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lines laid down by Henry George and through the nationalization of credit. In doing this the union between ownership and labor will be preserved in the farming industry. But we are also perpetrating a system of production which, although just from the viewpoint of distribution, is undesirable from the standpoint of production.
Second, the Socialists may keep their hands off, allowing the capitalists to organize agriculture on a capitalist basis or to reduce the farmers to feudal serfs.
Third, they may place a check to the expropriation of the farming class by the capitalists, while at the same time open a way for the development of co-operative farming and the gradual nationalization of the land.
The Socialist Party of Oklahoma, composed almost exclusively of farmers, has worked out a program along these latter lines. The program was adopted by the overwhelming vote of actual farmers three years ago and up to the present time has remained unamended.
I do not claim that it is perfect or that other states with different conditions should adopt it without change, but it is a program that nearly every level headed farmer will accept. It is progressive and tends in the direction of increased productivity and the collective ownership of the means of life, without threatening the actual tiller of the soil with the loss of his land. I herewith submit it to the earnest consideration of the farmers and Socialists of other states:
FARMERS' PROGRAM.
Art. 1
The retention and constant enlargement of the public domain:
By retaining school and other public lands.
By purchase of arid and overflow lands and the state reclamation of all such lands now held by the state or that may be acquired by the state.
By the purchase of all lands sold for the non-payment of taxes,
By the purchase of segregated and unallotted Indian lands.
By the retention of leased lands after the expiration of leases and the payment of the improvements thereon at an appraised valuation.
Art. 2.
Separation of the department of agriculture from the political government by means of—
Election of all members and officers of the Board of Agriculture by the direct vote of the actual farmers.
