Mower County transcript., 1889-10-30
70 FIX Il, TriElR Fl OWN PRICES.

4
Wheat Growers OF the Mississlppl valley
Form an Association to Control tho
s Market In Leading Cities levators and
Granaries to BE Built. SsS = s5,
q ST, Louis, Oct. as. The Wheat
Growers convention on Thursday took
positive steps toward putting in opera
tion the theory OF, itssmembers that the
farmer should control the price OF
wheat. The Wheat-G Growers Asso-
citation Of the Mississippi Valley was
organized and Norman j. Colman elect
ed president. The executive board
consists Of two members from each
State and Territory. They will open
agencies in Chicago, ;.St. Paul, Kansas
City and Omaha on the 1st of December.
The executive board will fix the price
ofswheat and build elevators and gran
aries to hold it unth they get the price.
The agencies will do a general commits.
sion business for the association.
Robert Lindblom, the Chicago spec
ulator, made a speech, in which he
gave the speculators' side of the
wheat question. He said the lesson
taught by trusts was cooperation, It
was intended as blessing to monopoly
and will end in being blessing to .hu-
manity. Mr.. Lindblom believed that
at fairly high prices more grain
could be sold than at low prices.
There was no foundation for the
cry of overproduction. In five
years, while the production Of wheat de-
creased ~ per cent, the price decreased
,.as per cent. The speaker then went
on to show that there had been
mo overproduction in other countries.
President Colman then addressed the
convention from free-trade stand
point, denounced the way the farmers
are used by the present Admin
istration ;and the protective policy,
and said that the only way to
protect their interests was to
adopt free trade. He ;assailed ,ele-
vator combines, pools, commission
men and speculators as robbers of the
farmers, and said that between these
factions the farmer was crushed. After
: these speeches were applauded-Lind-
blom's by the protectionists and Col
mans by the free-traders-the commit
tee on resolutions presented q plat
form of which the following is a sy-
snopsis:
1T points out the present deplorable state of
the agriculturist; petitions Congress to make
such reciprocity treaties with the foreign ma
tions to whom the farm surplus is shipped
as will remove the duties from farm pro.
ducts that enter their ports; demands the
extinction of monopolies and trusts; asks the
passage of laws repeating the duty on raw ma
terial that enters into the manufacture OF farm
implements; recommends to farmers the
their own use; asks Congress to pass
an Interstate law making it a. felony
for any man to sell or offer for sale any produce
which he does not own at the time of Offering
for sale, and requests Mr.. Porter, Superintend-
ent of the Census, to collect complete statistics
upon the farm mortgage question:.
A very animated debate followed,
which was decidedly political in charac-
ter. The free-traders greatly outnum-
bered the protectionists and the resolu-
tions were finally adopted by large
ajority. Permanent officers were
elected as follows, and the convention
adjourned sine die.
President, Hon. Norman j. Colman, of Mis-
souri,, with the privilege OF naming his own Sec
retary. Executive board, W. l.. Scott and A.
D. Noe, OF Kentucky; n. J. Colman and U. S.
Hall, OF Missouri; E. Fl. Murphy and PA.
Odell, OF Minnesota; D. B. Green and j. T. Nc
Caffrey, OF Illinois; Calvin Cole and George
Gibson, of Oregon; Walter N. Allen and Gov
ernor Charles Robinson, OF Kansas; j. A.
Coates and D. A. Epperson, OF Indiana; N. o.
Walker, OF Tennessee, and II. w. Sargent, OF