NFO-41 (AV10448): US Farm Report: Spiritual Aspects of Agriculture

[frequency] [music] welcome to another program of us farm report brought to you by members of the national farmers organization in this area and the interest of agriculture private enterprise business and the welfare of our nation we thank you for the opportunity to come into your home once again my name is Al Holzbauer and I'm minister at the Cedar Lake Church of Christ in Waterloo Indiana and with me this day is Reverend Lex one of the parish priest from the Loogootee Indiana area Reverend Ike's certainly is a pleasure to be here about five or six years ago we first heard about nfo down in the Davis County and many of the members of the parish are farmers and so many of them asked father what do you think about it and necessitated doing a lot of study and reading up and trying to understand it and as I read I read the encyclical by Pope John and it's interesting because he seems to have grasped the farmers problem and I'd like to just read you this now may it be nor may it be overlooked in rural areas as a need in every productive sector farmers should join together in fellowships especially when the family itself works the farm indeed it is proper for rural workers to have a sense of solidarity they should strive jointly to set up mutual aid deities and professional organizations and these are very necessary either to keep rural dwellings abreast of scientific and technical progress or to protect the prices of goods produced by their labor besides acting in this manner farmers are put on the same footing as other classes of workers who for the most part joined together in touch Fellowship's finally by the sakteng farmers will achieve an importance and influence in public affairs proportionate to their own role for today it is unquestionably true that the solitary voice speaks as they say to the winds so you see that from Pope John on down most everything that one reads today especially in our organized age tends to encourage us to bind ourselves together and when a farmer's organization comes along and tries to unify all the farmers for the sake of collective bargaining and besides collective bargaining for the sociability for all the good that can come from this it was something we were very interested in as far a pairing on a program such as this I think that each of us should try to figure out what's best for ourselves and for those around us and for the farmers to bind together in some way so that they can be represented fairly is certainly in keeping with the teachings of our Lord because all through Christianity the whole spirit of the church itself is to have community actions to work together not to just stand alone not just to be by yourself but to join together collectively to achieve anything whether it be goodness impersonality goodness in our lives goodness and in the marketplace and so it's so important for everyone whether you be a minister or an ordinary farmer or whomever it might be a bank or a small businessman that he also be interested in this because only by unifying can we achieve the greatness our country is meant to have so many of the things about the farmers organization nice the farmers organization are really in keeping with development in real true honest farming and living if we want and respect these small farmers we have to try to encourage him to be able to achieve and who arrived at a fair fair share we want him to grow up and lead the man that it can be to be the Christian he can be he has to first of all have something for his stomach he can't live a life if it doesn't feed this life the physical life by a fair honest share well the basic idea the religion is the respect for the individual and this organization would give a man pride in himself because he could honestly go and get what he deserves other things that we find in religion that truthfulness honesty and justice these virtues we push for we preach them out these on Sundays but yet often times on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday we forget them and it's important and vile for us that if we're going to talk about religion it's not just to talk about on Sunday but to talk about it all the time to realize that religion is not just something that we hear about from the Minister of the priest but that religion practically as is nice in the Bible is looking after those who are in need being concerned about the small man what you do for these the least of my brethren you do for me Christ said and so we too have to really try to not just be concerned with the spiritual but as that spiritual applies to everyday life might have some comments here know the Reverend likes we appreciated those words and I was thinking along with that that all of us are acquainted with what we consider the Golden Rule all of us understand it or at least we have a partial understanding of it that's do unto others as you would have them do unto you now someone has said that probably today we have changed it just a little bit and we have the new philosophy of do the other fellow before he gets an opportunity to do you because this is not a and certainly not a Christian philosophy but certainly it has been practiced in our day and age when I think of this in the spiritual framework Reverend Lex I and I I'm sure you share this with me I think of it within the framework of the free enterprise and we feel very very keenly I know you do and I do and hundreds and yes thousands of ministers and priests like ourselves feel that every individual ought to have the right it's a a god-given right to bargain for that which he has produced it has been said many times and it may be may sound a little bit trite here but it should be said once again I don't think it can be reiterated too many times that the idea of going to the marketplace and having produced the product and then saying what do you give me is almost the epitome of asininity it is absurd in this great society then looking at the Old Testament and just an acquaintance with some of the prophets there we noticed that they were