Even though I have a farm that at one time I went in debt for and which I paid for by milking cows, and even though I have spent more of my working years on a farm than in an office, I can not always pass as a farmer. At one time I attended a farmers’ meeting where the city man was up for discussion and a fellow nudged me and said, “Old man, how do you like it? Haven’t we got you city guys figured out about right?” I answered, “City people are just like country people in at least one respect. They are just as much inclined to think their own troubles are greater than any one else’s.”

Farmers sometimes speak of themselves as the producers, and so, too, do the labor union men. Even the business men at their meetings are inclined to pat themselves on the back and to take credit for a very liberal share in production. We all look at things from our own point of view. We have gone through certain experiences and have not experienced others. We can not all expect to be of the same opinion.

But we all have the ability to understand each other when we are given the chance to see things as other people see them, and it is this understanding which I hope to promote as I write this brief chapter. I write this not as a farmer but as a city man giving opinions gradually formed in several years as a city milk distributor.

To me all are producers alike. The man who sews the shoe for the miner who digs the ore that makes the plow that plows the field that raises the wheat that makes the bread that the grocer distributes, does what is just as important but no more so than any other man or woman in the long line which production takes. If one may insist that his task forms the foundation, another man may claim that his forms the roof. But what is the difference? Without whom can we well get along?

We hear much about the “middle man” who is considered a luxury or rather an extravagance that ought not to be permitted. Well, I am one of those middle men and the thing does not look that way at all to me. I think that all we do for the people—all the service we render, is worth what we get for it. We middlemen have our troubles and call ourselves producers and are not in any way conscious of being “parasites.”

What economic laws apply particularly to one set of people but do not apply to others down the line? What makes one man’s lot harder than that of another, and who really has the hardest row to hoe? What shall we do to the other fellow to keep him from crime and have justice? These are questions answered in as many different ways as there are people with different viewpoints. Do we doubt the patriotism of the club women in cities who decided to boycott eggs and milk to bring down the price just at the time when these commodities were very hard to produce and the price already too low for the cost? If we do, it is because we do not understand their viewpoint and their lack of information on which to form different conclusions.

A few years ago I often used a certain argument which now I do not use any more because now I am over on the other side, as they say. From the other side of the fence the proposition does not look at all the same. The argument is that the farmer sells his produce in town at the price the city man is willing to pay and then must buy at the price that the city man will sell for. Since the city man does all the price fixing the farmer gets the worst end of the bargain all of the time.

I have no doubt that various markets are juggled by speculators of various kinds and that there are many exploiters in cities who have their knives whetted for any one’s meat they can get. The world has not yet worked out its complete salvation. We all have a few suggestions that we would not mind making to the party in power. But of this I feel sure, the majority of business men make their living by rendering service the same as do farmers. They are up against propositions that are a good deal alike. I have not noticed much difference. I have to pay my farmers a good or better bargain than they can get any where else. In the same way I must compete for labor. I must render the best service the customer can get for the money. After I do all of these things, if there is anything left I may have it, and my luck at different times is good, bad, and all shades between good and bad. All of us city business men would make more if we could. You can at least credit us with being ambitious, but more of us fail than do business men in the country.

At this time probably half of the factories in the United States are closed down, banks are practically all in a critical condition, stores are advertising merchandise at half price and yet no one seems to buy and the farmers’ troubles need no description. What shall we do? Well, I know some things we should not do that I can illustrate with a story.

A man in Arizona looked down over a ledge of rocks on a cliff and saw several rattle snakes sunning themselves on a ledge thirty feet below. Having a small pistol he shot a bullet down among them. Immediately there started a battle at the end of which all the rattlesnakes were bitten. In a few minutes they were all dead. An examination showed that the bullet had apparently not hit any snake. The snakes had all lost their lives as a result of a misunderstanding.

I heard Major General Wood make a speech in favor of universal military training but his argument had a different meaning for me than he intended it should have. He argued that there will be war as long as people have honest differences of opinion—therefore always be prepared for war. To me it seems that since no amount of preparation and war equipment can insure peace we must prevent that honest difference of opinion. We must keep with all people a better understanding. Wars are misunderstandings and well meaning people murder each other because the misunderstandings are kept up with censorship and propaganda. People are armed with poisons more deadly than the rattlesnake and all will fight at the drop of the hat if they feel that they are wronged. What then brings any hope of things better? It is the spirit that says “Come let us reason together” that points the way to “Peace on earth, good will toward men.”

