August 9, 1919

The museum recently acquired a stack of old Farm Bureau records. Included is a record of a metting held on this date; perhaps the first serious attempt to create a farmers organization in Daviess County similar to the ones already operating in other counties of the state. According to the Washington Democrat

Farmers from all over Daviess county gathered at city hall today to give aid to the plan of creating a fund of $100,000 to protect the rights and advance the interests of Indiana farmers.

Lewis Taylor, the general secretary of the Indiana Federation of Farmers' Associations arrived this afternooon to outline the plan of the agricultural interests of Daviess county, as follows:

1. Agriculture should and will organize, as capital and labor have organized, to protect itself and develop new phases of production.

2. Farmers must get together to take up methods of meeting the practices of the packers and the grain men, where these methods are not to the benefit of agriculture or the community at large.

3. Farmers must protect themselves on the question of freight rates.

4. Problems of farm management and business methods must be met.

5. Agriculture must be protected against unfair and unjust legislation, by a group of alert students of farm problems.

The meeting passed ten resolutions, mostly ceremonial, noting the farmers' patriotism during the war, applauding the students of Purdue University, and ridiculing the idea of daylight savings time. The most significant resolution was a rebuke of the nation's railroad workers, who had been appealing to President Wilson claiming the cost of living had risen to a critical level following the war. The farmers argued that "cost of living" was synonymous with food prices, and declared to fight any attempt to bring prices down as well as disrupt any plans for the railroad workers to strike.

Be it further resolved, that it is the sense of this meeting that the 20,000,000 of farmers should organize immediately and act as a unit and notify the Government that the farmers of this county stand for law and order, that we believe in justice to all and special privileges to none, and as a united body we will stand behind the Congress in the enactment and enforcement of such laws as will be necessary for the peace and prosperity of all the people, and any man who should choose to march under a red flag shall be denied membership to this organization and that the government deport him without unnecessary delay.