The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-04-05
A DESERVED ROAST
Collins, the Minneapolis Representa-
tive of the Catalogue Houses,
Roasted by Jim Ham!in.
An Agriculturist is Defined as Eel.
low Who Farms the Farm
erS for q Livelihood.

in the big cities is going steadily on.
The Northwestern Agriculturist of
Minneapolis and Chicago is the latest
paper to come under the ''golden' in
huence Of the catalogue and mail Or
der concerns. Its editor, P. V. Col
Inns, was last year honored with the
presidency of the National Educa-
tional association, ninety per cent of
which organization is composed of
country editors. Yet this Judas to
the profession advocates plan which
if carried out would close out half of
the country newspapers of the land.
This Pee-Vy former editor of the
St. Peter Tribune whom the late Tom
Bowen once gave a sound and de-
served thrashing, not only urges the
farmers to desert their home markets
and trade with the mail order con-
Germs, but recommends that they do
their banking in the cities.
The prosperity of our country does
not depend upon centralized business,
but upon the thriving villages and
little cities scattered throughout the
land. They give the farmer a market
for his produce, and the value of his
real estate is based upon the distance
it is located from one or more thriv-
ing markets and trading points. Wipe
out the mercantile establishments of
Faribault county and let the grass
grow in our now prosperous trading
centers and farm lands would depre-
ciate from 25 to so per cent. Kill off
the merchants who bear large bur-
den of our taxes and you take the
very life blood of the producing ele-
ment Of our land. Our merchants and
our bankers have done and are still
doing much toward increasing real
estate values. The merchants of Blue
Earth are even now, in these prosper
GUS times, accommodating farmers to
the amount of thousands upon thou
sands Of dollars. The banks are do
ing the same. The catalogue houses
demand that you not only pay cash in
advance, but have the money in hand
before the farmer sees his purchase.
The catalogue house drains the
land of its cash while by honeyed
words it induces the credulous farmer
to ''buy a pig in poke.''
The life blood of the provincial
newspaper is its advertising patron
age. Kill off the country merchant
and you take from the country news
paper its very existence; you destroy
that medium through which the news
of the little city, the village and the
surrounding country is disseminated,
and whose weekly visits to the intelli-
gent farmer and his family are eager
ly watched for. It is the home paper,
filled with home news of no particular
interest to those from affair, but of vi
tai Importance to all within it's circle
of readers.
This "Agriculturist," whose editor
actually knows about as much of agri-
culture as a hog knows about war,
would kill off the country merchant,
the country banker and necessarily
the country newspaper, simply because
such as T. M. Roberts g. Co., Mont
gomery Ward & Co. and Sears, Roe
buck & co. patronize his cheap pages.
Such a paper is not the true friend
Of the farmer and a costly investment
at any price. It's name should be
changed to the Mail Order Weekly
Bulletin, Peevy Collins, cashier,
Montgomery Roberts Roebuck, editor.
Blue Earth Post.