The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 13, 1921, Page 3

’ IN THE INTEREST OF A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE FARMERS Entered as_second-class matter at the postoffice at Minneapolis, Minn., under the act of March 3, 1879. Publication address, 427 Sixth avenue 8., Minneapolis, Minn. Address all remittances to The Nonpartisan Leader, Box 2072, Minneapolis, Minn. VOL. 12, NO. 12 F YOU are a farmer and have exercised in a mild degree the great American right of “kicking” when you know you have been .skinned, chances are that some. lawyer, banker or mer- chant in town, to whom you have addressed your remarks, has re- plied about as follows: get this fall? Every business is standing a loss. We are in the hard times following the war, which was naturally to. be expected. The process of deflation, after the war inflation, is painful. The cost of living is going down. Things are getting cheaper. You will have to suffer with the rest of us. Anyway, the consumer is getting the benefit.” ' If you have answered by quoting some prices you have been paying—say for shoes—and by showing that the reduction during the last year has been slight, the reply has probably been as follows: “Well, you see labor is still demanding hold-up wages in some cases. Labor réfuses to take the losses that the rest of us neces- sarily must stand in this critical business period. When labor is deflated everything will be down to the same ( extent as the prices farmers get for their prod- : ucts.” These are the stock arguments handed out these days to soothe the farmers. But, as the figures we present on another page of this issue show, the farmer is justified in his “kick.” These figures compare the drop in prices farm- ., ers have suffered in the last year, with the drop in the prices that retailers pay wholesalers, and the public pays retailers. They show how com- paratively slight the labor cost is in manufac- tured articles, especially shoes. They show the farmer has been deflated, and practically - nobody else. They show that the middleman is getting over half the benefit of lowered prices to farm- ers, and not .the consumer. Read the official figures and have the facts . ‘“dead to rights” when next you talk to the lawyer, banker and _ merchant. OL. FRANK WHITE of North,Dakota is not a supporter of the Nonpartisan league. He has always been identified with the anti-League faction of the state. He was boomed for governor once against Governor Lynn J. Frazier. He couldn’t be a Leaguer Farmer Is Deflated; Others Not §.. E:i_ o - and be United States treasurer in the Harding administration, to which position he was recently appointed. . But Colonel White, it seems, is not a “bitter-ender.” It appears hfi d(l)gsg’t believe th(ft the statg, of E\Iort‘:ih Dako%a . : shou ave its good name and credit destroyed, & %r':"gll:lgble and be wrecked by Wall street, just because organ- P LS ized farmers are in control of-the government po- ; Frank White litically and are attempting to carry out a farmers’ industrial program. So he issued a statement &% over his signature declaring that the bonds of North Dakota, which . Wall street has boycotted, are a gilt-edged investment, have been declared constitutional by the highest court in the land and are se- - cured by the taxing power, faith and credit of the whole state. This was a strong indorsement of the bonds which Wall street .has declared shall not be sold, coming as it did from the United States treasurer. Angry Wall street newspapers, and their “me- t00” brethren throughout the country, are astonished and pained. a ..The ' \ onparfisan Jeader C MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, JUNE 13, 1921 “Why should you kick at prices you are getting or expect to | AN EASY VICTIM ; l —Drawn expressly for the Leader by W. C. Morris. L 5 S T AR SRR 05 G ‘A MAGAZINE THAT DARES TO PRINT THE TRUTH vertisi| lication. M dit One year, $1.50. Classifled rates on classified page; . other adve ng rates on applica ) ember Audit of Circulations. 8. C. Beckwith Special Agency, advertising representatives, New York, Chicago, 8t. uis, Kansas City. WHOLE NUMBER 274 Who Gets the Benefit of Farm Products Price Reduction? cially by the treasury department that Colonel White’s indorsement of the bonds is a personal matter with him and “entirely without authority of the treasury department.” ; ) Oh well, guess they’re pretty good bonds if the U. S. treasurer s%ild_ Si)', even if Wall street IS horrified and the indorsement NOT official ! ' VERY school teacher knows that what she tells the children in the classroom is always carried to the home, to be dis- cussed there. It is sometimes easier to convert the parents through the child than by talking to them directly; in addition the : . teacher is practically certain to be the dominating “Catch Them influence in the child’s mind, and the child of to- Youne”—the 92¥ i8 the man of tomorrow. ; g Probably this reasoning induced Armour & Packer Plan Co., the Chicago packers recently indicted for breach of federal anti-trust laws (though they es- caped punishment through the kindness of former Attorney General Palmer), to determine upon a campaign of bringing children from every stock-producing state to Chicago for a week, during which time they are to visit the Armour packing plant, the Continental & Commercial Na- tional bank, which the pack- ers control, and other big business enterprises, and then are to write reports of their trip. These “reports,” natur- ally, will be expected to ex- press appreciation of the kind treatment the youngsters re- ceived from the packers. Prob- ably, also, the youngsters will - be impressed with the idea that if the packers should be put under that dreadful sys- tem of government control proposed by the awful “radi- cals,” the nice, kind packers wouldn’t be able to give them any more free trips. Armour & Co. are now putting out free films showing the first party of children and their tour. The youngsters were “greeted” at Chicago by two vice presidents of the Ar- mour concern and also by E. T. Meredith, former secretary of agriculture, and J. W. Cov- erdale, secretary of the Amer- ican Farm Bureau federation. Meredith’s picture in close company with the packers doesn’t surprise us at all, as his paper, “Successful Farming,” has been one of the leaders in printing packer propa- ganda. Nor can we say that we are particularly startled at seeing Mr. Coverdale’s face lined up with the Armours, in view of the close association that his boss, President J. R. Howard of the Federation, has shown with big business. . The farm bureaus, according to the Armour propaganda, are expected to display the film and get more boys and girls to ¢ontest for the privilege of being the Armour guests at Chicago. OPPONENTS of the Nonpartisan league, when they are forced CINCH HiM UP TIGHT HE DAREN'T to admit that the program of the organized farmers is fun- damentally right, say they are against it because Leaguers are too rough and direct in their methods. Leaguers have a habit of saying just what they mean, and calling a spade Who Shall a spade, instead of a garden implement. That jars Be Models - on their sensibilities. One anti-League legislator e Models in North Dakota set forth the views of these gen- for Farmers? tlemen when he submitted, as his reason for vot- ing against a certain measure for the benefit of the farmers, the charge that the bill was “inartistically drawn.” Leaguers may as well admit that sometimes they may hot have , conformed to 100-per-cent standards of artistry and delicacy. - But / PAGE THREE : i . i