The Richmond palladium. (Richmond, Ind.) 1906-1907, 1906-12-19
Alleged that International
Harvester Combine is
Gouging Farmers.
HAS BRANCH OFFICE HERE
GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES ARE
LOOKING UP INFORMATION
ABOUT cOMPANYS METHODS
WITH PROSECUTION IN MIND.

The national government is about
to make an investigation, with view
to possible prosecution, into the farm
implement trust, known in commerce
as the international Harvester compa-
ny, and which has branch distribut-
ing house on South Seventh street.
A dispatch from Washington con-
corning the matter says: "As a result
of a talk with Commissioner of Corpo-
rations Garfield on the subject, Sena-
tor Hansbrough, of North Dakota, hes
introduced resolution in the Senate
directing the commissioner to insri-
tute an early investigation into the
International Harvester Company, and
allied concerns, the investigation 10
determine whether the prices and OFT
put of farm machinery are controlled
by any particular individual or com5i-
nation of individuals, whether there
exists at present a healthy Compel
ton among local dealers in farm ma
chinery, and whether the quality OF
the machines is on the average as
good as in former years.
Senator Hansbrough said such an
investigation was necessary in order
to relieve the farmers of the country
from the grinding extortion" OF the
trust, whose operations, he declared,
are seriously Gripping them.
I'm my movements about the West
during the summer and fall he con-
tinued, II made personal inquiries of
individual farmers regarding the con
ditions under which they bought farm
implements, and / have made up my
mind that so far as itl effect upon The
agricultural class is concerned. the In
ternational Harvester Company is one
OF the most injurious of existing
trusts.
mot only does it control output AID
price, but 1t is putting out inferior ma
chinery.
Why Inquiry is Wanted.
II went to the Department of Com
merce and Labor to ascertain if it was
looking into this matter, and finding it
had not made any move, l determined
to have Congress adopt resolution
requiring such an investigation to be
made as early as possible. In an ar
ticle recently brought to my attention
/ read that some kind of reorganiza-
ton of the trust had occurred, but this
reorganization was in the nature of
expansion, and it's capital amoInts
now to $100,000,000. l recognized
that the Department of Commerce and
Labor is handicapped in its work by
an insufficient force, and / went to
the appropriations committee and tod
1t that the department must be sup
piled with more help. We cannot
permit such a gigantic trust as the
International Harvester to continue to
grind the farmers.
The application OF machinery to
harvesting and handling crops has cot
by any means reached its limits in In |
creasing the re sources of farms. But
many of the farmers claim the trust
makes more money by selling repair
parts than it does on the machine it |
self, and for this reason is willing to
charge comparatively small price for
a machine. Experts even say the
trust could afford to give away its '1a |
chimes The effect of this policy IS to |
make the trust chary Of putting new
inventions in the field, and it is said
that it buys the rights to patents and
then fails to make use of them. The
disappearance of the rural black |
smith, it is said, has left the small
farmer to contend single-handed
against the huge corporation from
which alone he is able to secure his
tools"