Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-05-04
THE FARMERs TRUST.
- - Nsw Oreanieatien ie -.

What this New Organization Is Like.
In letter to the Nebraska State
Journal, Walter N. Allen of Meriden.
Kansas, president of Farmers Trust,
writes as follows:
al have received letters from gentle
men of the northwestern states asking
in what respect does the farmers trust
differ from the grange. L can answer
without prejudice, as I have been a
member of the grange for the past sew
enteen years. The grange tried to
regulate prices on what the farmers
had to buy. The farmers trust under
takes to control the prices on what the
farmers have to sell. The one appoints
agents to buy cheap; the other viii
appoint agents to sell to the best ad-
vantage. The grange is a secret social
society; its members are bound to-
gether by moral obligations; it sought
to effect Legislation and to accomplish
political ends. It excludes from mem
bership all persons who are not farm
ers. The farmers trust has no secrets,
signs, passwords, nor black balls, and
it's members are bound together by pc
cuniary obigations-has a pocket IN
terest and a business end. 1t seeks
for the best business talent and invites
the cooperation of all men of brains,
experience and business integrity A
distinguished gentleman from Illinois
writes me suggesting farmers pr0tec-
tive union as a substitute for farmers
trust. am aware there is a prejudice
against anything that has the name
of trust, but this is owing to the fact
that the object of a trust is so little
understood. A trust is a union of bus
mess institutions, and its object is to
prevent ruinOus competition IN trade,
experience having demonstrated that
competition is not the safe and honest
mOthod of doing business. To com
petition may be traced 80 per cent OF
all business failures, and the survival
OF the tittest or strongest becomes an
oppressive monopoly. A trust is a com
pact between two or more independent
business firms, agreeing to do or not to
do a certain thing IN their line of bust
ness, and implies a trustee to execute
the trust, who is restricted or limited
to the specific object of the trust. BY
tlGSH ulOu6Eh ALBBlbuGLOLHs N1lLAOLLl4
grades of prices IRE established, thus
protecting the weak against the strong;
respectively reserving to each member
of the union all the rights and powers
not delegated to the trust. A trust
therefore is decentrahzing In its in
fuence, an a check upon monopoly;
the latter being a consolidation Of
capital or a Capitalization of business
power, acting under one supreme
principal head; deriving its nourish-
ment and growth from the failure and
ruin of competitors in trade. When
combination In business assumes this
character it ceases to be a trust and be-
comes monopoly. The mauufactur-
ing and commercial classes are organ
lied but the agricultural, the funda-
mental industrial class, is unOrganized,
and at the mercy of the other two. The
farmers trust movement therefore has
become a necessity in order to secure
an equitable exchange of products, and
to restore the normal condition of
trade, or an equilibrium of production
and consumption. The interstate con
vention of farmers called to meet at
Topeka, Kansas, May 1, 1888. is to be
a delegate and mass convention, any
farmer or stock raiser viii be admitted
without reference to credentials.