The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 4, 1915, Page 6

1 | { ! } e e ey e PAGE SIX | S0 THE NONPARTISAN LEADER The “Business” of Farming Farms By Otto T. Monroe farming is a business. In a measure that is true. It is not true in the sense that producing on the farm is the com- plete business of farming. Farming embraces more than merely producing. It embraces the full process of delivering the finishea farm product to the consumer. The profits for farm poducts---that is, finished farm ‘prod'ucts are high. The consumer pays the maximum price and the farmer obtains the minimum price. This is because the farmer’s control of his produce ceases with mere production. THE farmer has had it preached at him for a long time that It was this condition that led Pofessor E. C. Branson to say, | “The farmer’s wealth-producing power is enormous: his wealth- holding power is feeble. The retention of wealth is everywhere our greatest problem; not merely the production of wealth.” Of the vast amount of advice and instruction given to farm- ers on the business of farming the bulk of it relates to productlon only—how to produce more. : There is a general awakening among farmers nod, however, which indicates that they are going to take the next step. This is ‘the co-operative 'movement. Corporations are forcing this awakening. Corporations as described by Clarence Poe is an assemblage of dollars for the purpose of hiring men to secure profits for the dollars. Co-operation, on the other hand, is the - assemblage of men for the purpose of hiring dollars to save pofits for them. With -a corporation there are thousands of patrons for every stockholder in it, hence the profits are concentrated into the hands of the few stockholders. While with co-operation there are as many stockholders as patrons and as a result the profits are dif- fused among many people. Co-operation is the only thing that will save us from the mon- archy of capitalism on the one hand and paternalistic collectivism on the other. It will prevent the profits from being absorbed by respectable idlers under a dollar-plutocracy on the one hand and by a less respectable class of idlers under a communism. Only he who produces will profit by such production. Applying the principles of co-operation to farming, then, simply means that the farmer must take control of all the phases of his business—the whole process of production, manufacturing raw materials and delivering finished products to the consumers. In other words the farmer of the past has simply been a hired man on his own farm. He has been the laborer who did the work while others carried off the lion’s share of the profits. The men who converted his products, even into the secondary form, who loaned him money and sold him supplies, got the difference between the minimum which the farmer received and the maxi- mum which the consumer paid. In order to escape this piracy:-the farmer must co-operate in the following operations: i. BuyinO' supplies for making farm products. 2. In raising farm products. 8. In finishing farm products. 4.~ In standardizing and marketing farm products. ‘5. In securing capital for buying supplies, producing farm products, finishing farm products and standardizing and market- ing such farm products. The function of farmmg does not consist merely of producing the raw materials. That is only the first step in the farming business. It is his business to deliver to the world its food, and at least the raw materials for its clothes, and “for this servece he should receive a profit—all the jrofit earned in the process. It is as much the farmer’s business to grind his grain as to harvest it; it is as much his business to gin his cotton as to pick it, as much his business to churn his butter as to milk the cows. It is as much sis business to deliver to the world dressed pork and beef as it is to deliver to the packer hogs and cattle. This can be done only by the means of strong co-operative organizations. It is being done in Ireland, in Denmark and in Germany to- day. These societies have sprung up within the last twenty years and their power and efficiency is demonstrated by the fact that just this week reports from Berlin state that the government is contemplating strong action to compel the farmers to sell their ‘products instead of holding them for higher prices. . “This den:on- strates the success of these organizations. The Florida citrus fruit growers have also demonstrated the success of co-opeative marketing. Four years ago the average price per box, f. o. b. Florida was $1.15 per box. Last season the average price was $1.96 per box. A similar miracle has been wrought in California. Not only in the matter of prices obtained for fruit but in the matter of prices paid for supplies. As a result of the California Fruit Growes Exchange it now costs 33 cents per box to pack oranges, whereas, it did cost 60 cents per box Lemons now cost 60 cents, whereas, they used to cost $1 per box. It is interesting also to note that this increase of price ta the grower does not materially increase the price to the consumer. It simply takes it out of the pocket of the broker. Even in Japan co- opeatwp marketing is making rap}d pro- gress, as likewise in India. And in these countries the governments are co-operating thh the farmer to this end. The United States government has so far failed to take any effective steps in this direction. All of which goes to prove the importance of the farmer getting a better grip on his government. So far this government has de- voted all its spare time to helping manufacturing and transporta- tion industries and has left the farmer to scratch for himseH. If we get laws that will enable the farmer to obtain credits so .that he can do these things the farmer must control the law- making bodies. He must make laws-in his own interest. As long as those who profit from the farmer’s toil make the laws the farmer will continue to get it in the neck. WA’VTED--MORE BABIES leferent In the Year 2002 THE PROFITS OI\I-P.