integrated into every area of life and when there was social injustice they were heard and they were heard with dynamic voices they didn't sit by and say well maybe this isn't our task we were religious leaders and therefore we ought not be interested you made mention that it is of interest to every clergyman minister or priest I think there's something else involved in this and it's very very important and that's this word of understanding don't you feel that perhaps that the great lack here and it's a spiritual lack is the lack of understanding on the part of people who ought to I think availed himself to to a sufficient amount of knowledge of this program the National Farmers organisation so that they can talk intelligently about it not too long ago I heard a man say don't- just don't confuse me with the facts and how true this is that sometimes because bigotry or prejudice what we've heard of the past we don't want to be confused with the facts the Good Book says in the book of Peter the Apostle Peter says that we having acquired faith that we ought to be desirous of adding to our faith knowledge and this is this is part of Christianity this is within the framework of it and the master himself of course was probably the most integrated personality imaginable just the most integrated personality it's of interest to me that so many hundreds and thousands of Protestant clergy along with the Catholic clergy have considered the matter of the family farm and it found out that that the hour is late that perhaps we don't have too much time to save this this wonderful institution in America all of us all of you listening today you know what the alternative is just as I do and of course that would be corporate farming may I just bore you with just a few statistics in the country of Russia they have 650 million acres of land it takes something in the neighborhood of over 50% of their populace to till this land and they produce just roughly under 7 percent of the world's food now in America we have 450 million tillable acres and we have about where we actually have less than 7% tilling this land and we produce almost 17% of the world's food now here's free enterprise and here it's working within a Christian framework as opposed to working in the framework of communism if we have knowledge if we understand a program I think we're prone to act sensibly concerning it if we don't have knowledge and then our actions are not are not Christian many times they're they're diametrically opposed to the Christian principles and this same verses scripture there's another word that I like another virtue another attribute and that's patience in a day and age that we live in conflict on all sides how how desperately we need patience and we need to develop patience toward the individuals who let's be realistic at this moment at this telecast we're in the minority and we recognize that and yet we appreciate the fact that as it hasn't always been true that it's that magnificent minority it really pushes ahead and accomplishes great things take for instance aviation we started off with a little plane that flew some 200 feet we couldn't hardly be called an airplane and now we jet across the continent in a matter of a few hours and yet the Wright brothers their own father attempted to have them put in a mental institution because he considered both of them men of the devil and madmen that this is new the National Farmers Organization and yet the the spiritual principles involved in it are old they're very very real that are meaningful and we need to we need to give them some serious consideration there's another attribute mentioned there and we need it in this day and age and we needed very very desperately and that's brotherly kindness understanding patience knowledge brotherly kindness the attitude of saying well I differ with this one who is my brother and we are all brothers that make the mistake about that and we're all involved in this conflict and we dare not we dare not try to circumvent this and this this tremendous attribute of brotherly kindness given the other individual an opportunity to be heard sometimes the voices that are the loudest regarding freedom of expression are sometimes the quickest to stifle expression and the part of those that they may disagree with and this is not in the Christian framework this is not an attitude that we can be proud of as Americans and as Christians I think this is to be considered the matter of being committed to the the welfare of all Americans as opposed to saying well I'm getting along all right and the other fella well he'll just have to make out the very best that he can a personal commitment and we're Reverend Lex and myself and others who are involved in this we don't always get letters of complimentary letters we don't talk don't always praises for our stand but never lies we feel that it this is a vital issue at a very very important time in our land you know one of the things that is the saddest about being involved in this is that how the farmers tend to picket each other you know then you have one organization saying that's another organization instead of trying to really listen and understand and really give themselves to trying to figure out what's best or what's what would help the farmer the best everybody has their own little person or their own little selfish way of just saying well I'm gonna get what I can and I don't care about the other one I know this is probably the thing that if all the farmers just for a couple days could just stop and think and work together as one group they could they could achieve anything if they if they would recognize that Reverend Lex to the fact that United and this is just a fact that united they would have more power than Labor and Industry put together and we have heard and naturally this is one of the things that we we listen to and we listen and with tongue-in-cheek that if the farmer would get a fair price and if people get the prices that he's asking well people would stop eating pork or they would stop eating beef and of course this is not true we haven't