The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 3, 1919, Page 10

. ’ State Mill Earns 150 Per Cent Profit ~ Audit After First Twenty-Six Days Shows $2,349 Gain Above Operating .Costs—-F armer Gets More for Wheat, Consumer Pays Less for Flour Bismarck Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. ,JHE State of North Dakota now comes forward with “Exhibit A” in the case of the People vs. the Profiteers of Big Business. The state now offers in evidence testimony based on 26 days’ operation of the first state- owned flour mill—the small plant which has been running for one month since the people bought it as the laboratory wherein they would learn for themselves what it cost to produce breadstuff, while giving the farmer full value for his wheat. M Looking into the people’s books at the state- operated mill at Drake, a Fargo auditing company finds these facts: . The farmers who have supplied the mill at Drake have obtained a higher price for wheat than ever was paid in the state—that is, a higher price relative to the quotations of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. The people of the state have obtained the highest quality of flour in the world at the lowest price on record, the current market for flour being consid- ered; and this through the elimination of the middleman. The investment in the Drake plant was only $20,000. This is the merest starter for the whole industrial program of great mills and elevators on which work will begin soon. The output at Drake is only a drop in the bucket considering the great demand for flour from the mill. Yet this fact stands out: Earning $2,349 in the first 26 days, that means a profit of $30,000 a year on an investment of $20,000, or 150 per cent! . Is that profiteering? It can’t be anything else. Yet the mill was run—with the exception, to put it frankly, of giving the farmer a square deal—on the policy that for the first two or three months .. it would be wise to get the market price at the mill by selling directly to the people, and learn just what profits are possible in the business, since the big millers throw up their hands in pious horror at the mere suggestion that. THEY would be guilty of profiteering. B REMOVING THE PENALTY FOR THRIFT mission and himself a milling man of long experi- ence, declared that an even better record will be made when the Drake plant gets to running a full "24-hour day, to say nothing of what will be the result when the state starts to operate the efficient big mills to be erected, with all modern machinery and the advantage of capacity production. Both Mr. McGovern and Mr. Anderson point- ed out that despite this startling record in the interest of the consumer, that the farmer him- ' self—that is, those farmers who were so for-- tunate as to be the source of supply for wheat at Drake—that the farmer had gained. im- measurably from the Drake experiment. COMPETING MILLS FORCED TO PAY HIGHER PRICES The farmer got the full Minneapolis price for his wheat. Even the one small mill forced competing big mills in that territory to pay : higher prices, although they did not pay the Drake price. The farmer got full pay for screenings along with his wheat, although when he sells in Minneapolis the value of the screenings goes into the pocket of the buyer, not of the farmer. - BUT SINCE THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE PASSED THE LAW EXEMPTING FARM IMPROVEMENTS FROM TAXATION, HE HAS TO PAY HIS EQUAL PROPORTION OF TAXES AND 1 AM NOT PENALIZED EVERY The profit of an elevator company was eliminated at Drake. The farmer had no terminal charges to pay. Fees to com- Yet despite these two condi- 4 tions, the state of North Da- N kota, operating as a private OLD LANDGRABBER HAS HELD business so far as selling is THAT LAND FOR ‘30 YEARS concerned—that is, by selling WAITING FOR US TO IMPROVE. at the market price—has paid profits at the rate of 150 per cent on the original investment, even while, because of local conditions, it was grinding at only half time and with an in- efficient small mill. In other words, the mask is ‘torn off those wolves in sheep’s clothing—the corporation news- papers of the country—who continue their vain attempts to convince. the people that there is no bond of common in- terest between the wage-earn- er and the farmer. While federal government agencies and various other grand-standing politicians are making a great hullabaloo about profiteering and eternal- ly threatening to run to earth the guilty ones, nothing is ever done. Profiteering continues —the cost of breadstuff re- mains high to the consumer, and only the relatively small government price . guarantee prevents the speculator from beating the farmer out of still more of his share of the cost of production. While profiteer- ing thrives, the farmer is rob- bed and the wage-earner is gouged. But a farmers’ administra- tion. in this state, which had withstood the attacks of propa- gandists for five years, reveals from its own experience the true face of the gouger and the robber and its newspaper tools that hope to save the remnants of special privilege for a few more years through continued deceptions that would divide the people in the future as they have been in the past. MADE $2,349 PROFIT IN FIRST 26 DAYS But it won’t work. The first 26 days of operation of the Drake mill proves that big business’ game is cooked. Figures don't lie, even if statisticians figure. The audit of the first month at Drake was made for the industrial commission, the managing and chiefly responsible body of the state government. It ex- plains in detail to the commission what the experi= ! il Y 24 . \i\\\ W i ence of the first 26 days of actual operation was; ] and what is to be expected in the future. OUR FARMS SO HE COULD HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF THE RISE IN PRICE ! Drawn expressly for the Leader by Congressman John M. Baer, Until the recent legislature of North Dakota passed the laws exempting farm improvements from taxation, the farmer was penalized every time he put up a new barn, ing ‘his, perhaps held by a speculator, Thus, despite the fact that the state was the owner, and profits were not to be part of the pro- gram, and the farmer and the consumer were hoth to obtain the squarest deal ever offered anybody, the little plant has shown a profiteer’s balance., It is an experiment that will mean much when the history of the liberal movement of the Northwest and its consequent New Day shall have been writ- ten. The people have the goods on Big Biz! J. A. McGovern, manager of the mill and elevator association, declares that the figures do' not ‘mean that profit-taking is to be the future policy of the state industries.’ : “We simply wanted to see. what .we could do, even when we were granting the farmer a better -deal than he ever had before on his crops,” Mr. Me- Govern observed. L W. A. ‘Anderson, secretary- of the industrial com- S - PAGETEN. . TIME | PUT UP A NEW BUILDING! paid taxes on unimproved land. At the same time the erection of a barn by his thrifty neighbor increased the value of the speculator’s holdings. Now the speculator pays his equal share of the taxes, and the farmer isn’t penalized for his thrift. ‘-eral expense, bags, fuel and so mission men were wiped out. Interest on thé draft he drew when he shipped his wheat was reduced because of the shorter' time taken in transit as compared to ship- ments to points outside the state. : And in addition the farmer obtained his flour and his feed at wholesale prices. In other words, so far as the limited capacity of the mill went, the farmer and the wage-earner bought at the same rate the dealer pays. The farmer made money on the freight. On wheat shipped to the Drake mill from the northwest part of the state, there was a saving .of from 10 to 15 cents a bushel as com- pared to the freight to Minne- apolis. - The farmer kept for his own the $2 to $56 freight on feedstuff ground from his own wheat and shipped back: The little Drake mill is soon to be replaced by a large mod- ern plant. : “I have every confidence from my talks with mem- bers of the industrial com- mission that we will be able to have the big mills and elevators in operation in ‘time to handle next year’s crop,” said Mr. Mc- Govern. - “We certainly will have the main elevator and central mill of 3,000 barrels daily capacity in running order by that time.” One of the interesting features of the first audit of the Drake mill was that flour was produced at a much lower cost per barrel than is usually confessed by the big millers. : : The total value of the manufactured products turned out at Drake in the first 26 days was $22,- 579,67, according to the audit company’s check. These products were divided as follows: Flour, $19,970.53; bran, $1,080.80; shorts, $1,511.40, and grits, $16.84.- The mill paid $17,1567 for the wheat ground, which showed a profit of $5,422.21 over all. The expense, including every item such as loss of future sales, salaries, interest, depreciation, gen- - on, was $3,5664.36, - while land adjoin- le'av:’ngog net gain of $2,349.04.