The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 9, 1918, Page 8

ARSI T ~ All Brothers in Sweat and Toil, Unite! il 1 | &1 i ~which I want to speak briefly A Remarkable Address to the Organized Labor of Iowa by James M. Pierce, a Noted Farm Editor One of the great national figures who is convinced of the importance of the program of the National Nonpartisan league is James M. Pierce. He is editor and publisher of three powerful farm magazines, the Iowa Home- stead, the Wisconsin Farmer and the Farmer and Stockman. Last June Mr. Pierce was in- vited to speak at the annual convention of the Iowa State Federation of Labor, in Mason City. Taking as his topic, “Co-Operation Between Organized Agricultural and Industrial Labor,” he spoke in part as follows: ARE on the threshhold of a new epoch in our national life. Our minds have been so fully occupied With the military side of the great world war that we have hardly stopped to think of what it means and is going to mean in the days to come on its social and economic sides. But the fact is that today’ we are confronted by the most gigantic, the most revolutionary, the most tremendous event in all the history of the world, from the countless ages ago when God said, “Let there be light,” down to this hour. It is a stupen- . dous cataclysm which will not be understood for generations yet to come, but there is one thing which we may confidently predict, and that is that this old world will never again be the same as it was before. The war has changed our modes of living for all time to come; it has tested our faiths, warped our habits of thought and action and has made us and our children for generations yet un- born altogether different than we would otherwise have been. Its overpowering blast has uprooted the entire machinery and fabric of organized so- ciety that had been built. up through all the years and there is not a phase of human existence that has not been altered by it. There are certain tendencies at work today that vitally af- fect your lives and mine of to you, knowing that you have it in your power to help shape their course and development. I refer particalarly to the drawing together of the real producers of the nation’s wealth—the workers. THE PRODUCERS STAND TOGETHER The time# was—and not so very-many years ago either— when it was generally believed that the interests of organized labor and those of unorganized agriculture were antagonistic. In fact there is something of that feeling still existing, but it has to a large extent passed away and is growing less and ers and the labor unions are coming to realize that instead of their interests -being dia- metrically opposed, they are exactly the same. The farmer of today is a far different person from the farmer of 25 years ago. He has come to appreciate the fact that with capital organ- ized, and industrial labor or- ganized, he must either organ- ize or else be ground between .the upper and the nether mill- stones. This is the day of co- operation, instead of compe- tition, and the farmer is more and more waking up to this fact. It is this which has led war. closer co-operation between the pro- ducers of agricultural wealth and of industrial wealth. This movement found expres- sion a year or so ago in a meeting at St. Paul, when the . members and delegates of farmers’ organizations, repre- senting 16 states, and the members and delegates of 14 labor organizations, represent- -ing 11 states, among whom was the able chief executive of your Iowa Federation of Labor, met to consider their mutual problems and to voice their com- 2 ‘mon sentiments. In this first gathering of its kind ever held in the United States was the germ of an idea that will some day sweep the land and prove irresist- ible in its revolutionary force. . _ Nor has its significance failed to be appreciated in the East. The New York and ‘Washington press hailed the -chief whose sons were in training at Camp Dodge, whose wives and daughters were knitting for the Red Cross and who themselves were buying Liberty bonds and War Savings stamps and doing everything they could to help the government in the most vigorous prosecution of the war possible. I attempted to secure from the Des Moines Chamber’ of Commerce the use of its auditorium for their meeting, but after the secretary of that organization had twice telephoned my office to inquire as to the things which these farmers advo- cated, it was refused. . During the three days that these thousand dele- gates and many of their fam- ilies were in Iowa’s eapi- tal city, spending thou- sands of dollars with its business men, not a rep- resentative of = the “or- ganized business men of Des Moines came near to speak a welcoming word or to offer help. No, gentlemen, there is neither logic nor wit nor even sincerity in the promoter of the Produec- ers’ and Consumers’ con- ference, A. C. Townlay, president of the National Nonpartisan league, as the prophet of a new era in political, economic and social relationships—as a voice "crying in the wil- derness, “Prepare ye the way.” Following a con- ference between Presi- James -M. Pierce, publisher of the Iowa Home- stead. Mr. Pierce purchased the Iowa Homestead in 1885 and has been its active head ever since, As a boy he served as a printer’s apprentice in a newspaper shop at Mansfield, Ohio, and after com- ing west owned and edited several country week- lies in northern Missouri and southern Iowa. Dur- ing the third of a century that Mr. Pierce has been the -publisher and manager of the Iowa Home- stead he has seen it grow to a publication with over 150,000 circulation. It