The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 29, 1917, Page 5

Part of the waterfront at Seattle, taken by the author fromrthe deck of the Steamer Tacoma. front in the middle of the picture is from the publicly-owned West Seattle ferry. was taken. HIS is to be an account of one of the most successful and ex- tensive systems of publicly- owned terminals in the Unit- ed States. It properly begins with the story of a farmer. Call him Smith, or Olson. He lived near Brem- erton, across Puget Sound from Seat- tle, Wash.,, the great metropolis and port. of the Pacific Northwest. He was like thousands of other farmers that lived in this rich farming country and supplied Seattle and other big towns and cities of this region with potatees, eggs, garden truck, milk, poultry and other farm products. Smith found a market for his stuff among the retailers of Bremerton, when the farm he had hewed out of stump “land and forest began to pro- duce. He got fair prices. He looked ahead with reasonable certainty to a not distant time 'when he could lift the mortgage and buy an automobile— reward for his 12 to 16 hours a day toil. “WE DON'T WANT TO BUY OF YOU ANY MORE" Then, suddenly, one day .when he came to town with a load of farm pro- ducts, he met an unprecedented condi- tion. His old customers, the retailers, told him they did not want anything from him that day. One or two in- formed him that they probably never would want any more of - his ‘stuff. Smith did not wunderstand this. He went to a:grocer. who was a personal friend and asked him what was up. “To be frank with you,” said this grocer, “none of us can buy of you any more. You will have to send your products to Seattle—to the commis- sion houses. We have to buy of them.” Pressed for a reason for this, the retailer said that the _commission houses and the wholesale grocery houses of Seattle had organized and nrotified the retailers of Bremerton that ~ WHAT SEATTLE Has Done DY Oliver &. Morrié Americas Best Example of Public Ownership qugcc essful Operation HE first of the promised articles by Mr. Morris on publicly- T owned and operated utilities is given herewith. The story of the publicly-owned system of grain elevators, cold storage plants, wharves and other terminal facilities at Seattle, Wash., is so big and so important that Mr. Morris can not handle it in one article. The present article tells conditions before and after the people stepped in to drive the unnecessary toll takers from the gate of one of the world’s great markets, like the money changers were driven from the temple of o.d. It also enumerates the utilic ties operated by the people and tells something ‘of each. Subse-’ quent articles by Mr. Morris will tell of the almost superhuman fight the people put up to get this publicly-owned. system ~of * terminal facilities and of the opposition from the business men, the banlkers, the commercial clubs, the newspapers, the railroads and the vested interests and monopolies whi¢h grafted on pro- ducer and ‘consumer alike, and which were put out of business by this remarkable and successful effort of the people to establish free markets and free commerce for a free people. Every big thing is the projection of a big man, and Seattle’s publicly-owned terminal facilities-are no exception. The one man above all others responsible for Seattle’s wonderful awakening is a big loose- jointed Scotchman, ‘“the most stubborn man in Seattle.”” He is the biggest man in Seattle today, the most cursed and ridiculed, the most loved and respected and he is.a farmer. His life is at once a romance, an epic, a tale of struggle and work under hope- less conditions and a story of vietorious battles and great accom- plishments that no reader of the Leader should omit reading. “hereafter they couldsget no more sup- plies and credit in Seattle unless they cut out dealing direct with the farmers. The retailers had to obey. They had to have credit in Seattle and had to get their supplies there to do business. - Now Smith had not been sending his produce to Seattle because he had tried ft. His products had to be brought over by boat, and no boat could land at Seattle éxcept over a privately-owned and operated wharf. These wharves were controlled by railroads, the big importing and exporting firms and by the big commission men. The toll on the products of a‘®small farmer going over these wharves was ‘excessive. This was not all. When the stuff was landed it had to be disposed of at once, as prices for storing were high and storing facilities limited. The only way to dispose of it was to sell it to the commission houses. When a commis- sion man offered a .price, the farmer The white smoke obscuring par? of the buildings on the wéter- The ferry can be seen just under the smoke cloud. It was raining when the picture had to take it or dump his pro_duclis into the bay. Those who controlled the wharves were allied with those who' operated the cold storage plants and storage warehouses and with those middlemen who bought and sold, tak- ing toll from producer and consumer. The “system” stood on guard at the gate of Seattle, assessing every pound of freight and produce that pzs.:d in or out—assessed it out of all propor- tion to the services performed. RAPACIOUS MARKET COMBINE THROTTLING THE FARMERS This was the rapacious combine that reached out to throttle even the little business of IParmer Smith at Bremer- ton. It was overlooking no bets, large or small. Smith and the thousands of other farmers accepted the inevitable. What else could they do? Even when a public market was established at Seattle the farmers had difficulty get- “ting their products there to sell direct te the consumers of the great city. They still had to go over the private wharves and conditions were such that that only a small part of the produce escaped the tollage of the commission houses. This story was told to me by C. E, Remsberg, member of the. Port Com- mission of Seattle. I got many such stories.: I heard how the fishermen, the producers of the ocean, were at the mercy of the fish trust, which controll- ed the wharves and cold storage plants and monopolized the business of sup- plying fishermen with the « provisions and equipment needed in their busi- ness. I heard how boat loads pof fish, fo= which the trust offered one' cent a poand, were thrown in the bay by angry fishermen who refused to sell at that price. And at that very moment the people of Seattle were paying 15 a " The Hanford street publicly-owned wharf.at Seattle, operated in connection with a publicly-owned elevator for grain. The picture was taken when the ele- vator, probably the only publicly-owned one in the United States, was under construction. The scaffolding used in building the elevator can be seen back of the wharf buildings. FIVE | §