stopped purchasing cars and yet the price of cars it seems to me that there almost every year they're more and more expensive but we keep purchasing 'em I think we have an obligation here a real serious obligation to the farmer and the farmer has a serious obligation to himself and it isn't it true Reverend Lex that the farmer probably is our biggest problem getting the farmer to unite and to understand his problem and to take a hold isn't that it seems like this that one of the most amazing things that gets to me is that a farmer will wait have be very patient for his crops be very patient for letting them grow he's very patient about painting his long and he's very patient about building a new home very patient about getting a tractor a new tractor fixing his equipment but yet instead of being patient about working out a fair price they just get so caught up to think they've got to sell when instead of trying to look long-range they just see no we've got to get rid of this we gotta sell it I mean it's almost impossible to imagine that individuals would be willing to work as they do 14 16 and 18 hours a day and then give very very little thought to the selling of the product they give a tremendous and there's no question about it a tremendous amount of effort and know-how they are probably the most efficient people on the American scene and yet they're probably economically they're almost illiterate when it comes to bargaining they may be we say this a lot of 'em will be hearing the program seeing the program that probably they have spent a considerable amount of time I said a lot of time of griping about it and not doing anything about it and then another thing you know never holds far as well as I do that when we're around at the different meetings and things that they want results right away here this farm economy is built up this way the whole approach to agriculture has been such for 20-30 years now all of a sudden within a few months or a year they want all the solutions they want everything solved they want better price they want all these things without willing to put in the effort and have the patience and working with an organization they want someone else to do it for them and this is the very reason why they're in this position the first choice they didn't do it on their own I think someone commented here a while back they will come into the organization and give their $25.00 and maybe in their particular area they're getting 370 per hundredweight for milk or whatever the price may be and they go to bed on Monday and they joined the outfit on Monday the organization on Monday and Tuesday why they expect the next morning for the man to drive in and say now you're now getting five and a half for milk and of course this is ridiculous this is absurd you appreciate this and many who will be listening would appreciate this that the position that the laboring man finds himself and now in the price that he's receiving which is something like 2.35 an hour as opposed to the farmers 40 cents an hour did not come about overnight there's a lot of hard work involved here a lot of planning a lot of hard work a lot of heart ache as well and I guess we we just don't want to give this much today maybe we're just getting selfish people getting selfish do you think that's to everybody just looking out for themselves not looking to the next generation do they feel like they don't want their children to be farmers that they want to give up all that they work for it's a to use their language in the language of the day it's a rat race a dog-eat-dog and it's unfortunate that a great number of people who call themselves Christians have taken upon themselves this philosophy and this is the this is very very sad I think that one of the saddest things perhaps happening in our society day and it's certainly apropos were the farmers concerned it is the apathy the idea that well I just don't care I just don't care as I mentioned they they will work so diligently and then when it comes to the idea of bargaining and and actually what this is amounting to I have 8 youngsters and really when you boil it down it amounts to some personal dignity you certainly cannot have dignity and an feel a real well-being within yourself when you can't when you you can't even say that you're you're you're capable of supporting your family as you would want to support most of our young farmers Reverend Lex and you you know this most of our young farmers work in town they work at something else and not only our young ones many of our middle-aged farmers and even some of the older farmers now why is this because they are not producing on their farms no they are producing but they're not getting a price I think perhaps one of the things that's happened they've almost substituted credit for profit and of course this is really sad wouldn't when they lose the dignity of work you know the farmers want to be farmers and they find in farmer farming a great joy and satisfaction and they they really want their children to be farmers but then when they don't get enough return to make it possible for the children to get the education or the things the clothing and things then they feel like well let's give it up and instead of trying to really solve the problem they run away from it maybe we have lost sight Reverend of the idea that while we ought to be cautious we need some holy boldness as well and it's good to be cautious but it's also imperative that we have a boldness born out of our our convictions and our commitments I think all of freedom stems from high ideals and while the farmer taught us a great deal about his independence and I always have to smile just to might when I hear about his independence because he had such very very little under the present set up there are many many forms of freedom and independence but the greatest freedom that he could have is to be able to go to the marketplace like a Christian gentleman and sit down with his brothers who use his commodities and bargain with them this would be the greatest freedom that he could possibly imagine well this