has more subscribers in Towa than any other farm publication. attacks which have been made on the right of the farmers of Iowa to or- ganize. They have been made by men who always have been, and who al- ways will be, opposed to organization among the farmers, because they do and should fear the or- 2anized farmers of Iowa, just as they would fear _ James M. Pierce at 15 years of age. less yearly, as both the farm- ~When Morgan’s Confederate raiders came sweeping up from Kentucky into Ohio in 1863, James M. Pierce, then a farfm boy.of 15, enlisted in Company B, 48th regiment, Ohio militia, which subsequently became part of the 163d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. honorably discharged May 1, 1866. Early. in life the responsibility of help- ing support a large family was thrust upon him, his father having given up his life for the Union at Vicksburg in 1863. His son, Dante M. Pierce, secre- tary of the Homestead company, was a-volunteer in the Spanish-American No farm paper has given more . ~space to the promotion of goyernment : war activities of every character than the Towa Homestead. At the same time it has not hesitated to express * ' to what.I believe to be one of - fearlessly the views which it believed .the-#host significant movements “which this new era, just dawn-. “ing, will witness, and that is dent: Wilson and Mr. . ; Townley, the Washington Times said editorially: A new force is beginning to disturb the dreams of politicians and it has taken on new proportions lately. This force is the propoged combination of organized labor and of organ- ized farmers:.- ! tional Nonpartisan league, but I do maintain that the farmers of Iowa have the right to organ- ize as they see fit; that no or- ganization, which is not found- ed on loyalty and patriotism and which does not advocate them; and that any organiza- tion which is based on the right principles of patriotism, jus- tice and truth ought to receive their support. ~But it would not make the slightest differ- ence what the name, character, such an organization among the farmers of Iowa were, it % would be opposed by the Greater Iowa association and its allied interests in this state, -and it would be opposed after the war just the same as dur- ing the war. THE HATRED OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE gates to a meeting of the Farmers’ - Co-Operative and Educational union, one of the oldest and best agricultural or- _ganizations in the country, met He was buying and marketing, in an effort to shorten the route be- tween the producer and the consumer of.the nation’s food- stuffs and to eliminate the wide margin ‘between what the farmer receives for his products - and | that @ which ) the consumer. pays. It was were to the best interests of the nation - ay typical' body of the best in winning the war as quickly ; _ a@s possible, - 2:~'and -most - progressive Iowa I hold no brief for the Na- sound economic principles, can: make/ any headway among . achievements or purposes of Last fall a thousand dele- in Des Moines to consider the” economic - problems of farm* - for $4, or about 8 cents a pou v:!a{rm‘er"sv‘, lbya,lwthe':cprg',; men the miller and the X Iowa’s organized labor if it kad the potential strength in this state” which the farmers have. 5 In Minnesota the farmers and union labor are standing shoulder to shoulder, because they realize that their enemies are common to both classes of workers and that if they do not hang together they will hang separately. 3 The Nonpartisan league in Minnesota has taken up this fight with vengeance, for its members and officials know that the attacks on the union’s right to organize is the same attack and inspired by the same motives as the. one against the farmer’s right to organize in war times, the same as at any other -time. SHORT-CHANGING " Wi THE WORKERS 3 e i -Don’t you see, my friends, from these things, how the same attacks, the same arguments, the .same dirty tricks are employed against the organ- ized farmers and against union labor for exactly - the same reasons! And can’t you see how it is to the advantage-of both of you to stick together! - And now I want to talk to you a few moments on ‘what organized labor and organized -agriculture have to gain through co-operation. You two to- gether are the toilers who create the wealth of the Iand. You are both also consumers. Just as the farmer is the largest producer in Iowa of the food- stuffs which you consume, so is he the largest buyer in Iowa of the things which your labor creates—of the coal, of the newspapers, of everything which -is manufactured in Iowa. Now one of two things is true—either as consumers each of you is paying too much for what the other produces, or else as producers you are not receiving as much of the profits of what your labor creates as you should. Let me illustrate it with the simplest example there is of the change from the raw materials which the farmer raises, to the finished product which you buy. = Today each of you in this audience, when he pur- chases wheat flour, has to buy also an equivalent amount of one of its substitutes. Take corn meal for example. For a bushel of corn the' farmer receives, say $1.25 at the mill. The:miller puts it through the very simplest manufacturing process and gets about 50 pounds of corn meal, together with eight pounds or so of roughage, which is of some- value. He then sells it to theiigrocer for ' b - $2.50, or about 100 per cent added on to what the 7R farmer received. The grocer then sells:it back to - " cyou and to the farmer who raised it, as corn meal _grocer have each more than