The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 6, 1918, Page 11

3 i fiy y ' - changed. - of them for a living. But the : X that did not perform nearly so vital a function, but incidentally SOLD for $20,672,052,000. This enormous discrepancy in returns is solely a matter of PRICING. The farmer let the other fellow attend to the matter of prices and confined his efforts to PRODUCING; the manufacturer was well organized and devoted at least half his atten- tion to marketing and getting a good price. In large measure he controlled his own marketing and determined his own prices. He was as good a PRODUCER and an EIGHT TIMES BETTER SELLER than the farmer. PRICE CONTROL THE PARAMOUNT ISSUE That PRICES are the paramount issue with the farmer is evidenced by the fact that big crop years often bring less money than poor crop years and farmers oftener go barkrupt on big crops than on small crops. Usually the worst year for a farmer is a year following a bumper crop year. PART OF THE BUMPER CROP IS STORED AND USED AGAINST HIM THE NEXT YEAR. The value of 867,546,295 bushels of corn pro- duced in 1866 was $411,450,830. In 1830 twice as much corn, 1,717,434,543 bushels, brought only 50 per cent more money, $679,714,499. The value of 151,999,906 bushels of wheat produced in 1866 was $232,109,680. The value of more than three times as much wheat in 1880, 498,549,868 bushels, was less than twice as much, $474,201,850. In 1866, 2,097,254 bales of cotton sold for $204,561.896, while two-and-a-half times as much cotton in 1880 sold for practically the same price, $280,266,242. MARKET CONTROLLERS TAKE THE SURPLUS It is significant that the power of the middlemen to determine prices for farm products has in- creased in practically the same ratio as the pro- ductivity of the farmer has increased through the development of farm machinery. Since the Civil war, the productivity of the farmer, according to authentic estimates, has increased 25 fold. This enormous gain, which otherwise would have made the farmer wealthy, has been absorbed by the mid- . dlemen and big business through the increasing power of the latter to control the finishing and marketing of farm products and determine prices. The individual farmer is just where he was 50 years 'ago — a hard-handed toiler struggling for a bare existence. Formerly the farmer was poor because he did not pos- sess the machinery and facili- ties to produce much. Although he received the practical equivalent of what he produec- ed, a year’s hard toil was suf- ficient to produce only enough__ for a bare living. In those days markets and prices had little to do with farming. The farmer produced mainly for his own use and he produced enough finished products to supply nearly all his own family’s wants. Among these were everything from flour, butter, cheese, bread, cured and cook- ed meats, preserved fruits to farm tools, home-made shoes and home-spun clothes.” The few things he didn’t produce that he needed he was able to get by trading. This kind of trading was done on a basis of the labor cost of producing the respective articles ex- I LA ¢ i ; Jf'*"pJP!, L 1P PRICE IS FIXED BY MONOPOLY When all the great finish- ing and marketing facilities were separated from the farm home and passed to the pos- session of big business and the middlemen, the farmer found himself obliged to raise single crops and depend on the sale important selling end of his business. was monopolized by these middlemen and big busi- - ness. They tried to make him . believe that PRICES were de-: : termined by the law of ‘supply . About this time of the year is the season gro and demand, so that they could: “weeds =_|_\// " I .. ‘mewspapers have their roots in the same muck. DIG THEM OUT BY e e e . This is a co-operative creamery at Greenbush, Minn. Even up in the big woods country organization is being forced upon the farmer by the existence of unfair organizations against him, and by the chang- ing conditions of modern agriculture. Does the law of supply and demand determine the price of farm products? Only in this way: The AVAILABLE supply and demand for com- modities determine their prices. -As long as other ‘classes of people than the farmers market farm products they have the power to control the AVAILABLE supply of farm products. They can swoop down on the farm in the fall when the farmer finds himself broke, in debt and with a bumper crop on his hands, and they can take ad- vantage of his necessities and get his crop at the lowest possible price. With the crops in their possession it is up to them whether or not they make any part of them immediately AVAILABLE for consumption. They have the power to create an artificial scarcity and boost prices up tc almost any point they desire. THE REWARD OF ORGANIZATION Let us return to the original statement that if the farmer were as good a business man as the manufacturer he would be getting more than three times as much as he is getting now. This state- ] ; THE PESTS | l ) - (R PAGE ELEVEN - —Dra;vn especially for the Leader by J. n..Bliel for digging dandelions. There are lots of these ¢ ng in the nation’s front yard. It's no use ‘to clip off one flower—the' thing blame “natural law” for the = to do is to take.the whole plant up by the roots. Political gangs, profiteers and' dishonest'- . poverty of the farmer. - . Vi ORGANIZED EFFORT. “have been attained.” ment is proved by the following figures: The manu- facturer with an investment of better than $18,- 000,000,000 sold his product for more than $20,000,- 000,000. He had paid $12,795,019,000 for raw ma- terial, leaving $8,572,627,000 as the value added by manufacture. This is 41 per cent on the capital invested. : The average investment per farm in the United States is $6,444. The average value per farm for farm products is $863. Without making any de- ductions for raw material, this $863 worth of prod- ucts represents less than 14 per cent on the value of the investment. If the farmer received THE SAME RELATIVE PRICE for his products that the manufacturer receives, the product of the average farm, instead of being worth $863, would be worth $2,642. If the farmer will organize and get public or co-operative control of facilities for finishing and marketing farm products, and if he exercises as much business ability as the manufacturer as a seller, he can get this $2,642. Is it worth the effort? Boosted by Its Enemies in ITowa Farmers Realize That the League Is All Right, or the Grafters and Corpora- tions Wouldn’t Oppose It A great surge toward the Nonpartisan league is visible in Iowa. Letters coming to the Leader tell the story. O. B. Oltmans of Sibley wrote the Leader after getting a letter from the Sibley Commercial club attacking the League and asking him to join the Greater Iowa association in its anti-League cam- paign: “We are anxiously awaiting in this territory for vour League to get busy. As you will learn from the enclosed letter that the child is hated before it is born, it seems it would be wise to get one of your men here to be present at ¢his meeting if possible and to get a man here in this community to organize as soon as possible. Please send me your paper for one year and I will send pay- ment as soon as I receive a bill.” Another farmer, John Logs- don of Waterville, writes: “There is a movement down here under the name of ‘the Greater Iowa association,’ com- posed of bankers and mer- chants (and possibly a few conservative farmers) to block the Nonpartisan league. Even a great many Equity men be- lieve we should stay out of pol- ities, especially at the present time—war, times. But I be- lieve we never could get a bet- ter time to organize and I also believe it is the only way we will get any recognition. Lin- coln said something about our having to vote on everything, and unless we were on the job he predicted something like the present situation in which the producer and consumer would find themselves.” Henry Schleusner of Garner, another farmer who was solic- - ited for membership in the Greater Iowa association, sent a lot of its publicity matter and anti-League newspaper clippings which it inspired. ° A man in Sioux City wrote, profiteers have made on the government, which is being backed by the Greater Iowa association, saying: “The stand the farmers have taken to uphold the laws of our country and also to prose- termination manifests = their , ~real spirit of Americanism. Big business at the commence- ment of the war undertook to throw out our Constitution and —laws and to stampede the coun- -dent Wilson not all their aims denouncing the assault that the cute the war to a successful - ! try into_submission to autoc-: | racy at home and imperialism: § abroad; but thanks to Presi-