The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 15, 1918, Page 13

“Market Efficienéy of American Diétributing Methods Is Shown by War Emergencies .is not a farmers’ failure but should -be charged up where it belongs—to " ers, the whole force of organ- " tion, whether of farmers or . marketing, and that neither ° ure of our marketing so-that to Rank Far Below the Efficiency of the Farmers BY ERNEST -VALENTINE THE marketing or . farm products up to the present time, American business and not the farmer has been on trial. That our marketing sys- tem has never been successful and that it has broken down miserably under war conditions, our much-praised American business. American business as represented by railroads, commission firms, exchanges, storage companies, packers, millers, etc., has had every chance it could ask.- By its economic and political power it has kept the farmer from having anything to say about the selling end of his business. With a free field, however, to work in, enhanced by the fact that the individual farmer’s production is too small to en- able him to have a selling force of his own such as factories generally have, these American busi- ness men have given the nation a system of mar- keting in which efficient marketing is the last con- sideration. They have given us a marketing sys- tem, if in truth it can be called a system, keyed up to the protection of waste and gambling in necessaries and with profits as the only com- pelling motive.’ POLITICS HAS PROTECTED INEFFICIENCY Let responsibility rest where it belongs so that we can the more accurately weigh the causes and drive toward real remedies. Farmers and city consumers may have been too patient, too tolerant with market abuses in the past, but American busi- ness and not they made these abuses. Remember that when- ever here and there voices were raised in protest, whether by farmers or organized work- ized society and vested privi- lege was thrown against them. Remember that co-opera- consumers, has had hardly a dog’s chance in America; re- member that our boasted food regulation previous to the war hardly scratched the evils of our marketing; remember that our state constitutions have been carefully sewed wup in long years of gumshoe politics to prevent the people from ever using their state as an aid in farmers nor city workers have direct representation to- any extent in- state office and’ the legislature. Remember that . our press, even two-thirds of the so-called farm press; offers every protection to the mar- keting system provided for us by American business. The -war .conditions, of course, have revealed the fail- other classes than the farmers and the very poor of the cities can ‘see it. - With a bountiful ['"As supply of land in almost every state in the Union and with farmers despairing of reach- ing the market with 100 per: cent of what they can raise, our farm products double and triple in price between the . farmer and the cénsumer and we are threatened with acute food shortage. Perhaps with the aid of the newly awakened people and under the immedi- ate pressure of war meeds, we will be able.to shake off the. interests fighting to maintain. ing farm returns. T outlines a solution for this inequity. ~ partisan league ‘will State ownership of the keys to the marketing system will have a wonderfully invigorating effect on general business, whether of farm or factory. Every reduction in the consum- er’s price widens the market. State ownership will thus greatly increase the quantity of farm products demanded at the same. time that it stimulates farm production by increas- Not only does greater farm prosperity mean greater demand for what the city factories produce, but the better fed city population will be more efficient producers. - their failure and to institute a system of market- ing based on service. WHAT HOOVER THINKS OF IT The man charged with the great task of regu- lating the food supply of the United States, in an epochmaking speech in New York May 23, demanded complete reorganization of distribution methods. The inspiration for such reorganization, he de- clared, must come from the producer. “Further- more,” said Mr. Hoover, “I had also long held the view that various associations amongst producers were_the foundations upon which a better system of marketing must arise in the United States in the interest of both producer and consumer.” Thus, he looks not to the present special interests con- trolling our marketing system for help but to pro- ducers—TO PRODUCERS SO ORGANIZED THAT THEY WILL BE STRONG ENOUGH TO TEAR DOWN THE DEFENSES OF SPECIAL PRIVI- LEGE THROUGH CO-OPERATION AND POLIT- ICAL POWER. No other Washington official has \ A\ /’ We will let Cartoonist' W. C. Morris write his own' lines for the pictures here. “This is what the farmers of New York must organize to fight. farmer- feeds the milk to the hogs betause the milk distributors pay so little to the pro-, ducers, while in New York City thousands 'of children are forced to go without milk be- ‘cause’ of the high price charged for it by the same middleman.” The story on this page Read it and be able to discuss how the Non- benefit city dwellers as well as farmersi. ' PAGE THIRTEEN - In some sections" the made a stronger appeal for real sup- port of the fighting kind or pointed to such a revolutionary program. It. is a call for constructive patriotism to save the nation at war from the effects .of wasteful marketing and profiteering. SENSIBLE METHODS OF RELIEF Obviously, relief from this market- ing failure must come by removing the factors which constitute the fail- ure and by the substitution of new agencies for those which have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The federal government has already done a great deal to put limits on the private profits system of food distribution, taking control of railroads, taking the gambling out of the wheat market, limiting mill profits, and taking a hand in elevator methods. Full relief must come by extending the process of co-operation and so- cialization until the whole circulating system be- tween farmer and independent retailer is free— free from waste, free from monopoly and gambling, free from profiteering and multiplication of profits. Focd Administrator- Hoover has asked for power to do just this thing, and it remains for the people to force the granting of this power on a hitherto unwilling congress. The key services in marketing must be social- ized: the railroads so that goods may be brought to the consumer by the nearest route, so that in- side combinations between these and market manip- ulators may be eliminated, and so that the freight charges may be no more than efficient cost of the service; the market places so that buyers and sell- ers may meet on equal terms; = the terminal elevators, cold l THE MARKET SITUATION IN NEW YORK | A bk el e ed at cost and so that the mar- ket control which they give private persons may be. elimi- nated; packing plants, central- ly located flour mills, sugar factories, etc., so that these intermediaries between pro- ducer and consumer of food necessaries may not reap the advantage of other socializa- tion; direct wholesale distribu- tion of food products that this most direct manner at cost and so that private agents may not reap the fruits of the other socialization. CO-OPERATION AND SOCIALIZATION Joined with this socializa- tion of the large market fac- -, tors there should be a rebirth of farmers’ co-operation, a re- birth made possible by the .recognition in law .of co-oper- ation as the farmer’s means of ‘taking his legitimate place in the business beyond the boun- dary lines of his farm and by giving farmers’ co-operation protection against unfair con- trol of banking facilities and against unfair competition. This co-operation will render an indispensable service in'the gathering up of farm products previous to their arrival at the central markets; on the other hand, co-operation of the right sort in buying farm supplies will reduce ‘the cost of farm production. ization? Many see a conflict between the two, and the large marketing interests which are fighting socialization have sud- denly begun to cry co-opera- tion from the housetops. Even Theodore Roosevelt (Continued on page 22) He says: service may be rendered in the What is the dividing line be- tween co-operation and social- is ‘now. R s