Visitor From St. Paul – A.W. Ricker, Editor Farmers Union Herald Speaks Over Station KSAL
A.W. Ricker, editor of The Farmers Union Herald, St. Paul, Minn., visited the state Farmers Union office in Salina, January 21. That evening he made a speech over KSAL, Salina Radio station.
Reviewing the development of farm legislation he said, “Our old idea of government was that of the policeman whose job it was to keep the peace, leaving the individual free to do almost anything he might wish to do.
“Acting on that theory of government, we have destroyed our forests, mined the earth of mineral wealth, wasted and destroyed our soil fertility and permitted the strong and powerful to become more powerful, and the weak to become weaker.
“This idea of government at last brought us face to face with dust-bowls, eroded hillsides, denuded forest areas, and mineral wealth in process of exhaustion, all of which has caused us to come to regard government as something which must conserve the resources of the nation and regulate the actions of citizens, so far as those actions relate themselves to the general welfare.”
—courtesy of Tom Giessel
