The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 13, 1918, Page 12

PP e el § — e A 3 SR R N PSS G Colorado Farmers Need the League Middlemen’s Conspiracy Has Impoverished Hardy Settlers of the Broomcorn District—Appeals for Help Fall on Deaf Ears WAVE of settlers filled south- western Colorado in the ’80s, starved out, and left the state. This fact is not officially ad- vertised. But within the last 10 years practically all the dry land in this region has been re- settled. In addition to broom- corn, pinto beans and milo maize have enabled these late comers to stick. Ex- perts have declared that broomcorn will make prac- tically all these dry lands habitable. It is six times as drouth resistant as corn. The farmers can raise a good crop, but their failure to find an honest market is periling their very lives. ANk A visit to this region fills one with wonder at the hardihood of these settlers. Sod or adobe houses and dugouts are the rule. The country is a level plain and subject to extremes of tempera- ture and those habitations are cooler in summer and warmer in winter than frame buildings. A large portion of this country is from 40 to 80 miles from the railroad. Hundreds and hundreds of families have “dug themselves in” down there and are making a marvelously courageous fight. They deserve the greatest credit for having thus proven it possible to make a living under such conditions. They have won a victory over the elements and the fruits of this victory are good yields. But these crops must be marketed. Such a battle with the elements as these poor people have waged has left them totally unprepared to market their produce. The government has solved the bean market prob- lem. But the main money crop is broomcorn. A combination or conspiracy of buyers so depresses the price that the growers get 6 to 10 cents out of the dollar paid by consumers. Market quotations during the present season have ranged from $250 to $350 per ton. Farmers are offered $40 to $80. A ton of “brush” will make about 1,200 ordinary brooms for sweeping floors. The labor cost is not above 4 cents on each broom. The handle and other material not in- cluding the brush come to not above 10 cents for each broom. A factory with a manufacturing capacity of 1,200 brooms daily is estimated to cost about $8,000. DISHONEST TRICKS OF THE BUYERS It will readily be seen that-it is to the buyers’ interest to “knock” the quality while buying. The buyers are in a conspiracy to do not only this, but anything else to enable them to get the crop at a small portion of its value. The quality of Colorado broomcorn is questioned by buyers. Am- ple evidence can be secured to prove Colorado “brush” averages up with that of any American broomcorn. A goodly portion of it is “self working brush.” That is, a bale will have enough of long and short hurls to make a complete broom. The farmers have a Tri-State Broomcorn Grow- ers’ association. Sam M. Dean, Westola, Col, is the secretary. He is a well-to-do, intelligent, force- Broomcorn ready for shipment at Elkhart, Morton county, Kan. An ordinary yield is one ton of “brush” for four or five acres, In arin hurl is broken off by hand and piled in ricks in a stockyard and afterwards seeded and baled. These bales prep g it for market the tons of “brush” can be loaded into a box car. Freight equals about $12 per ton from Colorado to Chicago. PAGE TWELVE ful character of sterling integrity. His statement is that at Elkhart, Kan., the buyers have resorted to physical force to prevent the farmers from shipping out -their “brush.” He also verifies the statements of his brother growers concerning a great variety of schemes practiced by the buyers to take advantage of the struggling growers. A farmer storekeeper by the name of Thompson at Stonington, Col., has lived there for many years THE NEW REPUBLIC SAYS: According to Mr. Hoover the allied world stands in danger of extremely . short rations; according to Secretary Houston the food situation should not give much cause for worry. If we want to be easy in our minds, we had better follow Houston’s opinion; if we want to be safe, we had better follow Hoov- er's. What brought the conflict of opinion to public attention was Con- gressman Baer’s proposal to appropri- ate $50,000,000 to provide farmers with seeds on credit. Secretary Hous- ton’s “Why worry?” has postponed action on the bill. Perhaps we shall have food enough without employing such a device to stimulate production. We’d be safer if we were not too sure of this. and has been in a continued fight against the buy- ing combination to get a fair price for his broom- corn. Ricky, a farmer who tills some 1,200 acres 18 miles southwest of Springfield, and whose crop of 20 tons of “brush” was in his shed March 1, is able to detail the practices of the buyers. A common trick is for the buyer to go out into the country and pay $250 or $275 for a ton or two of “brush” and tell the growers that the market is right for them to bring in their crop. The word spreads and several haul their cropto market. But the buyer who paid the good price is nowhere to be found. The farmers are told that he was a crook and that “brush” is down, the market off. The growers who as a rule have poor teams, have hauled their “brush” upward of 50 miles and so must haul it back or sell. The buyers take advan- tage of this and get the loads at scandalously low figures. This is also the situation in Baca county. WHAT THE STATE OWES TO ITS PEOPLE An investigator began a trip through Prowers and Baca counties late in February. At Arapahoe he found a committee of 200 farmers who held 150 tons of brush. It had tried every legitimate means to get a fair price. At Holly the investigator called at the broomcorn company. Several buyers were in the office, and they asked him if he was a farmer. When he answered no, the buyers broke loose and cursed the farmers for trying to get the market price. They said in substance: “Let the damn fools hold on. We will teach them a lesson.” The Colorado broomcorn section comprises 10,000 square miles, about six counties. The crop reaches close to a million dollars a year. The district is a portion of an oval-shaped territory covering southwestern Kansas and extending down through Oklahoma and quite a distance into Texas. The same market conditions also exist in those states, and this fact warrants federal attention. Another feature of the situation was the freight car shortage this winter, due partly to the war. Even this was taken advantage of by the buyers, and it played into their hands. The state officials of Colorado owe it to the farmers of this region to give relief. Through its immigration bureau it is constantly inviting farm- ers to come to Colorado. It is only fair to say that it implies that it will take care of the settlers after their arrival. Feeling thus, Albert Dakan, writing with full knowledge of the privations prevailing in the broomcorn district, wrote, April 11, the following open letter to C. A. Lory, president of the state agricultural college at Fort Collins: : A PLEA TO THE DEFENSE COUNCIL “Upon returning to Denver I met Tom Howard of Arapahoe, Col. He is one of the prominent farmers from that region and is on a committee of broomcorn growers representing a pool of up- wards of 100 tons of ‘brush’ grown last fall in the Cheyenne Wells region. He is very much in- terested in the market problem for that product. We visited Secretary A. W. Grant of the state council of defense yesterday noon and found that the matter had been. taken up by the council upon my report and appeal to the governor fer relief. Mr. Grant informed us that the matter had been referred to you. “Today a business man of Longmont told me that a wholesale man told him that the broom factory, making their brooms in the East, had paid as high as $540 per ton for ‘brush’ this season. I would suggest that as you go down town you drop into a store and ask the storekeeper about the price he is paying for brooms and the story put up by whole- salers. “It is an astounding proposition to me that the officials and business men of Colorado want to be- lieve that such a Colorado product as broomcorn is necessarily of inferior quality. Mr. Howard tells me that two cars of ‘brush’ from his community were sold at $125 a ton. The cars were followed to Wichita and found to be held there as being worth $400 per ton. The old timers in southeastern Colorado verify that statement and say it is char- (Continued on page 23) weigh approximately three hundred pounds each. Ten —~a -