is really why you and I come today to speak on behalf of collective bargaining and farmers going together is that we want each one of you people whether you're farming or in business to really think of this we want you to encourage your farming friends so many times they feel like it's hopeless they feel like well it's expecting too much but when you work with closeness to nature when you see God working in the ground in the soil this makes a better man and if your community has more farmers their community's going to be a better community we shouldn't be just short-sighted and think in terms of well what's it going to do for me but think of the future think of future generations we want real fine citizens and the better and closer they are to gone the better system they will be and how close can you get to gone but when you see him assisting you when you work with God in growing and developing the things the resources that he is been so good to us because if we turn away from God and don't use what he gives us and we don't try to develop ourselves and make ourselves the best we can be then how can we expect God to be pleased with us we have to give something and not take this it takes a lot of time it takes a lot of really stick-to-itiveness yeah we could get every farmer to say well I'm gonna see what I can give to help make farming an honorable profitable profession and if they just took half the interest that's our medical intake our engineers take well we would have it no you yes I feel the same way Reverend Lex I feel that maybe we have need a greater expression on the part of the farmer in this area of realizing that there are spiritual implications here and there are moral implications here too often we're lost we get on that tractor and we forget everything else nothing else really matters but to get that corn in and then to get it cultivated and then preparing it for the harvest and then when the time comes to harvest we take it to market and then we hear the sad words we're we're interested in as you've listened to the program and watched the program the main thing is for for you to appreciate that as a farmer that there are many the priests the ministers there's a great number of small businessmen bankers right mm-hmm Reverend likes all of these people who are basically interested in the farm problem because we like themselves out there wise enough to realize that the economy of this great democracy is predicated on agriculture and we feel very keenly that when agriculture falls when it when it fails that the economy of the of the country will certainly be anything but stable so we urge you we urge you and and without any shame we plead with you to find out about this organization and and read the literature and we're not asking you to as they say in Boston to buy a pig in a poke we want you to read it we want you to study it we want you to perfectly consider I want you to ask your parish priest about it your Minister about it and and give it serious consideration but don't be one of those and and I like to think that most of you out there in television land are not like this don't don't be like some folk you've been well I'm agin it you just can't be agin thing you have to have reason for it you you are intelligent human beings get this literature study it attempt to in the best way possible to assimilate it and then go to a meeting just say I'm gonna go to one of these means I'm gonna find out what's going on attend one of the meetings listen carefully and don't be afraid to ask questions you get into that meeting you let yourself be known there and you ask questions ask whatever questions you desire to ask then come home and give some more meditation in serious doctors you know they could ask their priest a minister go along with him you know yes this is excellent I wanted to say brother Jim there reverend like this is excellent but take that preacher that priest with you invite him out with you and let him he can sit in there and together you know two heads are far better than one and let him sit in there and listen and get him some of the literature and let him study it then if you can come to a position where you appreciate the organization and you want to be part of it let that be known and there will be someone there I think probably Reverend Lex could find someone at those meetings that would be willing to sign him up hmm I would be surprised would you find someone there that'll be glad to sign you up and give you an opportunity than to work in the organization and then I would say this after your you've signed up with the organization don't expect any miracles but to those County means be there at those County meetings and work with the other individuals who are involved in it and where you noticed in this telecast that we didn't speak disparagingly of other farm groups we don't do that we're not interested in in trying to cut off the other fellows legs to make ourselves didn't at all in fact if the other farm groups were as you know everybody should be incident and I try and them to and push for this because it doesn't hurt who does it it enter what form group does it it's so that it's done it has to be done and this of course is this I suppose the genius of this particular group is that the main dynamic or catalyst of this group is to bargain collectively and contract selling and we thank you for permitting us once again to come into your home spend some time with you think seriously of this telecast if you have opportunity to see it more than once take the opportunity and so we appreciate your time and your interest Reverend likes do you have any well I just gonna say that each of us down deep in our hearts should be so thankful for the blessings that God has given to us here and we should try to pray that God will not forget us now in this time of trial that we have to keep going ahead otherwise we'll go back [music] this program is brought to you by members of national farm organization in the listening area in the interest of agriculture private enterprise business and the welfare of our nation [music]