Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-02

plans of which is called ga gigantic trust
of agriculturists" which is to have cap
ital OF $50 900, 900, is to regulate the price OF
grain, and is to ruin the spectators.
The foundation for this report is that q
man in Chicago has taken out incorpora-
tion papers for 1.-THE Farmers Cooperative
Brotherhood of the United States" author
lied capital S50, ,O0O, 900. To this he invites
the farmers subscribe, at the rate of $50 per
share, and when he gets his $50, 900. 900 he
intends to do great things. He proposes to
buy up the entire grain crops OF the country
if the farmers wish to sell, or If they do not,
the "Co-operative Brotherhood" will loan
the farmers four-fiths of the value of their
crops. The farmers are 10 be bound to sell
their grain only to the Brotherhood, which
will build elevators all over the country and
take the entire business Of handling the
grain crops in its own hands. On the some
what iuconsequent statement that this beau
tiiul scheme will increase the price that the
farmers get for their grain, those long suffer-
ing victims of patent-rights notes, gold
bricks, and seed-oats swindlers are invited
to send in their subscriptions and one dollar
apiece TO the inventor of this wonderful
incorporation.
There is nothing especially remarkable in
the fact that human crookedness should de-
wise such a plan for extracting one dollar
apiece or more from all the gudgeons who
can lie deceived into thinking there is
something in it, or that some victims should
be feeced by it. But that paper of national
reputation should be gulled into publish
ing an advertisement of such a scheme as a
serious project, without rejecting upon
some obvious facts, is a remarkable exam
pie. The first is that even if the S5O, ,0OO. 900
capital were not an entirely imaginary
sum, it is worth while to compare it with
the work that it is proposed to undertake.
1t expects to control the wheat crop of the
United States. The only way to control the
wheat crop is to buy it all; which by the
time that the wheat is stored or marketed
calls for the neat capital of four hundred In
stead of fifty millions. 1t proposes to do the
same thing with the corn crop; which takes
a bagatelle of five or six hundred millions
more. This precious story is published In
utter ignorance on the part of the paper
giving it publicity that the capital en-
gagged in the work which this Cooperative |
Brotherhood proposes to undertake, is
somewhere in the vicinity of thousand |
million dollars.
Hardly less shallow is the idea that be- |
cause scheme proposes the utterly impossi- |
bic task of becoming the sole buyer of farm |
products in the United States the farmers |
are to be benefited by 1t. If 1t were not |
too silly thing to take seriously. it might |
be pointed out that the Standard Oil Com |
pany has frequently been the sole buyer of |
crude petroleum without any special benefit
TO the producers, and that if this company |
could by any stretch of the Imagination be |
supposed to handle any grain, it must |
take whatever prices the grain will bring in
the markets of the world, and can only en-
hance its profits by depressing the price paid
to the farmers
OF course it is waste time to argue the
possibility of this scheme ever going any
urther than to absorb whatever remittances
nay be sent to it by deluded subscribers to
its stock. The farmers have often been de-
.ided for their liability to be taken by the
schemes of confidence men, but when a
newspaper permits its
columns to be used in booming such
shallow game ass "a trust of ofagriculturists. ''its
editors should be placed under guardian
hip to protect them from the wiles OF gen.
lemen with interests in lottery drawings, or
With friends whose drafts have to be ashed
n order to pay imperative and unex-
1ected bills.