Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1886-01-23
WHEAT AND MILLS.
The Mill Man Making One Hundred
Per Cent. While the Farmer
Makes Barely Eight.
what the Farmers Must DO TO Have
Cheap Fiour-A Monopoly TO be
squoiohed First.
ArEpo. TEN, Jan. a, 1855.

ALEDo. TEN, Jan. q. lss8.
To the Editor OF the Gazette.
as your paper circulatos largely In
North Texas--the wheat region--and
manifests the enterprise to encourage
whatever 1t deems to inure To the
progress and development OF this sec
ton, hope you will allow me to submit
TO its readers some thoughts that are
well-establsbed in my own mind, hoping
something may come OF it.
In the midst OF the depression OF prices
OF all agricultural products and the gen
eral abundance OF breadstuffs, no one will
question the fact that the first law of econ
omical selt-preservatlon would suggest TO
the farmers of Texas TO at once look
about them and seek and adopt any
feasible measures that promise any re-
lief to their business. Now, shall
assume that at this time (and ut no time
in the past, neither in the near iuture)
Texas, in the limited wheat-growing
the wheat required for homo con-
sumption; that the tariff levied
for transportation to the North,
say 30 cents per hundred, robs the pro-
Queer Of any profit on wheat sent there
wv CRNAEhNN 40 "a HlObitLlNt aim III iuNOI
of Texas millers OF which the selfish in
stincts of human nature will ever prompt
them to- avail themselves. These state
ments viii not be contested, even by the
millers.
In the face of these facts wheat is daily
shipped to Missouri and the -four returned
to Texas, the Texas consumer paying the
freight each way, and still his neighbor,
the wheat producer, losing money, while
this immense bonus, amounting to at least
10 per cent. of the price realized by the
producer, Is going into the pockets of
foreign corporations.
Now, have no war to make upon any
person or class, but there Is great and
growing evil disclosed in this state of
affairs that invites the immediate
and energetic attention of every
business man in Texas, whether a
wheat-producer or not, for no class
in the community can be persistently i'm
poyerished without affecting all In some
degree. "But," says someone, "where
is the remedy for thisP 1t is an easy
matter to detect disease, but much more
difficult to prescribe remedy"
admit that the remedy in this case
must, in some degree, be homeopathic,
but the fact that flour is now selling in
Western Texas at So or SO per hundred
points it out. The few mills In Texas
have dangerous monopoly in their hands,
Of which they are making vigorous use
twenty-four hours each day, and the
more indiscreet proclaim that their
property Is yielding 100 per cent. per
annuml What can you by hard ticks
and economy grind out of yours, brother
farmerP If you get per cent. you do
well. Dig your products out of the soil
and take it TO your mill and they take one
half and graciously give you the other,
and most OF them return the sacks
Now there ought to be legislative
powee over this question, and ii so our
lawmakers have not discharged their
duty Look it up, you THAT every two
years are anxious TO save your coun-
try. Now have sought to get some re-
llet by having my wheat ground and han
die the Hour, but Notwithstanding the
enormous toll eXacted they further re-
CURED that | should not offer the -four in
competition with theirs!
Now the country and the people need
more mills, and if capitalists will not &C.
cupy the field, where, after returning to
the people 70 per cent. of the profits now
confessedly forced from them, they may
still realize return of their investment
every four years, then we must carefully
save our little per cent. profits, and by
each one taking it back in stock build
mills with honest money, by honest men,
for honest purposes, thus converting our
grain INTO flour and exchanging it with
our neighbors and at the same time de-
irving flve times as much upon the invest
ment as we can upon producing 1t.
do not mean to intimate that mill
owners in Texas are more dishonest than
other men, but they have the power, and
1t Is but human to use it, and some
stump-speaker has said: "There is heap
OF human nature In man" The farmers
OF every organized county in Texas can
build one or more mills, and not feel it,,
and themselves and the country at large
be largely benefited thereby. You Will
probably say eyes, that's sensible and
prac icable. l don't see why it is not
doneY" The first thing is organization.
Meet and organize. Mature plans and 90
TO work, and it is accomplished. hope
you will give this space it may evolve
thought and action. CLoDu0ppER