Poor-Mouthing--or Just Poor?

In Kansas, angry farmers spoke of a "tractor march" on Washington. Across the Midwest, the 250,000-member National Farmers Union planned to boycott auto and farm-equipment makers because of high equipment prices. In 25 states, farmers who earlier this month were selling off some of their breeding stock to avert a threatened oversupply of pigs and calves, last week began dumping milk to drive up prices by 20 a quart.

Untold Story. Caught between rapidly rising farm costs (up 2% in the past year) and declining prices for their products (down 7% in the same period), farmers are bitter and increasingly rebellious. "The biggest untold story in America," declares Oren Lee Staley, head of the militant National Farmers Organization and leader of the milk-dumping drive, is the unrest and dissatisfaction of the farmers." Even na ture seems to be conspiring against them. Cutting a wide swath through the southern Great Plains, a serious drought has gravely endangered the winter wheat crop--which accounts for three-fourths of the nation's annual wheat production.

The farmers feel that they have been left out of the national prosperity, and statistics support them--up to a point. Though the income gap has narrowed since 1960, the average farmer can still expect to make only two-thirds as much as a city worker. While most big, efficient farm operators are thriving, the small, family farmer is increasingly being squeezed out by high costs and the big capital outlay that a modern farm demands ($30,000 for each farm worker v. $25,000 for each worker in industry). As a result, the number of farms has decreased by 23% (to 3,176,000) in the past seven years.

Real Resentments. Farmers have been known to poor-mouth it in the past. "The farmer will never admit that things are going good," says a farm lobbyist. "But let the fellow next door want to sell out, and he'll find the money to buy that farm." Nonetheless, the farmer's resentments seem real enough--as the Democrats discovered in last November's elections. Last week, to demonstrate the party's concern, Vice President Hubert Humphrey-and Senator Robert Kennedy followed Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman to the National Farmers Union convention in Oklahoma City. Speaking for the Administration, Humphrey pledged farmers an "honest deal" in Washington. "It is time," he said, "that the American farmer received a fair share of our national prosperity. The gap between farm income and income in other parts of our economy--the prosperity gap--must be eliminated." It made fine campaign oratory, but the truth is that the Johnson Administration can do only so much in the face of the harsh eco nomic facts that are making the small, family farmer even more a figure of the American past.

* Soon after his return to Washington, Humphrey slipped in the lobby of his apartment house, chipped a bone in his left wrist, will be in a cast for several weeks.

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