NFO-130 (AV10629): A Clergyman's Views on Rural Values

good evening welcome to the Midwest farm report I am Cletus Totschnig of Blue Earth County Minnesota tonight I'm going to be visiting with father John McRath of Milroy Minnesota father was born and raised on a farm here in Minnesota Hutchison to be exact right now he's a rural pastor at Milroy Minnesota he is also a director of the National Catholic rural life conference father I wonder if at this time you could give us a little bit of the conference's viewpoints on this farm situation well I think so the concern that the National Catholic Rural Life conference has for the family type farming I think was brought out very well in their last meeting in January which was held in Kentucky I believe and they passed resolutions to the effect that they go on record as doing everything in their power to keep the family type farming that we have today and I think this has always been their concern that we do not go into a corporate type agriculture we have brought this out over and over again that this is not a very satisfactory answer to our problems and that they would certainly favor a family type farming as we as we know it at this part of our country and they made no bones about the fact that they were disappointed in the present administration's attempts apparent attempts any way to do something about getting rid of a little over two-thirds of the farmers that we have they seem to think that one-third could do the job nicely which would I don't know what two-thirds are going to pick out whether it would be you or who but they'll uh they seem to think that we can do real well without them in this the conference feels is not even a a sensible answer from an economic point of view but these are real people with real problems and people who have feelings and have desires and who have a desire to farm and have their roots in agriculture and it's not that simple that you can just pick them up and Transplant them that to say nothing about the doing away of a whole way of life I think they're they're real definite in favor of the families I would just met father for the first time this evening and we were talking for a few minutes before we went on the program here father I know you have some definite ideas about this agricultural situation and I'm not going to take up too much of the time leading up to it I'd rather give you a chance to talk a little bit about it about it would you care to i enjoyed this illustration you gave me right off the bat and I had to hope that you'd include that in your observation well I think that if you're asking what agriculture what it looks like from my point of view anyway I think an illustration that shows this probably as well as anything would be that of a lot of men being hanged and to my estimation agricultural farmers are being hanged and small-town businessmen they certainly are definitely included in this and of course we know that even though we haven't been hang lately we know that this is a probably a very painless process until we get to the end of the rope and then suddenly something that's happened we've done something wrong there's been a mistake and I'd like to picture this then everyone was a varying length of rope some people have come to the end of it you know them I know them in the last year two years five years some are starting to reach the end now some have very long ropes due to financial helps perhaps having farmed during the Goodyear so-called good years during the war and immediately after the war through inheritance or whatever they have put together a large amount of money and actually are living very well there's more about about this but in my mind the day will come if something isn't done when they too will reach the end of their rope and the amazing thing to me is the lack of concern that we have as rural people for one another almost to the point where when someone does reach the end of his rope and is financially broke and we almost laugh and say well there was a poor manager you know where he did this or he did that wrong too bad I wonder if I can get a chance to rent his farm this is our main concern if I could possibly be included in into getting a little bigger and included into divide up that property and so this is the this is the picture I think another one that illustrates this idea also is the fact that we live in a sick industry now there are undoubtedly farmers who are doing rather well in the sense that they're making a good living perhaps if they were to figure out the investment and their return according to government statistics anyway it's just not there but with a large enough capital you can make a good living these people say everything is fine that what the industry is sick and if their sickness all around me I have every reason in the world to believe that it'll get to me in time I'd like to think of the days when we got the polio vaccine and perhaps a something were asked if they didn't want the shots and this man might say well I I don't have polio we've never had it in our family we're healthy my children are healthy and strong I am there's no reason for it and you'd say well no but the diseases around you you're going to in time it's going to affect you perhaps why take that chance and so the lack of concerned that it can't happen to me but it has happened it is happening to to real people and this is kind of the picture that I get from going about amongst farm people it's uh it's a real challenge visiting with these farm people and finding out the difference as you go down the road from one to the next what reasons he may have for the situation being as it is it's surprising that there could be as much difference between