The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1891-03-13
/. Money enough now.

In regard to the questions you suggest
l would say in reply:
LIST. No further than to meet the business
demands of the country.
Sd. Short crops and low prices. Better
prices and better crops.
4th. l think not.
9Th. L am heartily in favor of such q
change.
9th. DO not think any benefit would be
derived.
18th. Am not in favor of any change.
l2th. L do net favor any change in our
county affairs.
18th. Certainly not there has already been
trouble and expense enough and any further
agitating the question is uncalled for.
18th. think the local option law q good
thing properly enfored.
18th. To put the Democratic party in
power.
10th. l do think that would be doing
justice to the state.
18th. l do not see any benefit to be derived
from a change of .that kind it would require
the records to be transferred from time to
time.
18th. This question l have not given a
thought for express an opinion. ii. j.
In reading the list of questions you have
given to the public, / came to this one: No
15. What has been the result of the Patrons
movement?
Now perhaps you do not know it, but that
is a question that no one man can answer
correctly, so we shall only try to give You
our version of it, or a part of it. In order
to do so you must take the Patron as he was
before he became a Patron, living on his
farm or in his work shop, isolated and alone
as far as fraternal feeling was concerned.
de toiled on, hoping and sometimes per
haps praying that something might turn up
that would better his condition. Taxation
became more and more oppressive and the
prices of the things he produced kept get
ting lower and lower in the market and you
will remember this thing had been going on
for a number Of years quitting his nose, as
the vulgar phrase is, a little closer to the
grind-stone) compelling him i'm order to keep
up with his %neighbOr in general appearance
to 60 in debt, which he found was simply
an addition to the burdens which he or she
was already compelled to bear, making as
you may readily suppose rather q dissatis-
fed, u~nOrganiZed Patron.
Now there m a sound from the east
OF something new even to the lettering of
the condition of things for the farmer and
laborer. So he gladly halls the sound and
yet with some suspicion that 1t was another
trap of the machine to draw him into the
meshes a little closer. He goes to hear
what they have to say, and 10! it is none
but q farmer telling the truth to his fellow
laborer.
One great truth was we must organize i'm
order to meet and defend our rights, rs well
as all other branches of business that were
organized Il need not tell you of them) and
another thing we must be more economical
In order to pay cash for what we bought
and buy just as cheap as we could and
further we must educate ourselves i'm doing
our own business. BY the way, that is one
of the secrets of our order mind your own
business).
Having thus briefly sketched how he was
before he became a Patron, l will try to tell
you of some of the results and then leave
you to Judge as we are trying to-, of the
great future of our order. | say our for /
am proud to say | am one of them.
Our order takes in the ladies as well as
the gentlemen and has been. the means of
bringing together in one fraternal brother
n sisterhood not only neighborhoods and
townships but counties n states. Bring
ing those who had for years lived within
two or three miles of each other together.
Doing the greatest possible good i'm break
ing down that imaginary barrier which l
guess is called style or fashion or some other
foolish thing and teaching us that even our
neighbor has a heart that beats in unison
with ours for good and teaching us to do
business as business mon do, in decency and
oder.
AS a consequence of wishing to do bust
ness on q cash basis, we run against our
first snag. Surprising of course that every
one would be glad to return to a cash basis.
we expected that our business men would be
glad to sell at q reasonable discount for cash.
But when we approached them on that sub
ject we quite materially differed on what we
called a reasonable discount, therefore we
brought'down on our heads the polite in
~vectives of Pigs OF Ireland, 10 per cent,
G. o. d., and numerous other epithets spit
out Mt us on the streets of the towns and
many other such places, bringing between
the dealer and the patron a rather disagree
able feeling. But the Pig-headed Patron
still persisted and the result was he entered
into contract with n number OF firms in
different branches of business, some very
satisfactory, some very much otherwise.
BY the way we have never very heartily
approved of that way Of doing business as