Campaign Address in West Branch, Iowa

This is a homecoming. It hardly seems an occasion for a lengthy political speech—rather is it an opportunity to recall old associations and renew old friendships.

I am glad, a son of Iowa, to come back to the place where I was born. Here I spent the first 10 years of my boyhood. Here my parents and my grandparents toiled, worshipped God, did their part in building this community, and now lie in the cemetery over the hill.

During the past 44 years I have returned from time to time that I might pay respect to their memory, that I might express my appreciation of those kindly and sympathetic folk who, taking a boy to their hearts, wiped away the one grief of childhood. One of my vivid recollections was my earnest interest in the debate between neighbors and relatives when they were discussing not who was to assume me as a burden, but who was to take the boy as a member of their own flock. That is the spirit of the people of Iowa. It is the spirit of the thousands of villages and towns in all this wide land.

And I have no apology for even a more personal note. There is present here today a lady who took part in that debate and who was for years my teacher in your public school. She embodies the spirit of that vast body of women who not only teach and inspire our children but watch over their wider destinies. You have come to do me courtesy as a son of Iowa. I take this occasion to acknowledge my debt to that lady—Mrs. Curran.

There is no imprint upon our minds so deep as those of early boyhood. Mine are the joys of Iowa—the glories of snowy winters, the wonder at the growing crops, the joining of the neighbors to harvest, the gathering of apples, the pilgrimage to the river woods for the annual fuel and nuts, the going to school, the interludes from work, in the swimming hole, fishing in creeks, the hunting for prairie chickens and rabbits in the hedges and woods. It is the entry to life which I could wish for every American boy and girl.

Again today I have had refreshment of spirit in returning to these scenes. The swimming hole is still in use. It has the same mudbank. It is still impossible to dress without carrying mud home in one's inner garments. As an engineer I could devise improvements for that swimming hole. But I doubt if the decrease in mothers' grief at the home-coming of muddy boys would compensate the inherent joys of getting muddy.

I have been to see the old Quaker meeting-house. It has been moved across the street and replaced by a more modern structure. The old building appears at some time to have been turned into a moving-picture house, which reminds me of the time I heard Aunt Hannah, moved in meeting, bitterly denounce the rise of modern ways and prophesy that, if they were persisted in, that edifice dedicated to God would some day be transformed into a place of abomination. I do not place the movies in that class, but knowing Aunt Hannah's views on any form of human recreation, even to the godlessness of sliding down hill, I suspect that if she knew of this she would get great satisfaction at the consummation of her warnings.

This was always a Republican village. It was here that I received my first touch of the national life. I well recollect the hoisting of the flag at half-mast over my father's blacksmith shop on the assassination of President Garfield. I also recollect well the torchlight procession in the Garfield election. I was not high enough to be permitted the conduct of a torch, but I participated by walking alongside for miles. At that time there were two or three Democrats in the town. I do not know today whether what seemed to me an enormous torchlight parade was instituted for their conversion or not, but I believe it was quite hopeless, because one of my boyhood friends and opponents in battle, who I expect is in this audience today, is a descendant of one of those Democrats and has been regenerated only in the last month.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. I have ofttimes said that the good Lord made it the richest stretch of agricultural land that ever blessed any one sovereign government. It was settled by the adventurous, the courageous, who fought their way across the ever-extending frontier. They have builded here in so short a period as 75 years a State with the least poverty, the highest average intelligence, the most generous education which ever blessed a single commonwealth.

Here in West Branch can be found all the milestones of the changes which have come to American agriculture. Only a mile from here is the farm of my Uncle Allan, where I spent some years of my boyhood. That was just at the passing stage of the great pioneer movement. Many farms were still places where we tilled the soil for the immediate needs of our families. We ground our wheat and corn on toll at the mill; we slaughtered our hogs for meat; we wove at least a part of our own clothing; we repaired our own machinery; we got our own fuel from the woods; we erected our own buildings; we made our own soap; we preserved our own fruit and grew our own vegetables. Only a small part of the family living came by purchases from the outside. Perhaps 20 percent of the products were sold in the markets to purchase the small margin of necessities which we could not ourselves produce, and to pay interest on the mortgage.

In a half-century the whole basis of agriculture has shifted. We have improved seed and livestock; we have added a long list of mechanical inventions for saving of labor; we have increased the productivity of the land. And it has become a highly specialized business. There is no longer one industry called farming, but in fact a dozen industries. Probably over 80 percent of its products now go directly or indirectly to the markets, and probably over 80 percent of the family living must be purchased from outside. In the old days when prices fluctuated in the Chicago market, at most they affected only 20 percent of the income of the farm. A violent drop in prices could reduce the family income by only 4 or 5 percent. Today the same fluctuation in price, affecting as it does 80 percent to 100 percent of the products of the farm, can take 25 to 50 percent away from the family net income and make the difference between comfort and freedom from anxiety or, on the other hand, debts and discouragements.