them between different members of this occupation about how they figure out their problem I got a kick out of this little story you was telling about visiting with this family and the subject no holding action or the price of milk holding action this this came up with happened a year ago when we when the cost of milk went up in the retail end and had not gone up to the farmer at least not very much and I was be mourning this fact to a table where I had been invited to a family and there was a nine year old lad there they're not a farm family at all as a matter of fact the father as coaches and is in education and the lad listened for a little while as I talked about this and finally not in any sense of authority but he said well why don't those farmers just keep their milk till they get a price and this struck me that a but a nine-year-old boy would answer this would seem to see the answer to this problem and so many the rest of us have difficulties it's it's troublesome for some of us to really figure out the answer to realize yeah what do you think we will definitely have to do father to right this situation to remedy it well I think the the answer perhaps lies in two areas for sure and in a third possibly but in two areas the first one being that we do have to have legislation we can't we can't just run roughshod over Washington and say we don't need them I'm convinced more and more that every industry has to be protected with laws from one another and from other groups and so on no this is not unheard of it's wrecked it's done and agriculture will need certainly need this kind of protection so we need Washington to give us the kind of legislation that will protect agriculture that's the first part of it and the second part would be the answer that came from an old man some years ago in a letter to the Christian people of the world moderate Magisto the coming from Pope John they think someone who was loved perhaps by the whole world and he himself from a rural background we used to enjoy seeing his family and their who were humble and farmers coming to see the Holy Father and so on but agriculture has difficulties all over the world and I'm sure that Pope John realized this his own family suffering perhaps from it somewhat and the answer that he gave was that of collective bargaining and I think this has been talked about throughout the church and throughout the United States many times over but it is a fact that he asked for or suggested but farmers bargain collectively as other people do and this certainly would be part of the part of the answer and then the third part should grow out of that but we're going to have to bring our farm groups together we have to have cooperation from all of the major farm organizations and there's no reason in the world why this can't be possible why we can't do this we're dealing with with good people reasonable people I think and there's no reason why we can't accomplish this fact but to bring them together but it's something that we we have to quit talking about it and we've got to do something this reminds me of again of an illustration but there we've talked ever since I was a little kid I can remember them saying we've got to get together farmers just got to learn to stick together this is always to it and it reminds me of a group perhaps in battle in the there might be 25 soldiers and they're outnumbered and every morning the lieutenant gets up and says now we've got to get together we've got to get organized to defend ourselves but they never quite make it by night two or three or day and the next day he gets up when he pounds the table and he says we've got to get together and by night two or three more God until pretty soon there there aren't any left there's no need for organization there isn't anything left there and so we have to bring these organizations together somehow someway and certainly there there has to be I'm convinced there has to be a way that we can do this simply by we have to start by talking and to cut out this foolish fighting we can't afford to fight all right as for that is for sure we can no longer afford to fight we've definitely got to get together we're going to accomplish what has to be done some of these people still don't feel they can get involved but this reminds me of a story but I heard the other day that to this man I'm sure wasn't very funny but he was a victim of robbery and when they were asking him how it happened he said down well he said I got out of my car once and bug hit me in the head and another one kicked me sudden the third one took my wallet and they said well what did you do well he said I just laid there didn't do anything they said you mean you didn't fight back at all he said no he didn't with me said well why not well he said I just didn't want to get involved you know and I think a lot of times perhaps we have a lot of people that don't want to get involved for what reason I don't know what the there's the need for all of us to get involved in this which I consider a very Christian work to develop a kind of agriculture in America that can feed not only this nation as it certainly has in the past and so we our way of farming has proved itself to be good but to feed as many people in the world as possible well that is right there are so few areas in the world left who can feed more than their own people and United States is one of the three probably so we definitely have a duty we've got to find some way that this can be accomplished I think if the industry was healthy I think we would be in a position if we once have this industry down as a business but we can go to our government and tell them that we're in a position to grow more food plenty of people in