The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 30, 1917, Page 6

D sl g R AIEEE, Nonpartigan Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Thursday. Entered as second-class matter September 3, 1915, at the postoffice at Fargo, North Dakota, under the Act of March 3, 1879. OLIVER S. MORRIS, EDITOR Advertising rates on application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.50. Communications should be addressed to the Nonpa.rusnn Leader, Box 941, Fargo, North Dakota. MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE S. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, Advertismg Representatives, New York, Chicagu, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. Quack, fradulent and irresponsible firms are not knowingly advertised, 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. THE PRICE OF WHEAT REPORTS from the national capitol at this writing are that the United States food administration, under the new food bill, intends to commandeer the wheat crop at a price under $2. The price committee appointed by the president under the food control bill, . just passed, has not yet decided the price and these reports may be false. They come, however, from reliable sources and have been generally credited by the newspapers. Two dollar wheat or less means ruination for most wheat farmers. Such a price is less than the cost of production in this year of doubled costs for the farmer and small yields per acre. Two dollar wheat means that farmers can make more money feeding grain to the hogs and selling the hogs at prevailing prices, which many of them will do. It means betraying the farmers, it will diseredit food regulation and all government regulation with the farmers, and the farmers will not continue urging the taking of excess war profits for the war and the taking over of the mills and packing plants. They want to give government control a black eye by setting such a low price on wheat that all government regulation of war profits and middlemen will be discredited among the farmers, Much suspicion has been aroused by the appointment of these Big Business representatives as advisors and lieutenants of Hoover in the food administration. The Leader has hesitated to criticize these ap- pointments, because it felt that President Wilson and Hoover should be given a chance to give producers a fair deal. By fixing a low price for wheat, the Big Interests that deal in and manufacture the farmers’ crops—which interests the farmers and consumers have been fighting —think they can get lower prices for consumers without cutting their own profits and can prove to the consumer that it is really the farmer who is to blame for high prices. The farmer and consumer have been working too much together against the great, grafting middlemen’s system to suit the Big Interests. A plea is being made to get the con- sumers back of the plan to cut the farmers’ profits below a reasonable figure. Every effort should be made by the farmers-to let their views on what a fair price is be known. * * * The Colorado federation of labor, the Colorado women’'s clubs and the Colorado association of farmers’ clubs have all indorsed the National Nonpartisan feague and its program for Colorado. It is now up to the eastern press to point out Colorado, as well as North Dakota, as “the black spot on the map of the United States.” * * * WHOSE WAR IT IS? HE position of official Washington in regard to peace terms, I as expressed by news dispatehes lately, is discouraging. Official Washington is letting it be understood that it looks upon every proposition to who were urged by the govern- D discuss peace terms as ‘‘cunning ment to sow extra acreage this FRAMING THE WAR TAX BILL I German propaganda.’”’ It brands year as an act of patriotism on the promise of a fair deal in price. The farmers did their best. Weather and pests cut down the crop through no fault of the farm- - ers. Are the farmers, who assum ed heavier mortgages to put in bigger crops, to be cheated now by the government? Nonpartisan league repre- sentatives at Washington, D. C., ineluding Congressman Baer, are doing their best to make the food administration see the light. Isti- mates they have obtained from thousands of wheat farmers show that $2.50 to $3, and even more in some cases, has been the actual cost of raising a bushel of wheat this year, to say nothing of inter- est on investment and wages for the farmer. The Nonpartisan Leader, immediately when the price-fixing committee was ap- pointed, sent telegrams to 150 Northwest farmers, asking them to telegraph Dr. E. F. Ladd, presi- dent of the North Dakota Agri- cultural - college, member of the price-fixing committee appointed through the influence of Con- gressman Baer, and tell him what it has cost this year to raise wheat. This was the first move to get a square deal for producers. These farmers were asked by the Leader to have as many other farmers as possible telegraph Dr. Ladd their costs this year, and what they considered a reasonable price. This alone has resulted in several hundred telegrams informing the price- fixing eommittee the cost of producing spring wheat this year. These telegrams state that a fair price for wheat this year is $3 at the least, and some estimate it higher. g Food Administrator Hoover has surrounded himself w1th a num- ber of Chamber of Commerce men and other Big Business representa- tives, who are supposed to be ‘‘co-operating’’ with the government in the matter of food control. If it is true that the price-fixing committee is considering $2 or less for wheat this year, it is doubtless due to the influence of these men. They are interested in discrediting food con- trol. They are against it——they always have been against interference by the government with private business and the war has not changed them. They think that if a low enough price for wheat can be fixed the demand of the Ameriean peo- x = ple that the government state de- HEAVE HO! HE finitely the terms 6n which it will MIGHT AS WELL . HAUL THIS TOQ. | - make peace as ‘‘premature’’ and > o ‘“‘unpatriotic.”” When a wide- spread sentiment in any part of the country develops, demanding that definite peace terms be stat- ed, official Washington is sur- prised and pained. Instead of considering - this expression of public opinion as a straw showing how the people feel and as an expression for the guidance of the people’s servants- at the capitol, official Washington *‘deplores’’ the activities of ‘‘agitators’’ and the ‘“‘misinformation’’ that exists in various parts of the country in regard to the country’s war aims. Instead of being guided by this expressed public opinion, it indi- cates that it intends by publicity or other means to ‘‘dissipate’’ the ““misunderstanding’’ of the peo- ple. In brief, official Washington thinks this war is official Wash- ington’s war. The people are to participlate by furnishing lives and money, of course, but official ‘Washington will run the war and brook no suggestions. Official Washington will not be guided by public opinion, but 11: will attempt to guide public opinion. There must be a change i this attitude. This is the people’s war. The people are putting up the lives and the money and they intend to have a voice in it. They do not intend to be brushed aside as the Ger- man people have been ruthlessly brushed aside by the German autoc- racy. They intend to have more of a voice in the war than the rulers of Germany have permitted the German people to have. With official ‘Washington the people of this country deplore the fact that the Ger- man people have been unable to express themselves, 'and they do not in- tend to let official VVashmgton FORCE THE SAME KIND OF A GAG ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. - The aneapohs Chamber of Commerce doubled its commissions for handling grain by a vote of members. The vote was 213 to 33. It may be mentioned the farmers did not vote on it. It doesn’t concern them— their only part is to dig up the extra million this year to pay the addi- tional fees. If they had balloted the votes would have been 21545:799 against raising the commission and none for it. PAGE SIX T L AT e e = = s e - T T S hfiflummmwww e