I do not suggest a return to the greater security which agriculture enjoyed in its earlier days, because with that security were lower standards of living, greater toil, less opportunity for leisure and recreation, less of the comforts of home, less of the joy of living.

I am often conscious of sentimental regret for the passing of those old time conditions. I have sometimes been as homesick for the ways of those self-contained farm homes of 40 years ago as I have been for the kindly folk who lived in them. But I know it is no more possible to revive those old conditions than it is to summon back the relatives and friends in the cemetery yonder. While we recognize and hold fast to what is permanent in the old time conditions, we must accept what is inevitable in the changes that have taken place. It is fortunate indeed that the principles upon which our government was founded require no alteration to meet these changes.

Just as there is transformation in agriculture, so there is in other industry; just as there is more specialization on the farm, so there is in other industry. We live today by the exchange of goods among 10,000 sorts of producers of specialties. A large number of occupations which were conducted on the farm in old days are now conducted in the factory. That is one reason why we have a decreasing proportion of our people on the farms. By this revolution the American farmer has become enmeshed in powerful, and yet delicate, economic forces, which are working to his disadvantage.

In my acceptance speech 10 days ago I made an extended statement upon the legislative proposals for relief to the agricultural industry which the Republican Party has put forward in its platform. You would not wish me to take your time to review that statement. I should, however, like to emphasize that the spirit of those legislative proposals is to work out a more economical and stable marketing system. A Federal Farm Board is to be set up with the necessary powers and resources to assist the industry to meet, not alone the varied problems of today, but those which may arise in the future. My fundamental concept of agriculture is one controlled by its own members, organized to fight its own economic battles and to determine its own destinies. Nor do I speak of organization in the narrow sense of traditional farm cooperatives or pools, but in the much wider sense of a sound marketing organization. It is not by these proposals intended to put the Government into the control of the business of agriculture, nor to subsidize the prices of farm products and pay the losses thereon either by the Federal treasury or by a tax or fee on the farmer. We propose with governmental assistance and an initial advance of capital to enable the agricultural industry to reach a stature of modern business operations by which the farmer will attain his independence and maintain his individuality.

And upon this whole question I should like to repeat from my acceptance speech that:

"The working out of agricultural relief constitutes the most important obligation of the next administration. The object of our policies is to establish for our farmers an income equal to those of other occupations; for the farmer's wife the same comforts in her home as women in other groups; for the farm boys and girls the same opportunities in life as other boys and girls. So far as my own abilities may be of service, I dedicate them to help secure prosperity and contentment in that industry where I and my forefathers were born and nearly all my family still obtain their livelihood."

In formulating recommendations for legislation to carry out the proposals of the party, I trust that we may have the full assistance of the leaders of agricultural thought. I am not insensible to the value of the study which sincere farm leaders have given to this question of farm legislation. They have all contributed to the realization that the problem must be solved. They will be invited into conference. Outstanding farmers such as Governor Lowden will be asked to join in the search for common ground upon which we can act.

I had thought today to particularly point out the importance of the development of our interior waterways as bearing on the prosperity not only of agriculture but of the whole of our Midwest business and commerce. It is a most important supplement to agricultural relief.

The necessarily large advances in railway rates from the war militate against the economic setting of this whole interior section. This, together with the completion of the Panama Canal and the fact that ocean rates have increased but little since before the war, further disturbs the whole economic relationship of the Midwest. It is as if a row of toll gates had been placed around this whole section of our country. It seriously affects the farmer. I think we can accept it as an economic fact that the farmer on most occasions pays the freight on his products. It is a deduction from the ultimate price; you yourself can attest this. In a general way, the center point of markets is overseas or the Atlantic seaboards, where prices are determined by the meeting of streams of world products. For every 100 miles you are removed from these market centers the price of farm products is lower by the amount of freight rates. Some calculations which I made a few years ago showed that the increases in railway rates had in effect moved the Midwest 200 to 400 miles farther from seaboard. Moreover, some of the competitive agricultural regions such as the Argentine and Australia are close to seaboard, and, with sea rates about the same as before the war, they are able to compete with the American farmer in foreign markets to a greater advantage than before the war. This increase in transportation rates also affects the prices of many things which the farmer must buy, for much raw material which comes into the Midwest pays the increased freight rate and this in turn is taken up by the consumer. We cannot return to prewar railway rates without ruin to the railways. Therefore, I have long asserted that the real hope of reducing charges upon our bulk goods was through the modernization of our great interior waterways. By modernization, I mean increasing depths to a point where we can handle 10,000 tons in a line of barges pulled by a tug. This administration has authorized the systematic undertaking of this modernization. Within a few years we will have completed the deepening of the Ohio up to Pittsburgh, the Missouri up to Kansas City, Omaha, and beyond, the Mississippi to St. Paul and to a point where we can handle 10,000 tons in a line of barges pulled results, for with only the main river from St. Louis to New Orleans as yet working properly, the rates for transportation of bulk agricultural products through that section are near prewar railway rates. We will not have the advantages of full results until the entire Mississippi and its tributaries are in one connected transportation system.

