The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 17, 1917, Page 3

In the interest of a square deal \ for the farmers Nonpartisan Teader A magazine that dares ty print the trath Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League —_— VOL. 4, NO. 20 FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1917. HIS is a tall cartoon on a tall subject, the story of one of the I tallest grafts the country knows anything about—the seandal- ous food products rakeoff taken by the speculators and the big business combination which is busy all the time making foods as expensive as possible to the consumer and keeping the price as low as possible to the producer. The farmers have been talking about this thing for a long time. They have known that the peopleswere getting the worst of it at both ends, but they have not been able to make everybody see that. When prices were high the food middlemen and speculators would say: ‘‘Well, you see, grain is scarce and the farmers are getting higher prices for their stuff'all the time.”” Then they ‘would turn around and tell the farmers: ‘“No, we can’t pay muech for this wheat. It’s got a lot of ‘inseparable’ stuff in it and it will not make good, white flour, and the people demand nothing but white flour.”’ That’s the way it has gone—using the farmer as a horse on which to ride to hold up the consumer, while boards of trade and all sorts of middlemen and speculators have been making millions upon millions out of the ‘‘spread’’ between what the farmer gets and the consumer pays. - * * * GETTING AT THE TRUTH HERE'S some good in a war after all. It is bringing things to a I head. Itis showing that the producers and the consumers must s act together. It is showing that the interest of the American people is above the ‘‘private right’’ of the pirates of the food market to rob the people. Prices on all foodstuffs now are outrageously high. Everybody is feeling the pinch. Public officials have been forced by the pressure of public opinion to make inquiry. One of them in particular has been making an inquiry for the United State government. What he found out has aroused his indignation and he is speaking in plain terms. Let us quote to you a few things he has said. The man who is speaking is Carl Vrooman, assistant secretary of the United States department of agriculture. .Here are his words: 5 ‘“Wheat is the puppet of speculators. The farmer aver- aged to get $1.30 for his wheat last year. Look at the price today. : ‘““There 'is a powerful lobby, representing those who would rob the public for profit, at work in Washington today trying to prevent control of the food supply. ‘‘The government has got to control the situation or the food speculators will. ‘We need food more than anything else in the world; more than men or ammunition.’’ 2 *# %k * SAY, DO YOU REMEMBER? X the farmer in the past? You remember they told you that any attempt to get better prices through state or government action was a ‘‘granger’’ idea or a ‘‘populist vagary,’”’ and more re« cently they have been telling you that is was ‘“Soeialistic’’ and they bave even gone to the length of telling you that it was ‘‘unpatriotic.”’ (It’s always ‘‘unpatriotic’’ in the view of these gentlemen if you try to take their unholy profits away from them.) The Nonpartisan League proposes through political action to stop some of the more outrageous features of the robbery in the market. N OW do you remember some of the things they have been telling Its members have trusted to ‘‘the law of supply and demand,’’ as ii- - terpreted and enforced and manipulated by the food speculators, alto- gether too long. : : The little lackeys of Big Business are shouting at the Nonpartisan League that the ideas of the farmers are ‘‘absurd,’’ ‘‘crazy,’’ ‘‘vision- ary,”’ and now look what comes along! Here is a high.government official who has made an investigation and declares that nothing bug ¢ government action’’ will stop the waste = and the robbery—just exactly what the farmers have been claiming 4 all the time.- And how are the farmers to get that sort of action? How else CAN they get it without banding together and asserting their POWER in political affairs? : : * * * ‘“ALLIES OF THE KAISER” T OW we are ready to hear some more words by this high gov- ernment official. What we quoted above was spoken in 5 Chicago, where Mr. Vrooman had gone to find out just what N N 2 X N ISR RO RRRIITIN R RRIITIIN RN was going on in the principal food market, the clearing-house of the products of the great west. Here are some things he said after he had got back to Washington and was reporting what he had found: g ‘‘There are food speculators, food cornerers and food gamblers, some of them men of immense wealth and others of very small means, who are today taking advantage of war conditions to exploit their fellow citizens to the full extent of their ability. These men are ; (Continued on page 13). THREE WHOLE NUMBER 87