The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 24, 1918, Page 4

Smprr e A connected with the food administration, uncon- sciously helped them out. Whereas WAR CON- SERVATION DEMANDED THE UTMOST USE OF ALL KINDS OF DAIRY PRODUCTS. To the credit of the food administration, however, it should be said that as soon as real farmer repre- sentatives called attention to the true nature of what was going on, the administration began to urge consumption of dairy products. Again many of the so-called DAIRY PAPERS SO FAR FROM DEFENDING THE DAIRY FARMERS, ARE KEEPING QUIET AS TO WHAT IS GOING ON OR ARE OPENLY FA- VORING THE GUMSHOE METHODS OF THE PACKERS. Among these schemes is the Swift & Co. plan for standardizing butter. ‘- This plan, among other things, calls for a fat standard of 82% or 83 per cent, which would cost the dairy- men of Minnesota alone not less than 8,000,000 pounds of butterfat annually. There must be a reason for this subserviency of dairy papers, and farmers who note it in the papers they take should lose no time in getting rid of the traitorous sheets. AIM AT CONTROL OF MARKET The Swift & Co. brief supporting its plan for standardization as well as a flood of inspired news articles now appearing in the kept press condemns the general dairy industry, and paints for the con- sumers the great danger awaiting them in the consumption of butter. The purpose, of course, is to discourage the consumption of butter. Remeniber also the disgusting and harmful practices revealed by packing house investiga- tions as evidence of the packers’ interest in the consumer which they profess to be the motive for their interest in butter. Tor some reason also the writers of the recipes appearing in the widely circulating home maga- zines, such as the Ladies’ Home Journal, have dropped butter as a cooking substance, preferring the packers’ products. In a recent issme of that paper, for instance, there was a whole page of recipes in which butter was not mentioned once. The packers’ interests in cold storage plants and their power over the refrigerator car system give: Co-operative creameries, such as this at Almena, Kan., are bulwarks against packer domination of the butter business, This building’is owned by the Farmers’ union, which also runs a wholesale lum- ber, coal and general supply business, and an elevator. than that is the need for developing organization. The farmers must organize on the political field to prevent the packers from using political power to further their ends. Obviously if the farmers and city workers do not have the political power in their state governments and in congress, they must expect the packers to be on hand in legis- lative halls and to interfere with the enforcement of laws. The loyal trade associations fighting their battles, such as the National Creamery Butter- makers’ association, must be well supported. On the other hand the £armer§ must give a little more attention to the papers, persons and organizations pretending to favor the farmers and at the same time quietly supporting the packers in vital matters. There should be much new legislation to protect dairy farmers and consumers against unfair prac- tices. Two years ago Secretary McAdoo officially recommended to congress that the coloring of oleo- margarine in imitation of butter be prohibited as in European countries. This matter should be pushed through. If it can’t be put through con- gress at once, it at least should be enacted by the state legislatures. Labor is as much interested in it as the farmer FOR WHEN A MAN THINKS HE IS BUYING BUTTER, HE WANTS REAL MARGARINE HE WANTS IT AT AS FAIR A PRICE AS POSSIBLE and not at a price forced up by deception and artificial stimulation of the market. ONLY BY ORGANIZATION CAN FARMERS GET JUSTICE 2 Butter is also losing by the lack of any real regulation of oleomargarine, butterine, renovated butter and other substitutes. Creameries, for in- stance, are heavily fined for putting out butter containing over 16 per cent moisture, but there is no limit to the amount of mojsture that can be forced into these substitutes. Evidently there are no standards for oleomargarine at all to protect the consumer. Again, we have a federal law ‘de- fining adulterated butter enacted in 1902 but no product so far has qualified under it. Renovated butter bears a tax of % cent a pound and oleo in its natural white color bears the same tax and, with the butter color, a tax of 10 cents. Hence these products naturally belong in the in- ternal revenue department of the federal govern- ment. But why should the enforcement of the regulations governing real butter which bears no tax be handled by revenue officers? The only log- ical place for it is the enforcement division of the department of agriculture where other untaxed food products are supervised. Here again the po- litical and trade organizations of the farmers must use every ounce of their political power to remove a glaring discrimination against their vitally. im- portant product. g 2 To an Editor Who Fights the Farmers g Chinook, Mont. Editor Nonpartisan Leader: I am so all-fired hot that I can’t keep my blood @rom boiling over until I shoot at the kaiser. Here is a clipping I have taken out of the Kansas City Star: “Put the kaiser, a milk-and-water pacifist, a Nonpartisan leaguer, a pro-German, a socialist and a profiteer into one bag and shake ’em up to- gether and you couldn’t tell one frum t’other.” , operatives. ‘stroyed by the packers is not at all them an important hold on the butter trade. By their financial power and other in- side means they can dominate the selling price of -butter. They own many centralizers .in the western states and are now trying to drive out the independent centralizers with the purpose of closing them up. Cen- tralizers, of course, are competitors of co-operative creameries, sometimes very unfair competitors, and it would be desirable to replace them with «co- But to