A ROD OF STRAW

With everybody's eyes on Congress, everybody's mouth is full of that great organization, the Farm Bloc, which is to rule the country with a rod of straw. In another column we quote Congressman Anderson's refutation of most of the popular misconceptions of the function and purpose of the bloc.

The fact of the matter is that whenever a sufficient number of persons ally themselves for whatever purpose, there are always hundreds of other people ready to shriek fire, murder, and sudden death at the very mention of so dangerous an affiliation. As usual neither fire, murder, nor sudden death has descended. Instead of a great group dominating the country and its politics, we find that the bloc is merely a comparatively small number of representatives of agricultural districts trying to lighten the very numerous trials and tribulations of the farmer by voting as a unit on agricultural questions. The Farm Bloc is a farm bloc pure, plain, and simple-and as such has a very definite place in the political life of the country. As a whole we Americans can get stirred up over very small things, and we have apparently done so in this case. Luckily we possess the compensating ability of being able to cool down as quickly as flare up. It seems as if this ability might now prove useful.