The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 19, 1917, Page 8

Aot N - e = Interior of the co-operative store at Puyallup One man taught the berry growers the waste of the old ways of selling and buying. The force of his personality cheated the scheme of the trust to break up co-operative enter- prise. He made the same old story of farm- ers’ enterprises a little different. making money for the growers on what they sell. He thought he could make money for them on what they buy. So he built two co-operative stores, one at Puyallup and one at Sumner. The merchants and Commercial clubs set up a howl ““See here, what right have you to come in here and spoil our business?” they asked. “Spoil your business?” said Paul- hamus. “Why, there wouldn’t be any towns here if we hadn’'t organized and made money for the growers to spend with you. We have made this valley the place of residence of prosperous families, with money to spend at Sum- ner and Puyallup. A lot you fellows ever done for us, except take our money. We are going to start these stores to do part of our buying at cost, and there will be plenty left for you— much more than there would be if we had never gone into co-operation at all.” A LITTLE LESSON IN HIGH COST OF LIVING The stores, charging a margin of only 10 per cent for handling goods, did a business of $326,000 last year and made $9000 profit. They are big, up- to-date stores, clean and businesslike. Paulhamus runs the stores with a free hand, like he runs the canneries and marketing of fresh berries. He was traveling on an N. P. dining car once and ordered oatmeal for breakfast. He liked the oatmeal he got and asked the dining car conductor where he got it. He was given the name of a Montana mill and was told it was purchased in bulk. ; “It beats all this package stuff,” thought Paulhamus. He wired an order for a carload of this oatmeal for the stores. The mill, a small one, wired back that there must be a mistake, as nobody ever ordered a carload. Paulhamus in the mean- time had done some more figuring and wired back to make it two carloads. He abolished package oatmeal from: his stores and showed the people the bulk stuff was just as good and a lot cheap- er. Now the valley eats bulk oatmeal and saves money to add to savings Soft berries were the same problem to the Pacific Coast berry growers as dockage and “Feed D” wheat are to the Northwestern grain growers, and they found their profits sapped until these waste -products were taken care of where the crops were raised. accounts. No fancy labels and stuff made high-priced through big adver- tising bills and huge selling forces for Paulhamus. The ‘“‘co-op.” stores sell only bulk goods, but Paulhamus gets the best. The valley likes to have this man club it into common sense living methods. A day or two before I visited Puyal- lup, Paulhamus saw some of his farm- ers buying smelt, then at the height of its season, at 10 cents a pound at some of the Puyallup markets. He looked up smelt and found the chief source in the Pacific Northwest was XKelso, on the Columbia river. He wired down there for prices and a few days later dis- played smelt in the ‘co-op.” stores at 4 cents a pound, and made money - Paulhamus hasn’t any use for- at it. middlemen in buying for the co-opera- tive stores. He shies at traveling sales~ men. He knows where the whole- salers that the traveling men represent buy their stuff, and he goes there him- self and buys direct. ness ethics. It shoots to pieces all the venerated methods of the commercial system. But Paulhamus should worry. Conservative business men can’t un- derstand why Paulhamus shouldn’t buy stuff through accepted- channels at regular prices and add the regular re- tailer’'s profit, letting the consumer do the worrying. A BIG MAN WHO MUST HAVE HIS OWN WAY Paulhamus is an “honorable” now. He has served several terms as state senator and represented the “rubes” in the legislature. He has become one of the biggest men in the state. He was nearly elected governor once. Several times those working to reha- bilitate the apple business of the Paci- . fic Northwest have called on him for advice and leadership. 'The . apple business is all shot'to pieces and more growers are going broke every year. But the trouble is they won’t give Paulhamus a free enough hand in putting the apple business on its feet. He doesn’t work well with restrictions on him. He's got to be the whole cheese or nothing. Chances are, if you said, “Here, Paulhamus, is a big, fat salary and power of attorney to do as you please,” he would soon have This isn’t busi-~ / apples spelled with a capital “A” in the Pacific Northwest. He would get a stuffed club and go around beating growers of apples over the head till they woke up and co-operated the way he wanted them to. To really work well you would have to give him a :board of directors, not too insistent, to override occasionally. END OF THE STORY; THE FARMERS SELL OUT I hate to write the rest of this story. Paulhamus has told the Puyallup val- ley growers that they ought to accept the flattering offer of the cannery com- bine and sell out stores and canneries. And the growers, with only a few pro- testing (and mnot protesting very strong at that) have voted to sell. Of course, there will be a big melon cut= ting, for the:price offered is a big one and the 1800 members of the associa- tion will get- back many, many times what they put into the business. It is true the cannery combine is buying the growers out on Paulhamus’ terms, and ‘Paulhamus put his terms' so high he thought -they wouldn’'t buy. The canneries and stores are to be sold outright, but the cannery combine is e A T A AT P B USRS to enter into a 10-year contract with the growers’ association to pay certain fixed prices for berries. These prices, Paulhamus says, are better than the prices the co-operative canneries have been able to pay in their best years. In addition, the cannery combine is to enter into a. contract with Paul- hamus- to continue to manage the stores and canneries for four years. He is getting $300 a month now from the growers as salary. It has not been stated what he is to get from the new owners of the canneries and stores. If the new owners refuse to make a new favorable contract with the growers at the end of 10 years, Paulhamus says he will start another cannery for the growers. He says the valley canneries under the new management, with a big string of canneries and big organiza- tion, can pay better and will pay better for berries than the canneries in the valley owned co-operatively and oper= ating independently could. And the growers will continue their organiza- tion for marketing fresh fruit. Far be it from me to take exception to the statements of a forceful man like Paulhamus. I don’t wan't to feel like a grower does who stands on the oarpet in, the little office after he has slipped in one little, wee box of soft fruit and gets caught at it. But I will ask two questions. There is no harm in asking questions: Question 1.—How can the whole Pacific Northwest point with pride in the future to ‘“the most successful CO= - OPERATIVE enterprise in the coun- try,” when there ain’t no such thing any more? Question 2.—Does Paulhamus think some day that he will be running the whole string of canneries for the come bine, and is he ambitious? As to question 2, that cannery come bine had better look out if it doesn’t want to be run by a little, short, stocky man of Puyallup, one-time banker of Aberdeen, S. D. Paulhamus isn’t built to be the tail of a kite or take orders from anybody. - POLITICAL BONE HEADS (Editorial in Center (N. D.) Republican) They have ‘“bone heads” even in Minnesota. The Nonpartisan League has been attempting to organize that state, and in order to - confuse the farmer some old-time politicians in- corporated a nonpartisan organization filing organization papers with the secretary of state. One may honestly be opposed to the Nonpartisan League or some features of it, but to attempt to steal their thunder in this manner is nothing short of a “bonehead” play that will react on the orginators.