We have another great opportunity of relief in the building of a shipway from the Great Lakes to the sea. Our engineers have recommended the St. Lawrence route as the preferable outlet. The administration has undertaken negotiations with Canada upon the subject. If these negotiations fail, we must consider alternative routes. In any event, the completion of this great system of bargelines on the rivers and connecting the lakes with the gulf, of opening a shipway from the lakes to the sea, will make an effective transportation system 12,000 miles in length penetrating 20 Midwest States. It will connect these States with seaboard at the gulf on one hand and with the North Atlantic on the other. And this means more than the mere saving upon the actual goods shipped over these routes. If part of our crops can move to market at a 7- to 10-cent saving per bushel, the buyers' competitive bidding for this portion of the crop will force upward the price of the whole crop.

And this development concerns not alone agriculture, but every industry and business in the Midwest. The manufacturer and merchant in this section is suffering from a curtailment of his distribution field; his business province has shrunk. This development should tend to increase manufacturing industry in the Midwest and thereby create a larger diversity of employment and a greater local market for agricultural products. Nor does this development mean the crippling of our railways. The annual increase in railway traffic will give to them a far more than complete offset to these diversions. Moreover, everything that increases the prosperity of the country also helps the railways. The policy of rapid consummation of this great project will be continued if the Republican administration be continued. We should at the present rate of progress have completed the Mississippi system within the next 4 years. It is a vital part of the rehabilitation of the Middle West agriculture and business.

The modernizations of our waterways recall again the earlier life of Iowa. At one time its transportation was in large degree over these same rivers, and many of our pioneers reached this State by the old packet boats and their own rafts. Nor are the days of the pioneer over. We have to pioneer through economic problems, through scientific development and invention, onto frontiers just as forbidding, just as romantic, and just as pregnant of added happiness as our fathers ever knew. The test of our generation will be whether we can overcome these frontiers, whether we can hold mastery over the system we have created, whether we can maintain the advantage we have inherited, whether we can hold ourselves a nation dedicated to equal opportunity for all.

There are those in this audience who saw Iowa an open prairie. I recall members of my own family who in my childhood were still breaking the soil in the western part of the State and were then still living in the first sod houses of the pioneer farmer. Our fathers and grandfathers who poured over the Midwest were self-reliant, rugged, God-fearing people of indomitable courage. They combined to build the roads, bridges, and towns; they cooperated together to erect their schools, their churches, and to raise their barns and harvest their fields. They asked only for freedom of opportunity and an equal chance. In these conceptions lies the real basis of American democracy. They and their fathers gave a genius to American institutions that distinguished our people from any other in the world. Their demand for an equal chance is the basis of American progress. To those who have by necessity worked in other lands comes this most vivid meaning of America and a deep gratitude for what our fathers have builded. Here there are no limits to hope, no limits upon accomplishment; our obligation today is to maintain that equal opportunity for agriculture as well as for every other calling.

When we traverse the memories of those who have builded this State and this Nation we recall these acts which are rooted in the soil of service. When we rehearse our own memories we find that none give us such comfort and satisfaction as the record of service we have been able to render. I do not believe our people have lost those finer qualities of rugged character, self-reliance, or initiative, nor have they lost the great quality which they embedded in American character, the quality of neighborly cooperation and mutual service. It is in this quality that our hopes must lie in the solution of our great problems.

And I must say again that the solution of these problems has but one purpose—that is, the comfort and welfare of the American family and the American home. The family is the unit of American life and the home is the sanctuary of moral inspiration and of American spirit. The true conception of America is not a country of 110 million people but a Nation of 23 million families living in 23 million homes. I pledge my services to these homes.