There is one thing that all should remember and that is that we are all of us the public. There is no corporation “without a heart and without a soul” more heartless than the public. All men strive to do the thing the public wants most to have done for only those who please the public’s fancy get paid for their efforts. The public pays no one interest on investment. It pays no one for time or effort spent. It pays for the service it wants at the time it wants it and all who misjudge the public demand may get nothing. Any new process or new invention puts many people out of business for the public turns coldly from the old to the new service which it more desires. If we produce too much of anything the price always goes below cost. Where there is an undersupply of any thing, there is the best market and the more profitable business. So it is that by paying or withholding the price this great Dame Public keeps all courting her favor and doing the things she wants most to have done. She wins with every winner and then taxes his income, and lets the loser lose alone.

But although we are all up against the same general laws that govern business there is a difference between farming and most other business. A contractor will build a building for us if we agree to pay a price that he figures will pay his cost plus a profit. Otherwise he will not do the work. Contracting is supposed to be a somewhat hazardous business but it is not so risky as farming for the builder knows before he starts what price he is to get. A farmer can not tell until he is ready to market his crop what the market will be. The farmer must pay the cost, hoping. Weather has a great deal to do with results in farming operations and that makes the business more risky.

Business men in cities as a rule can work much closer to their pay checks. This makes it possible for them to come much nearer a system of always getting cost plus a profit. Manufacturers usually aim to take orders ahead of their output so that knowing their cost and having their goods already sold at a profit leaves them comparatively clear sailing. How the farmer can get on the same basis I do not know.

But city business is not all a round of pleasure, for city competition is keen. If one farmer raises forty bushels of corn per acre and another can raise sixty, each receives compensation in proportion to his crop. But if one merchant had that much advantage over his competitor the unfortunate one would be put clear out of business. Customers to a merchant are as valuable as pigs are to a farmer and it is perfectly legal to get the other fellow’s customers in broad daylight. So we in competitive business keep busier than some people think.

I have often been asked what I think of farmers’ organizations. Well, most business men in other lines of business have associations. They usually result in some good. It is those who expect too much that are disappointed. So simple a thing as an organization can not cure all of the difficulties in farming. Some farmers in Kentucky organized to boost the tobacco market by agreeing among themselves to plant fewer acres. After the agreement many expected a high price for tobacco and planted more acres. This is about the kind of co-operation we all have learned to expect in associations where money interests are involved. These farmers were right, however, in realizing that in order to boost the market they had to limit the supply of the product. The law of supply and demand always works. It works to the advantage of him who can limit the supply or can increase the demand.

Let me tell you how a trust operates. There is an agreement to fix prices and production is limited to what will sell at the fixed price. Then there are fights made against any one outside of the combination who undertakes to produce that line of goods. The trust magnate knows well that to control a market he must limit the amount of goods for sale by combining to fight competition. Without that feature trusts would be harmless. A trust is a “combination in restraint of trade”—a fighting organization. Common business men are not afraid to compete with trusts. It is always the trust that is afraid. To compete means to race. Trusts always want to hamstring the fellows against whom they are racing.

To go back to farmers’ organizations, on account of the nature of their business farmers can never successfully organize to fight down competition of other farmers and prevent them from producing. They can not then create an artificial market. Others can sometimes combine to take advantage of farmers. Farmers can never “get even.” But here is a truth that many do not realize and it is that although some may have a less difficult business than farming, not one person out of a thousand can avoid competition or has any unfair advantage over other people. Those who would differ from this statement could only change the figures in the proportion. Change them as you like, and yet we must agree that it is a good thing that a majority must earn a living in which there is no graft for they will stand for truth and fairness in the land. We want freedom in the country and there cannot be freedom without fair competition—equal opportunities for all as nearly as the law can insure them.

Where co-operation among farmers can increase efficiency they should co-operate. The same is true of any other business. For any one to co-operate in a legitimate way for legitimate purpose is always a legitimate thing to do. Co-operation need not interfere with free competition or fair play. I have no word of warning to give to farmers’ organizations that I would not apply as well to others. But I have a warning that I would like to sound to all the world. Beware of him who accuses all others of guilt. Beware of him who sees only bad in the world. There are those “reformers,” they may be called, who would poison us against our fellows. Watch closely the suggestions of such. Test their advice by the golden rule. A propaganda of hate is never needed in a good cause. Peace on earth can only come by fairness and good will. We need each other’s point of view.