Thorstein Veblen Report ad interim to Raymond Pearl on trip through prairie states in behalf of statistical division of Food Administration (Memorandum, 1918) American Economic Review, (Sept. 1933), pp. 478-479. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interim Report on the I. W. W. and the Food Supply United States Food Administration Washington, D.C. 106 Lathrop Road Columbia, Missouri 2, April 1918 My dear Mr. Pearl: This is again a report ad interim and consists of opinions and explanations. I expect to follow it in two days with a more extended and more matter-of-fact statement. ... As the outcome of my own inquiries in Minneapolis and Mr. Lubin's information from the Dakotas and Iowa, I have reached a very decided impression that the case of North Dakota is critical and urgent. The critical region is chiefly in North Dakota in the west, and in a degree in eastern Montana and reaching over slightly to South Dakota. Geographically it is an area that was subject to drought last season and consequently to crop failure in a degree. In this area, particularly inside of the boundaries of North Dakota, the farmers are short of seed - wheat, corn and barley - and also short of labor and of funds with which to hire labor for the planting season. By a peculiar complication they are also unable to borrow. The Farm Loan corporation (branch of the Treasury Department) with local headquarters at Minneapolis refuses on grounds of formality to lend to the North Dakota farmers because they are unable to give a 1st lien on crops or real-estate to cover the loan. A county bonding measure passed in North Dakota this last season is held to impose a 1st lien on the crops and real-estate, which affords the Farm loan people an excuse for refusing to act. This much is fact. The following is opinion. The Farm loan people, in collusion with the A.F.L. representatives of the Department of Labor and equally political representatives of the Department of Agriculture, are collusively playing politics to queer the Non Partisan League (which is in control in North Dakota) at all costs. The fortunes of the War and the chances of famine are a secondary consideration in the County, State and National party politics of these North Western states. All this is only known, not proven, but well enough known for all that. The situation in North Dakota, therefore, can not be saved without sacrificing certain formalities. It is doubtful if sufficient spring-wheat seed can now be got into the state and distributed soon enough in any case; very doubtful. Suitable seed com - Northern Flint - can probably not be found short of New England, and cannot be moved across to North Dakota in time (about the 20th May) unless the Railroads can be induced to make a special order and make a special effort. (In this connection, I gravely suspect that the Railway Administration will lend itself to political manoeuvres for defeating the Non Partisan League.) The best chance would be for seed barley, which can apparently be found in Canada, perhaps in Minnesota to some extent, and on the Pacific Coast. Barley can be sown later than Spring wheat; so that there is still time to get the seed barley into the state and distributed early enough to cause no hindrance to the barley crop. But to get the seed into the farmers hands the Food Administration will have to disregard formalities and go over the heads of the Farm loan people as well as of the representatives of the Agricultural Department. It appears to be not a question of placing Farm Loans and of the purchase of the seed by the farmers, so much as it is a question of distributing the seed and getting it planted, and then patching up the monetary questions involved afterward. I would like to suggest also that, for the sake of procuring a supply of labor in the Dakotas, all Federal indictments and prosecutions against supposed members of the I. W. W. be immediately quashed, and that prompt measures be taken to prevent County and State authorities in these Northwestern states from hindering the free movement of workmen and from prosecuting any persons for the time being on the ground of alleged working men's disturbances or of affiliations with the I. W. W. This is also a political complication and is closely bound up with the campaign of the old-line politicians against the Non Partisan League. You will appreciate that, in what I have been saying, my only point is to bring out the necessity of prompt and independent action on the part of the Food Administration if it is to save the grain crops in this particular area of North Dakota. What I have said about the politics of the case I should probably not be able to substantiate to the satisfaction of anyone who is interested in these politics on one side or the other. It is only an outsider's impression of a particular political muddle and the mischief which it is causing just now ... --- The End ---