The Fargo forum and daily republican., 1907-03-05

can go to the farmer elevator COM
panies and get the price and the
grade.
'The first wheat / ever sold was to
la farmers elevator company, and /
said, What is the price, Before that
II had dumped my wheat in the ele-
vator and / did not know what / was
going to get.
Il have been in the country twenty
five years this spring, and / do not
think there has ever been a state in
the union that mas been bled like
North Dakota. There is not another
state could ever have, lived as they
have lived, and been robbed and
skinned as they have been on their
wheat if it had not been as rich as
the garden Of Eden,
"The further west you go the worse
| it is. They never pretended to buy
wheat five or ten years ago for less
than cents per bushel profit recol-
lect selling wheat twenty years ago,
when / used to sell wheat back at
Clifford, at 20 cents off the Duluth or
Minneapolis price. Now, ] know that
| they are buying wheat on this plan
| in these elevators right now. Maca-
roni they are buying for and cents
off. They make that money on every
load of wheat that goes into Duluth.
II had some macaron wheat that
| was a little bit off grade, and our
/ elevator was full so that | could not
get it in there, and took it over to
another elevator, and they wanted to
grade it No. 3. / shipped it down to
Duluth and | got 6S cents, and it
graded No 2 with one pound off.
| Nov, / think these things are worth
looking up, gentlemen. This is the
! way things have been going on right
along, just because we are not organ
izeds Every farmer imagines that he
is a whole combine just himself. The
farmers have begun to get, within the
last five years, little bit prosperous,
and you go to a farmer and he will
say that he can buy goods a little bit
cheaper outside the organization than
he can inside remember when twine
was reduced from Is to IA cents, and
the dealers came out from Mayville
to the biggest farmer in our neighbor-
hood, and they said, we will sell you
twine for / cent less than the alliance
can sell 1t to you for and they sold
that twine at cent loss in order to-
disorganize the alliance. The dealer
told me afterwards that it was cent
pound less than 1t cost him. These
dealers go out around among our
farmers, and they tell them these orr
ganizations are no good, and these big
men that they get hold of help to
skin the little fellow at his business.
Another thing, these big wheat farm
ers get better deal on their grain
! than yon little fellows do with a quar-
ter section.
! when / first came to this country
/ j took UP a little bit of land, and an
old friend Of mine had three sections
I-of land at Clifford, and he said, If
you will put your wheat in my name,
/ L will be able to get for you 2 cents
above the list price for it, He was
| a big farmer, and their rule is, when
they want to catch the little suckers,
!, to get hold of the big farmers. They
will watch and see which way the
| big farmers ship their wheat and then
1.-THE small farmers will do that, too.
| They are doing everything they can to
keep you from shipping your own
grain. and the only thing that can
change all this will be the farmers
organizations.
@The first fellows that jumped onto
me were the line fellows. They were
just wild when they found that I was
after the line companies, and when /
lconcluded to go after commission
firm for the benefit of the farmers they
lsaid. .If you so into the commission
business here and get these fellows In
line. we will have to go out Of bust
lness. and they commenced bucking
nln. They had forty mon travelling