have them de- desirable. The centralizers buy cream and this means cows and diversified . farming. WHAT CAN BE DONE Again, the lobbyists of the packing interests are continually besieging congress and the state legislatures to get through bills which look harmless perhaps and are given the appearance of beneficial legisla- tion, but which in substance are de- signed to kill off butter production and boost the sales of oleomargarine. The press of the South is also used to make the southern farmer believe that his interests lie with the .oleomar- garine manufacturer. But as the real friends of the farmers there, such as Dr. H. E. Stockbridge, president of the Farmers’ National congress, points out, the reverse is the truth. The amount of cottonseed oil used for oleo is insignificant, -about $35,000 worth in 1916. On the wother hand, the South needs diversified farming. A good indication of the packers’ meth- ods is the fact that when Doctor Stockbridge took up the defense of dairying in his paper, the Southern Ruralist, the packers ordered him to lay- off ‘if he wanted to keep their extensive advertising of fertilizers, but this editor stocd by his guns. The assault on dairy production is another reason why the government should take owver the packing plants. This step would automatically cut -out the artificial stimulation. of the oleo. market. But more important BUTTER AND WHEN HE HAS TO BUY OLEO- | A FOE OF CAMOUFLAGE BUTTER | A Minnesota cow recently has broken the world’s record for seven- day production in her class and brought honor to the state, which al- ready ranks high in the dairying in- dustry. Bess Burke Ormsby, regis- tered as No. 203801 in Holstein rec- ords, and owned by B. and O. E. C. Schroeder of Moorhead, is the new winner. : At the age -of five years and two and one-half months she produced 5568 pounds of milk in seven days, and 42.31 pounds of butter. The Hol- steins are among the world’s favor- ites for heavy fat and milk producers and interest in the steady advance- ment of the breed is keen. In the accompanying picture the cow’s milk veins show prominently and the carriage of her head and en- tire frame shows the vim and vigor that are nec- essary to win. in dairy com- petition. This particular cow varies considerably from the popular con- ception of the Hols tein, which in both purebred and grade ani- mals gen- : erally car- $lie ries large irregular patches of white and black. Bess Burke Ormsby is mottled with much finer spots and patches of white and black. Holsteins, or as their full and cor- rect name is, Holstein-Friesian, orig- inated in the noxthern part of Hol- land, and the breed has been knowmn there for centuries. Holsteins have grown . greatly 'in numbers and in popularity during recent years in this country, this growth undoubtedly be- ing greatly stimulated by the pro- gressive efforts of the breed’s boosters to increase fat and milk production. This effort has entirely dissipated the once prevalent belief—prevalent at least among the average farmers . —that Holsteins produced only large quantities of milk, but milk of little value in fat content. Along with their undoubted superiority in guantity, the leading Holsteins today rank among the best fat producers in the dairy kingdom, and in many instances out- strip choice specimens of other breeds. Besides these qualities, the Hol- steins are docile and even-tempered, little given to fidgeting at milking or calving time, are good “rustlers” when left to shift for themselves. The cows, when well devel- oped, weigh pounds and around 1,250 the bulls 1,800, but in spite of this large weight they make poor beef and when their milking days are over,they will not yield as good returns at the stockyards as some other breeds. The percentage of fat to milk is lower than in several other breeds, and the big fat records made by Hol- steins are due to the fact that they -produce so much more milk that the quantity of fat contained exceeds that of breeds that produce a smaller quantity ‘of milk. 3 . PAGE. FOUR ° ; ; Here is the answer I sent the editor of the Star: “I noticed quite a slur on the farmer in the Star of May 29. Isn’ it about time for the Star to learn a little common sense and QUIT BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS IT? I think the kaiser must like the Star. “I am a Nonpartisan. The League has come to stay and is going to re- deem the government from graft. There is a time coming when all pa- pers that are fighting the farmers’ move for a square deal will be stood up against the fence, to fall over, or will have to crawfish. “If I was printing a paper I would have too much pride in my“press, if I didn’t have pride for myself, to try to get in after the door is locked;: I am a Nonpartisan leaguer and think too much of my good name to have it slandered by a slander paper such as the Kansas City Star. “FOR THE THIRD TIME I WILL . ASK YOU TO STOP SENDING YOUR PAPER TO ME. But the Star is like all 8ther Big Biz papers, in order to get readers it has to force itself on the people. I have paid you for three more years, but ‘I will gladly give it to you to have you stop the paper. ditious papers as I am for a good old America and for what America and the Nonpartisan league stand for, and not for a few grafters. “All the Nonpartisans will stick; you bet we will. “S. S.. SLAYBAUGH.” This Kansas City Star is the paper which pays Theodore Roosevelt $1 a word to write against the National Nonpartisan league. Its manager was born in Germany and never thought to take out his naturalization papers until the outbreak of the war. : This paper, more than” any other metropolitan paper, owes its success to the loyal support of the ‘farmers. When William_Rockhill Nelson was its editor, he took as his motto, “Look out for the rights of the common peo- ple, the rich can take care of them- selves.” Sintee his death the paper has’ turned reactionary.—THE - EDITOR. I am cutting out all se- -