the world who could use it on the other hand our own people can well afford to pay full price for that food that we raise for them however every time we raise just a little bit more than they need you penalize us and lower the price on all of our production isn't there some way that we can feed this hungry world and still make a living at it well not only there there has to be a way the Holy Father in his last letter to the Christian people talked about the haves and the have-nots and he cries about the fact that there are so many people and I like to picture and I think this could have happened I'm sure it did in the Vatican Council it suppose our a bishop from our area say our own Bishop from our own diocese were to sit down a table next to say a bishop from India and our bishop might say you know I come from a rural diocese and the biggest problem white people have is overproduction you know those people just produce so much that they drive their price down and this is at least this is what they're told is their problem they raised too much could you imagine how that other Bishop from India might have felt when you'd have to say you know the big problem in my diocese is that most of my people go to bed hungry many of them are starving to death and you say your problem is too much now I think this illustrates the unchristian attitude that we have here and that we can go on and pretend like it doesn't exist or doesn't that there's nothing to it these are real people that are starving to death these are real people that need help now how you might say are you going to accomplish this if we're smart enough in this country I always think to put a man on the moon then no one can ever convince me that we're not smart enough to put food in the stomach of a starving man without upsetting anybody's economy it's it has to be done it can't be that complicated we don't want to do it and I think that the farmer has to realize that he has the food first and if it's misused we can it's easy for us to you know sit back and criticize Washington and say well why don't they feed the hungry world what's the matter with them or the processors are those people in between but who all the food first I've got a car some time ago and had trouble with it and with one sentence to the fact that I was unhappy with this particular car brought a telegram from Michigan and a long-distance call from the branch office out of Minneapolis asking me what was the matter what did I want done they were concerned now they could have easily said well now that's the dealer's problem you know that we've been paid for our automobile but this is not the dealers problem or it's not it's his problem because of if we don't buy another car he had the car first and he felt responsible and the farmer the same way the farmer has the food first and he is responsible and if there are hungry people in the world perhaps farmers if they were agriculture if it was organized if all farmers were organized they could go to the government and this I can't see why this couldn't work and say now we could conceivably produce that much surplus this coming year now are you willing to take this off our hands as a wealthy nation and use it as food for peace as we hear about if you are we'll be glad to raise it if not of course we can afford to back this financial finance this thing completely ourselves but if the American people are willing to real raise it for you now if they were organized they could do that but not being organized so whose fault is it whose fault really is it that there are hungry people today can the farmer can we as those who live in rural America completely excuse ourselves and say it's Washington it's a process or it's someone else or don't we have to take a little blame ourselves and say perhaps we haven't run our own business quite as well as we should have well I think very possibly that we we can be blamed I had never thought of it in that particular light before I do know that NFO has said that once we were in a position to price our product we would be in a position to take care of any surplus that were developed through our surplus disposal fund and I do know that getting that production out of the normal market channels was part of the ambition a list would be wonderful if they can that's where it would fit in and organized I think farmers can do this because we have always felt that we should not be penalized because we raised just a little bit more than what our people in this country could use that night especially in view of the fact that others needed swimming right and there was a place in a hungry world for it I do notice some of the press releases that have been mr. Freeman as he's been traveling around the country have led me to believe that it's very possible that we will be able to get soon these groups of people these groups of farmers together I noticed the some of the Tribune articles yeah we're speaking a little bit like there was more than just one group there and that they all have just about the same thing to say all realize that they were something that's how these news were anything I think very possible mr. Freeman went back to Washington when they went back speaking collective-bargaining anyway he said it whether he believed it but he was hollering it anyway well after that is definitely what we need we we have to let these people know what we want we have to let them know that we understand what our problems are in there but we have I think a lot of these things are in the area of ideas and attitudes though don't you think latest look that this is what we're fighting I'd like to break this into three sections three things the world people will need if they ever hope to