THE FARMER IN POLITICS

Out of the maze of rumour, detail, and guess-work surrounding the farm congress now being held at Washington, come two interesting facts. They are stated by no less a personage than Mark Sullivan in the New York Evening Post.

For the first, the congress is no "Coxey's Army" or disorganized pressing of complaints, but a well-ordered business meeting with a knowledge of economic laws and modern finance. Its advisers are experts in their various lines of activity, and its members thoroughly awake to the importance of their decisions. Which, after all, is not so startling, because this is only as it should be. Any conference, to obtain progressive results, must maintain a sense of logic and balance.

For the second, the announcement is made that the farmer "is going to dominate the future". In other words: "It is now fairly certain that we are going to take the path which recognizes the farm as our fundamentality and the all-to-be-considered basis of our future policy". Undesirable as this promised condition may be to certain elements of our population, the great majority must look forward to it. History has shown too conclusively that agriculture is the foundation of every strong nation. If the United States is to settle the problem of the ever-increasing city with its parasites, this is the sanest method of doing so. To give the farmer power will mean a return of interest in the farm, as well as a less politically governed national policy. No harm has ever yet come from a sensible "back to the farm" movement.

There is, of course, the argument that the farmers would over-emphasize the importance of the domestic market, with the result that we would become an economically isolated nation, with a high tariff and no interest in foreign trade. But the opposite is just as likely to happen, provided that the farmers come to feel that their most valuable market lies in foreign countries. This attitude is apparently the most desirable, leading as it would toward closer association with other countries of the world. At all events, it will do no harm if the national politician is forced to take into consideration the stabilizing influence of the farmer.