The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 8, 1918, Page 10

it a s B A Al t ) 4 Fokd | I t 1 1 3 1 . | "#really desirious of joining in the scrap, but I think {"'Shis immediate duty, until he is urgently needed, is “Nto tend to his ranch. It occurs to me that the men on the farms should be given a badge specifying t:that they too are serving (applause) and that in gconsideration of that badge they shall voluntegr ror be drafted if necessary, to assist others in their Y farm work whenever it doesn’t interfere too much nwith their own. '(Applause). Bill Jones should inot be sitting on his front porch smoking his pipe agwhen Tom Smith’s wheat needs harvesting. . 4 - Now I-have got to the sad and disagreeable pa . 1" Jof my discourse—the packers. (Laugh- : i ‘ter). I weep for their sins. (Laugh-. 1 7 Vter) : ; ‘1 Almighty ones, ye packers who rule jover the destinies of the people, place a 7z P 7 ) 77 /I// 7 /,// 7 1 G ", 77 A7 G 77 N7 Z % v, 1,77 122/,70/7 270277 .,,/‘,,//,,;/:,, Q. Y we perish. Oh, satisfy not your power to work ‘ more evil. We, who produce your meat, you have our backs to the wall, we care not for the price you charge the consumer, we can not afford to eat your products—charge him as much as you like, but divide, oh divide a fraction of your spoils with us, or we perish. ! : HOW THE PACKERS WERE DISCOVERED Now these packers are performing a very great and necessary service. It may be a question as to William Kent, who made this splendid speech to the Nonparti- san league farmers and labor unionists assembled at St. Paul, 7 . 77, 7 7 72 —Drawn expressly for the Leader by Congressman John M. Baer - - kets; we all know how they fixed the rates in the . Prices were down, and how he, hoping for a better 7 77 3 7 SN QNN QX QO SRR BP0 ; N 2y oo L e e A O e - e e — — - steel trust out. They are a great power and have depending upon them for a livelihood probably 100,000 or more employes—I think a good many more. They have this power and this responsi- bility, and how are they using it? We all know, of course, how they were using it; we all know how they forced the livestock into centralized mar- stockyards. I don’t need to relate how, when the livestock producer brought his stock to those mar- * kets and how on the first day they told him the : market the next day, held his stoek - over, and the next day they would tell him it was stale, and pay less for it; ; We all know how they put the small. jyour ears near the ground and listen jto our’ plea. Eternal and ever-grow- jing ones who kill, kill, kill, and chop | | jand scrape and slash, and can, who i ifry and boil and freeze at will, we }pray that you confine your boilings, i {your freezings, your cannings, and {your killings to the tribute we pour { { iin, nor insist forever on human sacri- ifice. Let -the blood you spill be the | iblood of beasts, and not the drippings § il ffrom corn-husking fingers of wuseful { | {workers. No, we don’t ask to see your i || {books, we don’t question as to your | ‘rebates, your private cars, your meth- | 'ods of ruining the small butchers; we | | "on’t .care what price you charge for i [eef, we question not the ingredients ‘is an appointee of President Wilson on the United States tariff commission. He is a millionaire, .and yet one of America’s leading liberals. He is one of the group of prominent and in-- fluential radicals with which the president has surrounded himself. Mr. Kent, it might almost be said, is “the original Nonpartisan.” Dropping all party lines he was elected to con- gress from California as an “independent.” He is a fighter for economic justice. He has sons in the army, and he told the farmers at St. Paul he was going back to Washington to tell President Wilson that they were loyal to the government dur- ing the war and that they “will stick” by their League and its . program of reforms. You should not miss Mr. Kent’s speech and Mr. King’s biography of him, which start = ~on page 8, this issue. butchers, the retailers, the wholesal- ers, out of commission whenever they see fit. We knew these things, but they weren’t “discovered” when E. Dana Durand wrote the Garfield re- port, although they were well known. But now they are proven from their own files, and their own files have furnished the most sordid, outrageous story that calls aloud for redress. (Applause). TR FARMERS ARE LOYAL - TO THEIR COUNTRY e I want to turn for a moment to a question which seems to interest you up here.. The question is of Mr. Brand of the bureau of markets and his | jof your croquets, your soups, your tomales, but, { |Oh! Great Ones! We pray you to call off your mar- | ‘|ket quoters, who, at your dictation make them drop, {7 iand call for light handy cattle when ours are heavy {“'iand fat, and for heavy and fat cattle when ours i zare light and handy ones. { 1 i Oh, Rich Ones, don’t continue to steal our young 8 i heifers, and our old bulls, and don’t tell your men {{in your yards when they skin our stock that the i thides' don’t reach to the pen. Stop, we pray you, 41 §the daily cry of lack of demand, when you, by ¢ i icorraling the whole works, are the only demand. B iSay you don't want our stock; we shall more great- - s, . {million farms—it’s a cry that must be heard, or e P iily respect you. Oh, Rich, Fat and Prosperous. whether or not they ai‘e performing that service in the best way-it can be performed, but they are certainly performing a very great and essential service. They have grown until they 'have taken . in the stockyards; they have added to their equip- ment cold storage plants; warehouses, private cars, canneries; they have invaded foreign lands, Néw Zealand, Australia, Russia, South America; they have gotten into the retail markets of America; they have gone into poultry, cotton seed, and all sorts of farm fertilizers, canning vegetables and ‘“‘many other things. ' \ ] ~until they: are | |1Ones, our prayer. rises before you daily from a . power in. They have grown, grown to a'-trefiiéhddus degree : .probably the . greatest financial untry: except the lté;lmh'ult,and “just collects them, the way the idle small boy col- .them from any source.. The packers’ records show "dulged in the work of Dana Durand, in having the: _service.- We are going i statistics. Mr. Brand likes to collect statistics. I don’t think he cares very much for their correct classification, or what they mean. He' lects butterflies or birds’ eggs, and he likes ‘to get that they would have been very glad to have in-: Ppackers get the figures and ;hand them through. Dana Durand to Mr. Brand, so that he could pub-. - lis| them as “automatic bet settlers” for the farm- ers in lieu of the federal trade investigation. I think we want to réalize that we are privileged insofar as all we have 'to give,. even if it is. only ahead; to prod again, - (Continued on page 28)