How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm After They've Seen D.C.?

In January of 1922, President Warren G. Harding and Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace convened an agricultural conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss the difficulties faced by U.S. farmers. The end of World War I meant that European farmers could return to their fields, drastically reducing demand for, and therefore prices of, U.S. farm goods. Meanwhile, the costs of farm machinery and of transporting goods to market remained steady.

"No Wonder He Is Peeved" by William Hanny in St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, Jan. 25, 1922

Washington Evening Star's front page cartoonist greeted the conferees the Sunday morning of the president's conference.

"To the Agricultural Conference" by Clifford Berryman in Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., Jan. 22, 1922

Early arrivals might have caught Berryman's cartoon the previous Tuesday, contrasting the administration's solicitousness toward the nation's farmers with its demands of deep wage cuts in the railroad industry, resulting in threatened labor strikes that were the topic of a December Washington conference.

"I Wish I Had Friends Like Yours" by Clifford Berryman in Evening Star, Washington D.C., Jan. 17, 1922

Not everyone was as happy as Berryman's farmer at the train station, however. Cartoonist and former Congressman John Baer complained that the guest list featured some characters his Non-partisan League found highly suspect: business tycoons, bankers, and representatives of farm groups opposed to the NPL.

"Why You Must Help" by John Baer in National Leader, Minneapolis, MN, Jan 23, 1922

The leftist NPL wasn't the only one complaining about whom the powers that be considered representative of farmers. Senator George H. Moses (R-NH), for example, complained that the so-called Agricultural Bloc then promoting an agricultural tariff bill in the U.S. Senate (Moses preferred a national sales tax) consisted only of southerners, and no actual farmers. 

"The only three farmers in the Senate," he told the National Boot and Shoe Manufacturers Dinner, "one from Maine, another from New Hampshire, and a third from New York, have never been invited to the farm bloc, where they set up the ruthless, selfish legislation.

"I Speak for Real Farmers" by Clifford Berryman in Evening Star, Washington D.C., Jan. 19, 1922

"The bloc does not know," he added, "that a farm exists north of the Mason-Dixon line or west of the Mississippi River, and they give no consideration to the truck farmers in that territory. All they know is hogs, corn, wheat and cotton."

For his part, Secretary Wallace promised that Harding's conference would include bona fide "dirt farmers," including women (six of them).

"What Baer Saw at the Conference" by John Baer in National Leader, Minneapolis MN, Feb. 20, 1922

For all the National Leader's griping that the conference was closed to like-minded farmer-activists, John Baer somehow managed to get past the guards to sketch some of the invited guests. He was clearly more impressed by some — notably Senator Edwin Ladd (R-ND) and perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan (D/Pop-NE) — than by others.

"Under the Mistletoe" by Charles Plumb for American Farm Bureau, Dec. 1921 or Jan. 1922

Speaking of folks who didn't impress the National Leader, the biweekly newspaper ran a snarky critique of the above cartoon from the American Farm Bureau in its January 23 issue:

"The Leader has never been impressed with the cartoon service (charge, 30 cents per cartoon) sent to the press by Mr. [J.R.] Howard's American Farm Bureau federation. We have felt that Mr. Baer and Mr. Morris could draw more to the point than Mr. Howard's cartoonists. But we confess that one of the cartoons sent out by the A.F.B.F. is VERY MUCH to the point. ...

"We regret that Mr. Howard did not send us this cartoon earlier, as it deals with the good old Christmas custom of kissing pretty young girls who venture under the mistletoe. Of course, the holiday season is over until next winter. But the act of certain gentlemen in making love to the American Farm Bureau federation, and the willing response of the federation thereto, is a continual performance. ...

"Through Mr. Howard's confession in this cartoon, it appears that the American Farm Bureau federation, pictured as a charming girl, welcomes the caresses of various gentlemen who DO NOT ORDINARILY stand in line to make love to farmer organizations. Mr. Howard indicates in the drawing that the board of trade is not yet quite willing to receive a kiss from the fair lips of the federation. The board is urged to be a 'good sport' by the packers."

"A Tractable Beast" by John M. Baer in National Leader, Minneapolis MN, Jan 23, 1922

So, did the agricultural conference accomplish anything? Even within the National Leader's pages there was disagreement.

Cover cartoon by William Morris in National Leader, Feb 20, 1922

On the plus side, the passage of the Capper-Volstead Act on February 18, 1922, legalizing the sale of farm commodities through farmer-owned cooperatives, enabled farmers to bypass the middlemen. Congress would pass the Agricultural Appropriations Act later that year, creating the U.S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics.

"Everybody 'Helping' Farmer" by Wm. Morris in National Leader, Minneapolis MN, Feb. 20, 1922

In order to get its own candidates on the ballot in Minnesota in 1918, the Non-Partisan League created the Farmer-Labor Party (FLP). Derided as socialist or even bolshevik and condemned for his opposition to U.S. participation in World War I, its candidate, David Evans, still managed to make the 1918 governor's race a close one, and to keep his coalition of farmers and organized labor together.

"Be Kinda Hard to Hitch 'Em" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, Feb. 24, 1922

The FLP failed to catch on around the country; but in spite of the Republican tenor of the time, it would score its first major victory in 1922, as Minnesota elected Henrik Shipstead to the U.S. Senate. A distant third party anywhere else, the FLP became Minnesotans' chief alternative to the Republican Party, and the Democrats there sank to third-party status.

"Blocked" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, Jan. 26, 1922

Ain't it swell when the blocs come together?