‘fIII’ER~ With many thousands of the best New York, Oct. 26.—The man who - men in hastily made soldier graves in Belgium, in France, in Russia, in Galicia, in Serbia; thousands dying and many more thosuands who will yet die for their Fatherland before the war is ended, the thinking men of Germany already are looking inte the future and considering how they may most quickly fill in the gaps made by cannon, machine guns, hand grenades and rifles. Premiums for motherhood, premi- ums to increase the willingness to marry, the reduction of the legal age for marriage, the removal of all bu- reaucratic legal obstacles to mar-|* riage; measures to make possible mar- riage: for those who feel they can- not marry, state premiums for large families, on one side; heavy taxation of bachelors, old maids, childless couples. and those who adhere to the one or two children system, on the ‘other. These are the measures for filling in the losses of war, preventing a -decrease in the birth rate. and the ~ consequent decrease 'in -the pppula- tion, and keeping up the- future strength:of theempire, advocaied in a meeting held in the Upper House of the Prussian Parliament, attended by some of the most prominent legis- Iators in Germany. Th_e Leader fights for the farmers, "“observe,” wrote an editor, “that the Once there was a people whose word for “person” was “guy”’ and whose word for wman was “calico.”- In that dead language ‘“geezer,” “gink,” “chicken’ ’and “boob” had their roots way back in—well, in whatevér words do have their roots in. But by and by the academicians and the editors and the etymologists were horrified To find those good, old fashioned, = sober -, and = traditional nouns being supplanted in common vocabularies, and especially in the vo- cabularies of the young, by such vul- garities of slang as “man,” “woman,’ person,” “boy,” ‘“girl” For a long time the respectable journals re- frained from calling attention to these invading monstrosities of speech, as they had a fear To lower their respectability by printing them. They were classed among those words that gentlemen would not utter in the presence of ladie:. But finally the respectable journals, encouraged and aided by the ethical teachers and learned grammarians of the schools, felt that they owed a duty to society. And when an eminently respectable journal, = professor or mere person feels that he owes a duty to society he will go the limit in performing it. So those upholders of the language did. = They resolved fo print. -~ ¢ With what -humiliation must one 'To a limited e\ztent thers: “glonous word ‘calico’ has been al- most banished from the tongues of irreverent youths who use, instead, the slangy, if not Tribald, word ‘woman.” A gentleman of undoubted veracity reports that in a crowded street car the other day he heard a forward young guy (probably he would have applied to himself the disgusting word, ‘boy’)—heard this young guy -call a venerable geezer a ‘man!’ It"is even not uncommon that when groups of young chickens arc assembled in parties or are on their way to school, young guys of ve- spectable parentage will refer to them as girls. "The harmless boohs and mutts and ginks, even the dubs and boneheads—all of whom should excite the compassionate respect of all classes-—-even they have been the vietims of a colloquial levity. Such street terms as ‘innocents,” ‘half- wits,” ‘dullards’ have been attached to them. Kasy marks and sapheads have been ‘insulted as ‘good hearted persons.’ And so one moght extend the. list almost indefinitely. “It will not do.” " concluded - the alarmed editor, “to say that language is life; that what new fashions of{ speech are really slangy and vapid | will “soon pass, and that what of these are enduring should be endur- ing because life has need - of had a $10,000 bill but could not buy a ‘ham sandwich was in a position similar to that of the small group of Wall Street men who marked Bethlehem Steel up from about ©30 to $600 a share. They have paper profits of many million and most of the stock They would like to change the paper profits into profits they .can deposit in the banks, but if they try to do this they fear the bottom will drop-out of the market and even paper profits will vanish. To add to their troubles, each is afraid the other will try to get the cream off the market .by being the first- to sell, and none is made any more- comfortable by the- knowledge that Bethlehem may go to 700 or 1,000. The shrewder of the plungers are willing someone else should have these possible ‘gains, only they cannot find that somebody else. LTS In many respects the situation is the most peculiar that has arisen in Wall Street in many years. . The stock is clozely held, yet it .is not cornered. ; The big slogan ‘today is “ Get fl‘o; gether.” Don’t remain behind the times. It don't pay. But think of callmg’ er a ‘man and -2 chicken