" This is "Engel's Law."
This "argument" assumes that we are now utilizing all the land
possible and that every one is fully supplied with food. But when we
consider the great masses of people in the slums of all cities who
are always underfed and whose constant thought is about their next
meal; when we see hundreds of able-bodied men waiting in line until
midnight for half a loaf of stale bread, surely it seems that there
is a possibility of keeping all of the present farmers at work, if
not of finding new fields for others, if we make our conditions such
that there will be opportunities for every able-bodied worker to
labor at remunerative employment.
Professor L. H. Bailey, a most industrious and accurate observer,
says: "Dr. Engel's argument rests on the assumption that
agriculture produces only or chiefly food; but probably more than
half of the agricultural products of the United States is not food.
It is cotton, flax, hemp, wool, hides, timber, tobacco, dyes, drugs,
flowers, ornamental trees and plants, horses, pets, and fancy stock,
and hundreds of other non-edible commodities.
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