Horsepower on Different Terms
From: bernhard1848@att.net
A fine commentary on the John Smith's mechanized farm, and the self-sufficient farm it replaced.
Bernhard Thuersam
Horsepower on Different Terms:
"John
Smith was a frugal farmer, and raised enough feed – corn, oats, and
silage – to supply his work stock and brood mares. He never bought feed
and he rarely bought a horse or mule.
John
Smith first bought a car, a Ford, to take the place of his saddle
horse and buggy. Next he bought a tractor, and then a trailer for use as
a truck. He bought a tractor because the International Harvester
Company proved to him that horses have to be fed whether they work or
not. The agent showed him striking pictures of horses "eating their
heads off" on rainy days when there was nothing to do, and he saw
pictures of [tractors] in farm magazines.
The
farmer was taught to begrudge the feed for his idle horses and mules.
Moreover, the tractor and its gang of plows could turn the 130 acres in
half or a third or a fourth of the time that the mules could do it.
The Country Gentlemen [magazine] published beautiful pictures of
tractors at work and wrote simple articles that John Smith, or his
boy, could understand.
John
Smith finally drove out the tractor, and the demonstrator taught him
how to use it. John Smith was now using as much horsepower as before,
perhaps more, but he was getting it on quite different terms.
He
was buying horsepower in Detroit and Chicago and mortgaging the future
to pay for it. The tractor came covered with a thin coat of paint and
several coats of protection. It was protected by a series of patents
that made it impossible for more than a few competitors to supply him.
It was protected by a tariff that made it impossible for England or
Germany or Canada to get into his field.
Moreover,
the tractor was never known to have a colt tractor, even a "mule." On
top of this the tractor carried a series of profits extending from
the steel mills right on up to the gates of John Smith's farm, and John
Smith had to pay for the paint, protection, and profits.
Now,
in contrast to the tractor, the mule colt stood in the meadow lot and
gazed at the strange contraption in awe and astonishment. The colt
represented horsepower just as the tractor did, but the colt cost
practically nothing to begin with. Nobody had a patent on him and he
carried no tariff. He represented nobody's capital except John
Smith's and no wages or interest were tied up in his shiny skin.
He
would start paying for himself at the age of three, increase in value
for six or seven years, and would continue to give good service for
twelve or fifteen years and service only a little less valuable after
fifteen. He was so perfectly constructed that he would never have to
have a spare part, not even a spark plug. He was a self-starter and
self-quitter when quitting time came.
Both
the tractor and the mule had to have fuel to go on. The mule's fuel
was corn, hay, cane, straw, or what have you on the farm. John Smith
raised all these things and never had to go off the farm to get fuel
for this hay-burning horsepower. He raised mule fuel with his own
labor, or nature gave it to him from the field and the meadow.
Unfortunately,
John Smith could not raise feed for the tractor. It had to have
gasoline and oil, as well as batteries and parts. All these had to be
purchased in the town from the northern corporations. In short, John
Smith now buys his horses in Detroit and Chicago; he buys the feed for
them from John D. Rockefeller in New York.
In
the meantime something else has happened. The mule that cost so little
has grown up, but there is no work for him to do. When John Smith
offers him for sale, he finds that nobody is willing to pay a fair
price for him, perfect as he is. The neighbors too….are going to
Chicago for mules that deteriorate rather than improve, and to New
York for feed which will never be converted into fertilizer.
Though
John Smith is still raising feed, he has little use for it. The brood
mares have died, the mules have been sold; there is nothing left to eat
the corn, cane and grass except a few cows. When John Smith tries to
sell his surplus feed, he finds that there are no buyers….The
neighbors are not using that kind of feed. They prefer the feed that
comes out of pumps.
John Smith
no longer raises feed. He is now planting the 130-acre farm in cotton
or in wheat, thereby wearing out the soil that supports him.
Something
fine has gone out of John Smith, something of the spirit of
independence and self-sufficiency that was present when the mules were
pulling the plow and the colt that had not yet felt the collar was
frolicking in the meadow.
In
reality, he has become a retainer, and might well don the uniform of his
service. He raises wheat and cotton for a world market, unprotected
by tariffs or patents, in order that he may buy mechanical mules,
feed, shoes, and everything that he needs in a market that has every
protection of a beneficent government."
(Divided We Stand, The Crisis of a Frontierless Democracy, Walter Prescott Webb, Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., pp. 137-140)
