The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 4, 1917, Page 4

R AREROTINNT AT ° Farmers Fix Rules of Game How the Dairy Industry of North Dakota is Being Revived Under the New Administration, Flected by the Farmers Through the Nonpartisan League BY RALPH L. HARMON N North Dakota there are over 200 local creameries that have been started with farmers’ capital in an effort to trans- form this almost exclusively grain growing state into a diversified state. Big Business, bankers, and agri- cultural college advisors have for years been telling the farmers they ought to go into dairying and intensive live- stock raising. The farmers believe they should. They have tried, and they are still trying. But out of the 200 creameries (and over) they have start- ed, only 75 to 80 are now in operation. The rest have been put out of busi- ness through discriminatory cream rates, through dishonest practices. of overtesting and underweighing cream and stealing of customers by the big fellows outside the state, or have fail- ed because the farmers who sincerely wanted to improve their community were led to establish creameries at places that were not adapted to the in- dustry. This condition of things has existed for years, but not until the farmers’ administration got into of- fice at Bismarck was there any appar- ent realization of what the department of agriculture and dairy commissioner ought to do to improve things. CAPITALIZE ENTHUSIASM TO SELL MACHINERY One of the worst abuses has been the slick schemes by which agents work- ing for some unscrupulous dairy ma- chinery companies have capitalized the drift towards intensive farming, to work the farmers up to a high pitch of enthusiasm for dairying and slough off onto them $3000 or $5000 worth of ma- chinery to start a-local creamery. This has been the curse of all the North- west, including Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas. It has wasted hun- dreds of thousands of dollars of farm- ers’ hard earned money. It has put scores of creameries where they never could hope to succeed. But this practice went on unrebuked in any public way until J. J. Oster- haus, the new dairy commissioner un- der Jobn N. Hagan, commissioner of agriculture of the farmers’ administra« tion, issued a public warning to farm- ers not to fall for this plausible stuff, and not to invest their money until they had more than the smooth talk of these machinery agents. That it has put a severe check on this easy-money harvest is apparent by protests that have reached the dairy commissioner's office. Meantime not less than half a million dollars of good money is tied up in these bankrupt and impossible institutions in North Dakota alone. But it is not alone in having saved farmers from making further dis- astrous investments, that the dairy commissioner and commissioner of agriculture have helped. They have for the first time in the history of North Dakota made a determined fight to stamp out unfair discrimination against local creameries through cream rates. Here, too, has been a universal crime practiced against industry and agriculture, similar in all its bad re- spects to the discrimination in freight rates—rebates and such things that used to wreck business concerns when their bigger rivals lined up with the express companies. NEW REGIME GETS FAIRER CREAM RATES And again the express companies are guilty. From most of the cream ship- ping points in North Dakota it has been cheaper to send cream clear to the Twin Cities or to Duluth, than to ship ‘it to any of the nearby farmers’ creameries, The result was that the big fellows came in. paid a little more for the cream, and through favorable express rates laid it down at their big centralizers for less money than the struggling farmers’ - institution could lay it down on the platform in the very center of the dairy districts—that is if it had to be shipped a few miles by rail. For this reason most of the local creameries that still keep their heads ahove water are those situated where they can get enough cream hauled in by teams to keep them going. So well known was this general abuse that Commissioner of Agricul- ture J. N. Hagan announced within his first two weeks in office (about the middle of last January) that his de- partment was going after the cream rates. He kept his word, and through This is the second of a series of articles answering the question, ‘“What have they done?”’ directed against the farmer officials of North Dakota, elected by the Nonpartisan league. The first told how the farmers fixed taxes this year. This deals with the laws passed AND ENFORCED to prevent discrimination against farmers’ creameries. Some states have passed laws to protect farmers’ ereameries against the unfair tactics of the big cen- tralizers, but the North Dakota farmers have not only passed such laws, BUT THEY ARE ENFORCING THEM. The farmer offi- cials have been in office less than nihe months—a short time to restore to the people a government that the politicians and the Big Interests have been 30 years taking away from the people. But the farmer officials do not dodge the question, ‘“What have you done?”’ They welcome it, and this series is the answer. ‘Wonders have been accomplished. Things hoped for and fought for under the old regime for years by the farmers are being realiz- ed under the farmers’ administration, which really hasn’t begun to have a fair trial yet. the co-operation of the farmers’ attor- ney general's office, which detailed H. A. Bronson to handle the cases, and through the help of the farmers’ rail- road commission, the old order of things has been completely overturned. Of course the rates are still far too high, but the big thing accomplished is that rates have been greatly reduced for hauls under 100 miles, and that will give all the little fellows within the state a chance to get cream by rail, that they never had before. For instance, the 1ate for a 10-gal- lon can hauled 30 miles, has been re- duced from 26 to 19 cents; the rate on the same size can for 50 miles has been reduced from 30 to 21 cents; for 75 miles from 33 to 25 cents, etc. As a result there are a number of farmers’ co-operative creameries that have heretofore been compelled to operate on the small amount of cream tribu- tary to them by wagon, which can now draw from a distance of 30 to 50 miles by rail, and it will no doubt save some of these institutions from closing. But the