The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, January 14, 1918, Page 20

T LT e S ADVERTISEMENTS ATENTION South Dakota Members We shall carry on a speaking campaign during the coming winter, and for this purpose shall have several League speakers - of national reputatlon It is our desire to hold one or more such meetings in every county in South Dakota, at the county seat when practicable, or, at some other town in the county more conveniently located and having a larger hall. ‘We have already begun to route the first speaker in the course. If you want one or more of these free lectures in your county, please fill out the information blank printed below and mail it to the SOUTH DAKOTA BRANCH of the NATIONAL NONPARTISAN LEAGUE, Box 464, SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA. With your assiltance, we shall be able to arrange a meeting in your neighborhood sometime during the next three months. In order to make these meetmgs a complete success, the co-operation of the League members in all parts of the state is earestly solicited. Send us the information at once, so that we can complete our routing of speakers for the entlre state with as little delay and as economieally as possible. ............. sisiswevenioe v sreee QONMNEYS ol it s d s naisd Name of Hall..... D R R R R I N — —— — ———— o ——— w— Address _____________________ e ] Té Colorado Members We are planning on holding a few meetings in every county in the state this winter. Where practical we will hold these meetings in school houses and county halls. - To secure a meeting in your locality, fill in, eut out and mail this blank to the National Nonpartisan League, L. B. No. 538, Denver, Colo. ‘We should have this infor- mation without delay. . Uiy s (A RO PR B e County: ... 5uais shtdaare Name of Hall. i lon. coatani i 5, Price. . i i Location : sssreves Man who will secure hall and advertise meeting ...Twp.....Range..., Name of paper or papers Name of editor.... Remarks + —-——-Cut This Out and Mail to Us-——-— though that is not his name. How Price Regulation Works A Conversation With A Farmer in the State of Washington N. S. RANDALL E average man believes that when the government, through Mr. Hoover, fixed a price on the ‘wheat the farmers had to sell that this act settled every ques- tion of the possibility of the wheat gamblers taking too large a profit for handling of the farmers’ wheat. A story as it was told to me by a .wheat raiser of Washington will soon dispel this idea. Here is the story by a farmer whom I will call Smith, You see Smith owes the banker and bankers read the Nonpartisan Leader, so you will understand why I do not give this farmer’s real name. Smith sajd: “I am working a 200-acre faim situ- ated -about equal . distance between two railroad towns. The town to the east of me is a down-hill haul ‘while the town to the west is an up-hill pull. “When I got ready to market my wheat I loaded up two teams and took the down-hill haul in preference to the up-hif one. We have to market our wheat in sacks here and we are oblig- ed to pay 18 cents a piece for our sacks, and a sack holds a little over two. bushels of wheat, The system penalxzes ‘the wheat grower about nine cents per bushel on sacks alone, and besides that we are docked a pound for every sack we ship. At the warehouse I was informed that owing to the activities of German spies the terminal elevators were not encouraging the shipments of wheat, but they would take my wheat for local storage and -advance me $1.50 per bushel and pay the balance when the wheat had been sold for export. In the mean time I was to pay inter- est on the amount advanced at the rate of 6 per cent but would not re- / \ ceive any interest on the unpaid bal- - ance owing to me. “The next day I took my wheat to the town with the up-hill haul and while I received the full price agreed upon I was docked most unmercifully, and I figure'I am between the devil and the deep sea and have the best object lesson I ever had of the neces- sity .of a farmers’ organization that deals with the making of the.rules of the game. I'm tired playing the game according to the rules established by the other fellow, and if the Nonparti- san league can at least make an at- tempt to give the farmer some voice in determining the rules under which the farmer is compelled to conduct his own business, I for one am willing to invest $16 to help in that direction.” I asked Mr. Smith if he tried to pay his bills the same way that the grain buyers bought his wheat. He replied that he knew better than to ask the banker to accept 75 per cent of what he (Smith) owed and expect the banker to pay him 6 per cent on the balance unpaid. “But for the life of me I can’t under- stand why the rule would not work both ways,” he said. “I say I could not understand this if I did not under- stand the system of making the rules, but understanding this I also under- stand that the only means whereby the farmer and the working man can never hope to make the rules is to make them just as the other fellow who now makes them does and that is by the use of his political power for himself, and not peddle it around among the old political gangs who never know them the next day after election but can always be founa help- ing make any rule that our “prof- iteers” and our food gamblers want made. Farmers Did Not Complain Olaf Ribb Answers Washmgton State Attack on the Non- partisan League Donnybrook, N. D Editor Nonpartisan Leader: The Anacortes American, published at Anacortes, Wash., says of the Non- partisan league: “It proposes to exempt all farm improvements from taxation, and build grain elevators, storage warehouses, etc.,, from money - derived through state bond issues, the interest and principal of which the general taxpayer must meet. That this is fair to anybody but the farmer seems a far-fetched argument and dis- tinctively untenable. It is class legis- lation of the rankest kind. And that is not all, as indicated by. the demand of the Nonpartisan .league members that the government fix the price of wheat at $3 per bushel solely for their benefit and regardless of the welfare of the country.” The first portion of the abo%e quoted paragraph may bear some <color of truth in a state like Washmgton, |"which has wealth producing :sources other than agriculture. It may not seem just to tax industries like lum- bering, mining and fishing to build terminal elevators, but since the pros- perity of these industries is so bound up and interwoven with the welfare of agriculture, the argument against taxation of the one to assist the other, loses its force. On the other hand, the prosperity of | agriculture is bound up and inter- woven with the welfare of the others, hence agriculture willingly submits to taxation helpful to the others. The city ‘of Seattle has issued bonds to erect municipally owned storage plants and markets for fish. These bonds will | have to be met by taxation and of this g PAGE TWENTY -rwnr*s:m B‘ mummm%mmm A agriculture will pay its share, for agriculture can not escape paying its share of the bonds issued by any city which draws on it as a source of in- come. So the farmers of Washington - are already being taxed to help the fishing “industry. The lumbering industries look to the farmer as one of their most profitable - customers. Why should they object to taxation in behalf of the farmer which will make him a still more prof- itable customer? The farmers did not rise up and protest the issuance of bonds by the city of Seattle to erect municipal warehouses and markets. Yet every farmer’s dollar, passing through Seattle’s channels of trade, is taxed its share towards the payment of these bonds. - The moles who can not see that the welfare of all industries is mterwoven, and that what hurts one hurts all the rest, ‘ery out against laws helpful to agriculture as “class legislation.” They would rather continue under the pres-- ent system whereby a clique of non- producers profits immensely at the expense of a large class of producers, adding thereby enormously to the cost of living for a large class of consum- €ers. The ' insinuation that the League program calls for $3 wheat is on a par with other lies ‘about the mevement. The League stands for a price per bushel justly proportioned to the cost of producing that bushel, which, of course, does not appeal to those who stand for the sacred rights of cham- bers of commerce everywhere to force the publlc with their loaded dice! OLAF RIBB