The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 20, 1917, Page 4

A Big Mill and a Little Store Some Farmers and Consumers and Working Men Who Stood Pat and Won a Big Victory for the People Against the Exploiters BY E. B. FUSSELL ARMERS and laboring men can't work together, in poli- tics or in any other way. Their interests are different. The farmers want high prices and the laboring men want low prices.” Did you ever have this hoary-headed old misstatement pulled on you? They get it off, the enemies of the farmer and the laboring man, about every so often, just as they used to get off that other one: “You can’t organize the farmers.” Probably the two of them got on the ark together. Anyway, they've been traveling together ever since. It doesn’t need much argument to show that the interests of workers in the country and workers in the city are the same; that both want the mid- dleman, who takes unjust toll from both the producer and consumer, elimi- nated. either, to show that the men who say “Farmers and laboring men can't work together” now are the same ones who used to say “You can’t organize the farmers,” or that the reason they are saying it is to try to keep the farmers and laborers from working together, just as they tried to keep the farmers from organizing. But this article does not propose to go into these arguments. This is just a story of one instance in Montana where the farmers and laboring men DID work together. MILL UNFRIENDLY TO ALL WORKERS At Great Falls, Montana, is located the Royal flour mill. It is often spoken of as the Rex mill, as that is the name of the brand of flour that it puts out. The Royal mill is a sub- sidiary of the” Washburn-Crosby Mill- ing company of Minnesota. The mill is supplied by the Rocky Mountain Elevator company’s line of elevators— a line of elevators that has been ex- It doesn’t need much argument,’ of the residents of Great Falls were strongly with the striking mill work- ers, and most of the patrons of the stores were demanding some other flour than the Rex brand. CRACKED THE WHIP OVER MERCHANTS But here was where the mill com- pany cracked the whip over the store proprietors. A meeting was held with the wholesalers of Great Falls, who handled the Rex flour. It is natural to suppose that with Rex flour made in Great Falls, with no necessity for ship- ping Montana wheat to Minneapolis to be milled and then shipping the flour back to Great Falls, that the Rex flour could be sold for a lower price than the Minneapolis flours. As a matter of fact, it had been held at approximately the same price. This meant, of course, larger profits for the millers and larger profits, for the middlemen, much of these profits going to the wholesalers. The company pointed out to the whole- salers that if the local stores refused to handle the Rex flour, the whole- salers wouldn’t be able to make such big profits in handling foreign flours. But whatever happened in this confer- ence between the mill company and the wholesalers, there is no doubt about the result. The wholesalers served notice on the retailers that they would not be sup- plied with any flour but Rex flour. And because the patrons of the store wouldn’t buy anything else, the em- ployers’ association, controlled by the mill, the big smelter and the whole- salers, determined on this course of action: WOULD FORCE PUBLIC TO EMPLOYERS’' VIEWS A lockout would be declared. The stores would all be closed. The clerks who had refused to handle the unfair Royal flour mill at Great Falls, Mont., where opposition to organization of work- ers started widespread labor troubles. ploiting Montana farmers for years. The farmers have always had sincere and probably well taken grievances against these elevators. The, question of these grievances ¢an not be gone into here—it is mentioned just to show that this big corporation was recog- nized as unfriendly to the farmers, just as many of the big milling corpora- tions have been, especially where the farmers have proposed to go into the milling business for themselves and save some of the profits for themselves and the consumers. But the Royal Milling company has not only been unfriendly to the farm- ers; it has been unfriendly to the labor- ing men as well. Last winter at Great ‘Falls the mill employes started to or- ganize for their own protection. They weren’'t asking better pay or shorter hours at this time; all they asked was the right to have their organization. And this right the Royal Milling com- pany denied them. Men were dis- charged as fast as they joined the union and as the only means left to them to insist upon their rights, the employes declared a strike. Other labor organizations in Great Falls sympathized with the mill work- ers. To emphasize their disapproval of the action of the milling company in refusing to let their men organize, the clerks’ union, which had men in prac- tically all the retail ntores, served notice that they would refuse to handle an unfair flour such as the Rex brand. .The owners of the retail stores at first seemed inclined to back up the stand of their clerks. The sympathies flour would be punished by being fired, wholesale, and the people of Great Falls, who wanted to use a flour made under fair conditions, would be punish- ed by being starved into submission. Owners of other businesses than Farmers' store, which broke up attempt to sandbag Great Falls consumers into buying a brand of flour that they didn’t want. stores—machine shops and garages, for instance—had been asked for better wages by their men, also. The em- ployers’ association decided that these employers should also