worst practice of all that has Commissioner of Agriculture J. N. Hagan (at the right) and Dairy Commissioner J. J. Osterhaus, leaving the capitol at Bismarck together. EQUITY BACKS LEAGUE . (From the Montana Equity News) Enemies of the Nonpartisan league and the American Society of Equity have been anxious to brand these two big farmers’ organizations as disloyal to the government of the United States. First they tried to make people believe that the I. W. W. and the Nonpartisan league were cronies. And now they are trying to make out that the People’s Council for democracy and peace is allied with the Nonpartisan League. As Equity members are joining the Nonpartisan league almost to the man, the inferences concerning the latter are indirectly aimed -at the Equity member- ship. It is interesting to note the Noupartisan Leader’s reply to such foolish accusations: “The League is not allied with any other organization, nor has it any- thing in common with or to do with war policies put forward by any other organization. The League’'s war policy differs sharply with that of the People’s Council for democracy and peace, and the League has refused to be represented in the People’s Council. Among other things the People's Council is asking for the repeal of the conscription law, while the League’s position is one of support for the principle of conscription and its appli- cation also to wealth, so that the dollars as well as the men can be drafted.” The American Society of Equity has but one war prineciple: Loyalty to the cause of democracy and the American people. We do not believe that the silly and unreasonable actions of the “‘People’s Council for democracy and peace’’ are conducive to an early peace or a safe democracy. FARMERS ARE PATRIOTIC The enemies of the Nonpartisan league very freely circulated the story before the meetings in Fargo and St. Paul that they were to be held for the purpose of hampering the government in its work. Now that these meetings have been held it has been proved that when it comes to backing the govern- ment the farmers’ organization is will- ing to be far more lberal than any of the “shoot-mouth” critics ever dreamed of being. The meeting put to rest for aufim:hthencryot“dmloyalt:"asred gards the Nenpartisan league—~NEW ROCKEFORD (N. D.) TRANSCRIPT, PAGE FOUR contributed to naili.ng the boards over the doors of more than 120 local cream-’ eries in° North Dalkota, has been the underhanded discrimination by the big cream buyers themselves. This is done in every state but it took a Nonparti- san league legislature in North Da- kota, elected by the farmers, to correct this evil, first by passing two new laws, and then through law enforce- ment by the Nonpartisan officials in office. FARMER ADMINISTRATION ENFORCES NEW LAWS - A case now pending before the com- missioner of agriculture and the dairy commissioner illustrates the point, the evidence having been carefully gather- ed by officials of the department them= selves, with farmers and buttermakers at two creameries as withnesses. On July 9, Ferdinand Rahn, a farmer living near Krem, Mercer county, took a can of cream to town. He intended to sell it to the local creamery at Krem, but he met department officials who changed its destiny. A sample was taken and tested by the buttermaker at Krem, and showed 39 per cent but- terfat. Then a duplicate test was made, showing the same. This cream was then taken to Hazen some 10 miles away to another local creamery, where it was again tested twice by another buttermaker and found to carry 39 per cent butter fat. It was then sold to a buyer for big centralizers outside of North Dakota and lo and behold it got a test of 43 per cent butterfat! HOW THEY OVERTEST TO THROTTLE COMPETITION It was given a 43 per cent test so the farmer would be tickled and bring more cream to the outside buyer and quit selling to the local creamery. It didn’t contain 43 per cent butterfat, and the buyer knew it, but he could well af- ford to overtest it if that would mean the gaining of this customer’s cream, and strangling local competition. He knew that if the same cream were taken to the local creamery it would not be given such a test, and if the farmer, suspicious of the outside buyer, tried. this proof, why of course the out- side buyer would be the ‘“candy kid.” (He did not know, however, that it had already been tested four times with a lot of witnesses to see the test.) The other side of -this overtest trick occurred when the cream was weighed —the buyer underweighed it two pounds, so that on the first round he came near making up for his overtest, This is the customary line of trickery practiced by buyers for the big cen- tralizers wherever they have local com- petition. It is where there is no com- petition they give low prices and snap their fingers at the old familiar method of crushing out business opposition— and when opposition is dead, the tests are reduced, as well as the weighing, and the farmers can only gnash their teeth in helpless fury at having been trapped. MANY LAW VIOLATORS PUT OUT OF BUSINESS At the time this article was written this buyer’s case was pending before the dairy commissioner for cancellation of his license. One of the laws passed by the farmer legislature last winter provides licensing for every buyer of cream or milk, and cancelling licenses for “violation of any of the dairy laws.” That was the case pending against this buyer. He is of course also amenable to the other law passed by the farmer legislature, which provides a fine of not less than $100 or not less than 30 days in jail for the first offense of thig kind. No criminal case had been started against this cream buyer so far :.s known when this article was Writ- en. But licenses have been revoked for cream buyers at Gackle, Hazen, Ashley, New Leipzig, and two at Dawson, fox" violation of .Some of the dairy laws., These buyers are now out of business for the year, and the people against whom they were working are free from their practices for awhile. Some of these buyers were put out of business for refusal to procure a license, and some for other reasons. The big thing is that the dairy department of the new regime is right on the job and is working in behalf of the people and a great industry, instead of allowing out- gide concerns with huge capital to come tnto the state, wreck local industry, lndrobth.eta.rmmofthejustfruit.l of their toil and cash outlay.