Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1892-09-22
Robbed By a Ring.
Full Story of the Great Crime
Against the Minnesota and
Dakota Farmer.
The Minneapolis Wheat Ring
Crushing the Wheat Grower
to the Wall.
A Whitening Expose of the
Crime Made By the Chicago
Herald.

Crime Made By the Chicago
Herald.
Farmers in the wheat-growing
states of the Northwest will be as
founded by the revelations made in
a book which will be issued from
the press today, and which will lay
bare for the first time the vicious
workings of a combination of ,eleva-
tor men, millers and railroad men
to deceive and swindle the farmer,
the merchant and the world at large.
For years 1T has been known that
combine existed in the Northwest to
control the output of wheat, but so
widespread and SO powerful was its
influence that it successfully baff1ed
the efforts Of conscientious men to
expose its iniquity. The home of
the ring is in Minneapolis. From
this favored point it has been ena-
bled to fasten its fangs upon such
great wheat-growing states as the
two Dakotas, Washington and Ore
gon. But while it was reaching
out to delude and swindle the farm
ers of those states it did not over
look the wheat-growers of it's own
commonwealth.
The Startling Publication
links the names of United States
Senator Washburn, Charles Pills
bury, the "four king" and other
elevator and milling men and repre-,
sentatives of the great railroad inter.
ests to the infamous ring, and the
array of evidence which it produces
in eighty pages of closely printed
matter cannot have any other effect
than to bring the thousands of farm.
ers in the great wheat belt to real
izing sense of their peril and an
understanding Of their impoverished
condition. Throughout this reign
of stealthy robbery and incredible
duplicity the combine has enjoyed
the all-powerful immunity which
the Republican party of Minnesota
could extend to it. The exposure,
now so complete and so unanswer.
able, involves not only the potent
influence of the men already named,
but H. L. Loucks, president Of the
Farmers Alliance of the United
States, who is now on the stump for
the so-called Peoples party in Texas,
and who it is charged in the book
was brought under the influence of
Pillsbury in a most remarkable way.
No Escape For the Farmer.
The story of the Infamous career
of the ring explains to great ex-
tent the miserable condition of the
farmer in the wheat belt of the
Northwest. At no time during it's
reign could he escape it's clutches.
From dawn to dusk of each day a
conspiracy existed and still exists to
rob him of the full value of the re-
suit of his toll: Out of this sys-
tematic plan of robbery the ringstels
have been enabled to grow richer
and richer and to strengthen the
grip of the Republican party upon
the states in which they had the
savage effrontery to carry on their
schemes. Next to the startling as
ISOLATION of President Loucks, Of the
Farmers Alliance, with the combine
which, it is charged, practically
wrecked the Farmers Alliance Ele-
vator company, a corporation organ
lied by the farmers of Dakota, to
which they sold their wheat, and
from which they got price far in
excess Of that paid by the trust, the
most sensational charge in the book
deals with Charles A. Pillsbury, the
millionaire flour king. Early in
1889 Fl. F. Arnold, of Larimore. N.
Oak, representing the farmers of his
neighborhood and