join in the lock- out—should fire all their employes, also, and force their patrons to go without service. By this method, they thought, they could bring the public, which was clamoring for a fair deal to the working men, “to their senses.” The employers determined to shove what they wanted down the throats of the public and make them say that they liked it. And so, one day last spring, every store in Great Falls was closed. Scores of other business houses were closed, too, and their employes informed curt- ly that they were fired, but this story deals only with the stores. FARMERS’ CREDITOR DEMANDED MONEY Did I say every store was closed? ‘Well, there was one exception, but no one thought much about that. On a side street was a little store that had been started by a handful of farmers, to help them dispose of their own prod- ucts direct to the consumer. They call- ed it the Equity market. It had been started with meager finances and had been struggling to maintain an exist- ence. The farmers’ store didn't close. Resi- dents of Great Falls, thunderstruck by finding their regular trading places with locked doors, started to flock to the farmers’ store for their supplies. But the enemies of the farmers and laboring men were not through. The farmers’ store had a creditor to whom it owned $3500. This man had said previously that the store could take some weeKks or months to meet this obligation. But at 8 o’clock on the HAYSEED IS RISIN’ We kin all of us remember how along ’bout September The papers used to tell about the caucus or the fair, . End them fellers from the city used ter git almighty witty On the feller with the duster what had hayseed in his hair. They had fun in legislaters with the man what raised pertaters, If by any hook or crook or chance elected and sent there H End the reportorial friskers used ter comment on the whiskers, End the carpetsack of Bilson, what had hayseed in his hair, Yes, b’gosh! he rid his pass out, end he used to blow the gas out, End he used to drink hard cider when he went out on a tear; End he used ter pinch a dollar ’till the buzzard used ter holler, End the man cut up ree-diklous what had hayseed in his hair. But, by gum! ef you’ve been readin’ you observe a strange proceedin’— It’s the feller with chin whiskers that is slowly gettin’ there End it won’t be too surprising ef by lowly organizin’ ¢ _Old parties may wake up to find the hayseeds in their hair. When the fashions change you fellers will all carry green unbrellers, End trousers wide across the seat to make the dudelets stare ; In them times ef you pass muster you must wear a linen duster, End ef you want to throw on style put hayseed in your hair. MRS. LEWIS SHROLL, Hiddenwood, N. D, ° PAGE FOUR morning of the lockout, this man ap- peared at the farmers’ store with his bill, and demanded that it be paid by 11:30 o’clock that morning, or he would close the store. Here is where the laboring men come in again. The managers of the store called up a number of labor lead- ers and told them of the persecution being visited upon the farmers because they had been fair to the laboring men. Seven labor men got together imme- diately and went to one friendly bank in Great Falls, signed notes for $500 each and had the $3500 ready to meet the payment at 11:30 a. m. This isn’t all of the story. A lot more might be written about the troubles of the farmers’ store in getting flour from other mills in Montana to meet the demands of the people of Great Falls. The store had a carload of flour in the railroad.yards from a “fair” mill, but the railroad, on one pretext and another, tried to keep the store from getting hold of it, and succeeded in de- laying the delivery for many hours, until the aid of the friendly bank was secured, and when this institution “laid down” on the railroad, the flour was delivered. There is just this much more to be said. Pretty much of everybody flock- ed to the farmers’ store to get thir flour and meats and other provisions. At the end of two days the other stores gave up the fight and opened their doors, hiring back their clerka. The other employers held out a little longer, but after awhile they gave in, hired back their empleyes, generally at increased wages. The flour mill em- ployes won their strike also. LABOR UNION MEN TAKE OVER STORE During the pendency of the lockout the Equity held a state convention in Great Falls. The secretary of the Com- mercial club approached some of the Equity men and told them that unless the farmers would withdraw their sup- port from ‘the labor men, the two big= gest hotels in Great Falls would close down during the convention and refuse to accommodate any of the delegates. But the farmers declared that most of them couldn’t afford to stop at the big hotels and pay $3 or so for a room with a bath, anyhow, and for the hotels to go ahead and close down, if they felt like it. As a matter of fact they didn’t close down. This is about all there is to say, ex- cept that the labor men touk over the farmers’ store, applying the ¢2500 as first payment, and are still operating - it. A number of union mechanics who started a co-operative garage during the lockout, are still operating this, too; The Great Falls incident is just a step in the right direction. The farm- ers and laboring men of Montana haven’t started, to any considerable extent, to co-operate in politics yet. But they are going to do this very thing at the next election. And, just as nothing could stop the two of them, working together, in Great Falls, so nothing’ can stop the twe organizations, working together, in the whole sta of Montana next year. -