The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 9, 1916, Page 6

A SRR T P ¥ IS T e —"r I DA S Sl T SIX : THE NONPARTISAN LEADER The Nonpartisan Leader PUBLISHED WEEKLY—EVERY THURSDAY Official Paper of the Farmers’ Nonpartisan Political League of North Dakota e e T e T G s A e Entered as second-class matter September 3, 1915, at the postoffice at Fargo, North Dakota, under the Act oi{ March 3, 1879. . D. C. Coates - - - e - o 5 & Managing Editor Advertising rates on application. @ Subscription, one year, in advance, $1.50; six months, $1.00. Communications intended for the paper should be addressed to ‘the Non- partisan Leader, Box 919, Fargo, North Dakota, and not to any individual. et ity s s dllrin Xt Aebdeie bl v o B isliar kMot The Leader solicits advertisements of meritorious articles needed by Farmers. Quack, fraudulent and irresponsible firms are not knowingly ad- vertised, and we will take it as a favor if any readers will advise us promptly should they have occasion to doubt or question the reliability of any firm which patronizes our advertising columns. Discriminating advertisers recognize the Nonpartisan Leader as the best medium in the state of North Dakota through which to reach the wideawake and up-to-date farmers. . SPEAKING OF NERVE HE farmers of North Dakota will have to hand it to Gov- ernor Hanna and his administration on one score—for @%)) unadulterated nerve these gentlemen at Bismarck take the cake. g The readers of this paper are familiar with the way the gov- ernor’s board of control refused to carry out the orders of the 1913 legislature to take preliminary steps toward the construction of a state-owned terminal elevator, but instead spent a lot of money and time getting up a brief against building an elevator, when it already had been decided twice by the people and once by the legislature to build one. This was considerable nerve, but now comes the discovery that the board charged up part of the expense of getting up this ' brief against the elevator plan to the terminal elevator fund, ap- propriated to BUILD AND EQUIP THE ELEVATOR AND FOR NO OTHER PURPOSE, according to the terms of the act creat- ing the fund. Can you beat that? The board refuses to carry out the orders to furnish working plans and specifications for the elevator, as ordered, and instead gets up a report intended to knock the plan out, and then charges a part of the expense of this report against the fund for BUILDING the elevator! DEVELOPING SELFCONFIDENCE a performed a great service in that it has developed in the farmers of this state a degree of selfconfidence not here- tofore possessed. As far back as the mind of man runneth not all political meet- ings have been conducted by politicians. The average voter who happened to be present simply sat and looked on. The thing was pulled off about this way: _ After the crowd has gathered, a politjcian, who had been previously agreed upon by the few, across and called the meet- ing to order. “Who will you have for chairman?” he would ask. Some one, who had been previously “fixed” nominated the speaker. Another who had been ‘“fixed” moved that the nominations close. His election was made unanimous. ; v The secretary was elected the same way. The nominations were made the same way. The meeting adjourned the same way. But at the precinet meeting of February 22 it was different. Not a lawyer, banker, businessman or politician was present at any of the 1,200 meetings in this state. - For once in their lives the farmers found themselves in charge. They felt and appreciated the responsibility. They were not abashed and browbeaten by those more skilled in parliamentary tactics. With confidence in themselves and faith in the outcome they transacted the business of the meeting, in a fair, straightfor- ward and intelligent manner and went home. For once in his life the farmer has learned that he can do things without the help and leadership of the skilled politician. That, within itself, is worth something. ; A LITTLE SAMPLE OF MARKETING ‘ HOSE who see only one side of the question make a lot of noise about the glorious advantages of farming, gardening and trucking. In great astonishment they berate the farmer for permitting tons of fruits and vegetables to rot on the ground. “Why don’t they markgt it?” ~ they ask in amazement. Well, here is the story of a farmer who became enthused with the same idea. But he is over it now. His name is Jacob R. Johnson and he lives at Mountainburg, Ark.