got, we aim to keep."

"Doing It Myself." What Booth has got includes four tractors, a corn chopper, a self-propelled combine, plenty of discs, plows, wheat drills, and cultivators, a 1946 Chevrolet and--his pride & joy--a 1948 Cadillac. Said Mrs. Booth: "It's a four-door sedan with white sidewall tires. I wanted the Fleetwood, but it wouldn't go in the garage." Booth apologized for the farm buildings: "Need painting. Haven't been able to buy the quality of paint we wanted. But I'll paint this summer. I'll save 50% doing it myself. It's the labor cost that's high."

Taking time off from winter chores, Farmer Booth slipped off his buttoned sweater and sat down on the living-room sofa in his blue denim shirt. The farm, he figured, was worth better than $125,000. Last year he sold his hogs for $27,600. He got $10,169 for his corn, $9,216 for his wheat. "I just figured up my income tax and it scared me," he admitted. "I paid more this year than I ever did."

This year he expected to do just about as well. "I'm going to sign up with the Government for 5,000 bushels of corn at $1.40 a bushel. But I won't touch it for a while. Then if I can get better than $1.40 from private dealers, I'll sell it to them, and simply return the Government's money. The nice thing is that there is no interest to pay either. If a better price doesn't come along, I can sell it to the Government at $1.40. You just can't lose."

Pretty Much Alike. "Of course," added Booth, "I don't think this is good business for the Government, but a man's foolish not to take advantage of it, isn't he?" Farmer Booth was worried about the Government and "all that debt." Said he: "My advice to the people in Washington is to stop spending so much money. They don't spend it, they squander it. They squander part of it on the farmers ... but the farmers figure if they squander for everybody we might as well get our share because we'll all have to make it up one of these days. I've been looking for something to happen before. It won't happen this year but it will--it always has."

This week Farmer Booth and his family, and 21 other Indiana farmers and wives on the Hoosier Hawaiian Air-a-Van boarded a plane at the Indianapolis airport. "They're all just good, average farmers," explained a Farm Bureau man. "None of them is the top brass kind of farmer. They're all pretty much alike, these Indiana farmers."

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