FARMERS MUST SELL THEIR OWN CROPS
Arvold, Alfred G.
FARMERS MUST SELL THEIR OWN CROPS How They Can Keep Farm Produce Out of the Hands of Speculators By ALFRED G. ARVOLD HOW to get a fair return for his labor is as important a question to the...
...It is the crucible of God—'the melting pot' of America, where the best of all the races of the world have congregrated and amalgamated to produce America's working citizens who love their country, are willing to die for it, and who are not ashamed of honest labor...
...It is not...
...Some 30,000,000 men, wowomen and children are working the prairie, the meadow, the hill and the valley...
...How dramatic the whole scene is laid out before us...
...One is robbed, the other the robber...
...The laborer's wages remain stationary...
...The uncertainty of the price holds the miller—the man who grinds the wheat into flour-—in check...
...It is if the farmers will get together, pledge to hold their grain, store it in their own elevators, and sell it direct to the miller or the consumer...
...It affects the business man—the lawyer—the laborer—the educator...
...No greater issue confronts the American people today than does this economic problem of the land, for people must have food to eat, and the land produces food necessary for man's existence...
...On the same day, in a great metropolis of the Middle West, several hundred men are speculating and gambling in the necessaries of life...
...Even the railroads are at the mercy of this unjust speculative power...
...Arvold emphasizes the importance of giving the farmer a fair chance in an open market.—Editor's Note...
...Their backs are bent...
...All people are dependent upon the tiller of the soil...
...Their hands are calloused...
...Their shoulders are stooped...
...One eats off a cheap red table cloth in the kitchen...
...They call it a legitimate business—nothing more or less than buying and selling...
...It is here that the American farmer must fight for a "square deal...
...Consequently the soil not only presents an important scientific problem but it also presents one of the greatest economic problems of the age...
...His success is everybody's success...
...One makes $1,000 for 365 days of labor and work, the other earns $4,000,000 in sixty days time...
...The whole nation is waking up to the needs of reform in the present system of disposing of food stuffs...
...Middle West the Battleground THE MIDDLE WEST—that great agricultural mecca between the Rockies and the Alleghanies, between Canada and the Gulf, is the battleground upon which the American farmer, the American laborer, the American capitalist, must fight his political, his moral, his social battles...
...The price of a loaf of bread becomes higher...
...In the following article Mr...
...No geographical barrier can check its progress...
...One works in overalls besmeared with grease and oil and mud...
...There is not an objection that can be raised to it...
...One of the most enthusiastic champions of this movement is Mr...
...A decrease in tonnage often results...
...One does the actual work, the other speculates...
...That it can be done is beyond dispute—that it must be done is inevitable...
...All Depends on the Farmer LABOR is an essential force in the production of food...
...At present there is a strong movement among farmers, especially in the middle west, to bring this about by cooperative marketing...
...Even their horses are tired and tuckered...
...Their muscles are hardened...
...Farmers must sell their own crops and not until they do so will the laborer and the producer receive their just dues in the eyes of God...
...Speculation causes fluctuation...
...Concerted Action Needed UNLESS some concerted action is taken by the people of this nation, and especially the producing classes, to check and prevent this pernicious practice of gambling the drastic effects will be keenly felt by every class and race...
...They can if, in the words of Roosevelt, they will cooperate, build elevators, create markets and control their own buying and selling...
...Millers and consumers are both in favor of this honest, straightforward method...
...That the present system of reckless speculation in farm products is wrong and a curse to the country cannot be questioned...
...To find a legitimate method of selling products so as to treat both the producer and consumer fairly and equitably and justly is the common substance of the mighty and the wonderful issue facing every American farmer today...
...IT is a beautiful day in spring...
...Is it possible to keep the grain out of the speculators' hands...
...They are plowing the ground and planting the grain in order to produce foodstuffs enough to feed the countless numbers of hungry men...
...It is the welfare of the man who toils all year to produce enough food to feed the hungry—the farmer whom we are interested in to see that he is justly treated and his honest efforts rewarded—is what mostly concerns us...
...Alfred G. Ar-vold of the State Agricultural College of South Dakota, who is in constant demand for speeches on this subject where farmers gather in conventions or institutes...
...The question naturally arises, can the American farmers invent or originate a legitimate method of selling grain so as to treat the producer and consumer alike...
...And farmers everywhere are awakening to the necessity of establishing some system that will enable them to get a square deal in marketing their produce...
...The other wears tailor-made clothes of stylish set and fashion...
...The other partakes of a sumptuous menu on Irish linen with servants waiting upon him...
...The guide of the household, the busy wife and mother, has worked faithfully and diligently and yearns for rest...
...The baker who bakes the bread must suffer likewise...
...It is the bread basket of the world...
...The farmer—the man who actually produces the foodstuffs—is not benefited in the least by speculaton...
...It is gambling—pure, genuine gambling...
...The evil effects of this pernicious practice harm practically every class of people...
...It is one of the greatest economic movements of the age...
...All day long—since the crowing of the cock in the early morn—they have struggled and toiled...
...Often he is compelled to suspend operations and this naturally throws men out of employment...
...It is certain they help nobody...
...It is destined to be America's grandest portion...
...Likewise his failure spells ruin and business depression...
...FARMERS MUST SELL THEIR OWN CROPS How They Can Keep Farm Produce Out of the Hands of Speculators By ALFRED G. ARVOLD HOW to get a fair return for his labor is as important a question to the farmer as it is to the man who works for wages in a factory...
...The consumer is not benefited...
...These so-called apostles of business are not only gambling in the products grown in the soil, but they are gambling in the human flesh and blood of 30,000,000 men, women and children who are actually compelled to work sixteen and eighteen hours per day to furnish the goods for these manipulators to carry out their speculative operations...
...Gambling will soon stop if the speculators and the gamblers get no grain to gamble with...
...It is a natural law that the man who produces should be the man to sell...
Vol. 1 • July 1909 • No. 28