- Last summer: Mr. Johnson shipped 41 baskets—bushel baskets, mind you—of selected peaches to a commission house in Kansas City. He received $2.35 for the 41 bushel baskets, peaches and all Not quite six cents a basket. : 5 e Besides growing those peaches Mr. Johnson paid 15 cents per basket for picking them, 10 cents for hauling and 12% cents each for the backets—a total of 874 cents per bushel basket. - £ ~=n af tha haskets Mr. Johnson put his [' F the Nonpartisan League never does anything else it has - ~ economic conditions such that this industry ‘will be name and address, asking the buyer- to write and tell ) much the basket of peaches cost said buyer. He received a letter from a lady in Kansas City stating that she had bought the peaches from a huckster and that she paid him $1.15 per basket. Thus the consumer paid nearly twenty times as much as the producer received. : : o The farmer is getting tired of working merely to enrich the speculator and middle man. He is going after the market problem himself. THE POLITICAL STORM BECOMES A HURRICANE HEN the last legislative assembly turned down the farm- ers’ demand for certain legislation and told them to “go. E074] home and slop the pigs” they precipitated a political storm, the like of which has never been known before. The echo of that assembly was the rumbling thunder of wrathful discontent, at first low and indistinct, but ever growing louder and louder, coming from various parts of the state, until now it has reached the intensity of a hurricane. . Many a political barque that ventured upon the storm-tossed political sea of North Dakota has been sucked into the Sargasso sea of political oblivion or driven upon the reefs and are being battered to splinters by the fury of the storm. : The wise political skipper has sought the sheltering bays and remains securely lashed and anchored. A few unwise, though ven- turesome ones, have attempted navigation only to come to grief. It is safe to say that if the last legislative assembly had a chance to do its work over again it would, with a polite bow and beneficent smile, convey to the farmers of this state, on a silver platter, anything and everything they ordered. y = But in the language of the ancient monarch, “The edict has gone forth and cannot be recalled.” Let those who sowed the wind now reap the hurricane. NOT HIDING OUR LIGHT | doing in a news way. Modesty is always the best policy, )j but the Leader believes itself j ustified in pointing out now and then some of the points it has scored so as not to go to the other extreme of hiding our light under a barrel. On page 4 of our issue of February 3 we gave the only report printed in the state of the supreme court’s exposure of the trickery in the last legislature used to so amend the moneys and credits bill that it would not stand the tests of the courts after its pass- age. The legislature in this bill attempted to compromise a private lawsuit for the State Loan company, which had been sued by Ward county for $12,000 back taxes. The supreme court commented on this misuse of legislative machinery and the Leader was the only paper to report the opinion. _ Now the taxpayers of Ward county have taken it up. A news item from Kenmare states petitions will be filed with the county commissioners asking them to repudiate the compromise of the tax suit made under the legislative act, which the money lending corporation had influence enough to get through. The Leader hopes the publicity it gave the matter will result in the unfair and alleged unconstitutional compromise being aban- doned. NOT LIKE ALEXANDER HEN the farmers of North Dakota survey the conditions 4 under which they are living and view the one-sided de- [;-‘ DAN) velopment of the state which those conditions have brought about they need not, like Alexander, sigh for - worlds to conquer. They have a serious business immediately at hand, with nothing to lose and everything to gain. They have 80 per cent of the votes and are building an organization which will enable them to cast those votes as a unit, placing them in political control of the state. ‘ ; ; The Leader in this issue is printing some figures from Presi- dent Ladd of the State Agricultural college. This article graphicly shows how the failure of the milling and live stock industry to properly develop in North Dakota results in millions of dollars of - profit annually going out of the state, instead of dropping inte the pockets of the state’s farmers, If the bulk of the wheat were milled here the by-prodficté—r— shorts, bran, etc—would be available right on .the ground for ~ feeding to_live stock, without farmers having to pay freight out of the state on the raw product and back again on the finished product. Live stock raising would be profitable and the industry would return to the soil millions of dollars annually worth of the fertilizer now taken out with the wheat crop and sent out of 'th:e h state—lost forever. 5 : : Farmers are urged on every hand by “better farnfing” pi’éll)a;.‘-‘ ganda to do into the live stock business, but they are not to be blamed if, under present conditions, they fail or refuse When farmers, through organization, have made poli cal a nothing can keep them from taking advantage of these prof Read Dr. Ladd’s facts and figures in this issue, E Leader does not wish to brag about the ‘things it is '