The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 16, 1918, Page 8

e A G i 3 1 ¢ t ! 1 a Ie W d iz St s a1 ta y¢ th - THE QUESTION OF SEIZING 1917 WHEAT ANY farmers in the West have been caught by the wheat searcher through failure to under- stand the situation. - A Minnesota farmer, for instance, wrote the Non- partisan Leader on August 28 that “the wheat searcher has come around and ordered me to haul this wheat to the mill. I did as I was told and now the searcher wants all of this money for the Red. Cross. I would like to know if this is lawful.” Briefly the situation is this: Last spring, when our wheat supply was so low, the president issued a procla- mation to the effect that all ‘wheat beyond what was needed in the cur- rent season for seed should be shipped in. Where this order was not com- plied with, wheat searchers appear to have given the delinquent farmer or other holder of grain the choice be- tween meeting an action in court for failure to comply with the president’s proclamation or contributing the whole or part of the sale price to the Red Cross. .The possible injustice in the situ- ation is the fact that many of the farmers caught with surplus wheat did not know of the order or did not realize that it was. more than some of the many volunteer war aid plans. Legally, however, in America “ignor- ance of the law is no excuse.” Also some local agents may make too rig- orous an interpretation-of the ruling. Appeal can be made to higher officers in the state food administration. HELPING BANKS TO LEND TO FARMERS HENEVER local bankers- tell farmers that the bank will be unable to renew loans or make new loans because of the tightness of the money market, they should be. told that the government war finance cor- > poration was formed to meet just such needs as that. / In its Weekly . News Letter for August 7 the de- partment of agriculture said: “The recent action of the war *. finance corporation, indicating its I'VE SIGNED A PLEDGE TO WORK ON THE FARM DURING MY VACATION. WHILE vy, : & ) ///"’ 7 Ybrrr?V » WY T I / 4 7 7 % Z 7 B 4 0., WL L% /,, \ : GOVERNMENT RULES EXPLAINED AND COMMENTED ON BY A. B. GILBERT willingness’to make advances to banks and trust companies which have made loans to. farmers should ease the general financial situ- ation and in large measure enable bankers to extend accommodations to farmers having such collateral. Banks are urged to avail themselves of the offer of the war finance corporation.” Bankers in different sections appear to be using the tight money argument as a political club. and are thereby seriously in- terfering with the war. REDISCOUNTING FARMERS’ s NOTES THE national banks and any others that are members of the federal - reserve system can also add-greatly to their lending power by rediscount- ing the farmers’ notes which they hold, at the central Federal Reserve bank. This government institution will carry the paper for them at 5 per cent and they can use the money .80 obtained for further loans.’ Getting the difference between 5 per cent and what is charged on the farmer’s note for simply doing the. bookkeeping ought to be attractive to a real banking institution and.in ad- dition there is the motive of patrioti service. The business man of Ameérs: ica would be broke today without this rediscount system, and it ought to be .. used more extensively than it is in handling farm paper. FIND OUT WHAT YOUR BANKER IS DOING WITH IT. FARM LABOR CONFERENCES lN i EACH STATE ARM labor conferences,” says the department of agriculture, “will’ be held during- September and the first part of October in every state in the Union where federal labor specialists and officials of the states relations service ‘will. discuss labor questions and their solution with officials. of the - state agricultural colleges, state farm- help specialists, county agents, exten- sion leaders and others interested.” - It would probably be worth while to have some:direct farmer representa- tion at these conferences also. llong mtl\ the others: and cattlemen; . ~'quate fuel next winter. o °NHERE THE MENS ARE o MIGHTY GLAD Yo LAY, 3 § If There Is Any Federal Regulation Concerning Food, Fuel, Labor, Farm Machinery Costs, or the Like That You Do Not Understand, Write a Letter toMr. Gilbert, Postoffice Box 575, St. Paul, Minn., and He Will Look It Up and lee You the Facts. LIMITING CREAM STATIONS AIRY AND FOOD Commissioners Weigle of Wisconsin and. Soren- sen of Minnesota appear to be on the right track when they recommend to their respective state food adminis- - trators the limitation of cream sta- tions. They believe that where there is a good local creamery there is mo war-time excuse for duplication of cream buyers and burdening our rail- roads with cream shipments. Such ruling would hit some big interests, of course, among them the packing trust, but if the organized farmers in these states and towns which wish to develop local business get behind the plan it may go through. Also other states can help win the war and give the local creameries a square. deal in the same way. North Dakota, by the way, already has done it. The council of defense of that farmer-controlled state is ahead of the rest of the states in real patriotic endeavor, as usual. Some so-called dairy papers, among them Hoard’s Dairyman, think such a ruling would be un-American, but what of that? Hoard’s Dairyman showed wide-awake farmers its true _colors when it made editorial attacks :the Nonpartisan league. DECREASED COAL PRODUCTION OR the fourth consecutive week,” declares the Iron Age for August 22, “the bituminous coal output of the country has shown a decided decrease. It is now more than 2,000,000 tons a week behind the amount estimated by the fuel administration as a summer- month output to equal the country’s prospective needs. This is a shortage of more than 15 per cent.” The fuel administration is probably deing all it can as a regulatmg body, but mere regulation is not going to give us ade- The big evils in coal ‘production; like those of the shipping, railroads, and the packers, spring from monopoly ownership; they are evils inherent in monopoly and we can not get adequate fuel sup- ply until Uncle Sam takes away the ' private monopoly. THOSE RUBED ‘ HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE Tp mck - WONDER WHATS THE MMTER WiTh MY Aana? Government reports from many sections speak of the splendid work the’ townspeople have done in the harvest fie ds this 1ear. : 80 got:a better view of the farmer’s’ problems than they could have got’ "1 Love THE cows anD cHickeNs T £ W/ arm A BIG FOOD ORDER 00D ADMINISTRATOR HOOV- ER says the allies must import in the year starting September 1, 500,000,000 bushels of cereals, 4,000,- 000,000 pounds of .fats, 900,000,000 pounds of beef for the civil popula- tion, and 1,500,000 tons of sugar. In addition beef must be imported for army needs and oats for army horses. This big order, of course, must be supplied chiefly by the United States. But .Canada has the poorest crop of wheat in years. Our own wheat is much below the spring estimates. Our cattle raisers in many parts suffered from drought in 1917 or 1918. The further we go' along the more does the failure of congress to pass.the Baer bill to give aid to needy farm- ers in 1917, stand out as a gross blunder for political purposes. We can put the same tag on the failure to strafe the packing trust.and the: gamblers in stock feeds at the begin- ning of the war. Let us add also the cutting down of farm loans. We can't feed Europe and our American mo- nopolies at the same time. MILLERS WOULD HANDICAP OUR ALLIES HE flour millers met in St. Loms on August 23 to protest against exporting wheat instead of flour. They declare publicly that while it is easier to load and unload wheat than flour, the flour would take less space and grinding here would keep the mill feeds at home. of course, is the profit on the milling of the export wheat. the greater ease in handling wheat in the berry, the European millers take a much larger percentage for flour than we do; consequently a given number of bushels of wheat will supply much more: human food in Europe than here. Also there is the important fact that the allied cattle as well as the allied peoples must be fed. The patriotic excuses that profit- seekers invent, would be funny if they did not “get away with it” so often. in g lifetime. Think of what new und m:dnrgamn’lw had duwn his farm ideas from the kept farm papers and land specnlators could piek up! And those‘ 'w:lk famers' 2 beca “wu the “thing: to dn What they are after, In addition to-