organize and to accomplish these tremendous things that they could accomplish if they were organized such as feeding a hungry world to me this is the most Christian working on possible to feed there are there are literally millions of Americans that aren't eating enough right as much as they as they should because they they can't afford to and this tremendous Christian work but I think we have to develop three things number one I think we need some kind of pride in our work there's no question about the fact that you ask the farmer what does he do and he'll hold his head down and say he just finds you ask anyone else a priest or minister or teacher or lawyer doctor and with justifiable pride they will explain just what they do to help the how important they are in this picture of society and the farmer how terribly important he is is that he should have the kind of pride that says we have done a good job over the we'd like to keep it this way we don't want corporation farming we don't want someone else to take our job we've done a good job and God knows they have and we intend to continue to do a good job and this is the first thing the second is I think we have to have something that Christ talked about I'm just about stopping and that is concerned for my neighbor now this can go all the way from the guy across the road to the hungry people in far- the far reaches of the world and that if I have this kind of concern for my neighbor that I will want to help the man across the road if I can to stay in business I will work with him or cooperate with him and trying to cooperate with him so I can raise more to put to feed these people but haven't got it so good huh these poor people and to develop this kind of concern was honest concerned for for someone else the attitude as one man said not too long ago told me we're done with the low prices of cattle and hogs and he said well it doesn't really bother me he said because I don't have any and a fine fellow but this is the attitude I don't have any I'm not sick today so I can't understand why you're saying I don't have any pain today so I really don't know I don't tell me about yours I'm not interested so I don't have any cattle and hogs today so I don't care what the price is instead of realizing that someone else has that product to sell right now and perhaps is hurting because he can't get the price he should and this type of thinking prevents us from ever working together we've got to develop this concern we have the greatest Catholics Lutherans Methodists what have you in this country but I wonder perhaps if we have the greatest Christians and a Christian is someone who has that concern and this I think is what is the place where a priest or a minister into this thing is to develop these kind of things to develop Christian attitudes and then the third one would be a willingness to sacrifice for a cause now farmers I don't think have ever sacrificed they've had a lot of things taken away from them but I I really question whether they've ever honestly sacrificed in the sense that I give up something that I could keep today well they have they have they've sacrificed their neighbor this we've always been great for this you know when they when they say you have to expand we look on both sides us and say how about how about you you you'd be the one that the best one to go and then the next one is someone else there isn't anything that's ever been worthwhile anywhere in the world there wasn't accomplished through sacrifice selfishness will always destroy itself always destroy itself and sacrifice will accomplish in time but we've learned that to be willing to give up time energy money in order to accomplish this and if we have these three attitudes if I had enough pride as a farmer in my work to say I want my son to do what I have done I'm proud that I'm a farmer I have done a real good job and I want the nation to continue this way of life then I have enough concern that I want everybody else that's farming to be successful if it's at all possible and then I'm willing to make a sacrifice to bring about if I think with family-type farming is important than I have to make a sacrifice so I think these three things are terribly important well father they sound like the three answers to me I thought that I was always proud of my work I have been I like to do a good job if I can and when I do accomplish something I I am justifiably proud of it I think but nevertheless I often wondered especially over the last five six years I have some boys at home and I've been trying to show them how I'd like to have them do this job or that job that I give them but in the back of my mind I question the fact of whether they would be making a wise decision so they take up the agriculture as a occupation not because it isn't a worthwhile job not because it isn't important I think we are producing a product that people need three times a day I think please I mentioned this before that I think they need food before they need a doctor you're terribly the farmer is important but of course it's been a it's been a rugged game and that is the reason we don't tend to ask our sons to take up our profession we have a little thing in this in this country of ours called rugged individualism and you mention the rugged game which is a nice way of saying that someone is very very selfish but I made it and so can you and if you can't too bad about this is a one of the serious problems I think in that's against Christianity anyway this rugged individualism well father I see our time is presently up I want to thank you very much for taking time off and you're busy sizes scheduled to be with us here today from the Midwest farm report thank you for having me