The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1907-05-09
The American Society of Equity.

Referring to the notice in another
column of our public meeting some
explanation may be of interest:
The society takes the stand in behalf
of farmers-whose society it is-that
the farmers are under no moral nor
legal obligation to feed the balance of
the world at unproftably low prices.
The returns farmers get for products
in general are inadequate to allow
them to buy the labor they need and
pay it's demand. Hence, wife and
child labor is compelled excessively
as substitute, together with expen-
sive and shortlived machinery. Mort
cages are increasing. More sons and
daughters than ever before, and
younger, are going to the cities.
Farming is not attractive to them
simply because it is Improbable.
What is the coming result? Hard
times?
Restore the right of pricemaking to
farmers and these deplorable condi-
tons will cease. Commission men
will be compelled to play fair and ex-
tortionate middlemen will be cut out,
and cost to consumers will increase
only in the pace that manufacturers
and merchants have set on what farm
ers have to buy.
Crooks in the road between producer
and consumer will be Strengthened.
For lack of a proper plan of distribu-
ton major portion of the peach and
apple crop of Georgia and Missouri
decayed in the orchards and in glutted
markets in 1906. Our society has a
preventive of such losses.
Controlled marketing is our watch
word; proper distribution and feeding
the market from the farm only so fast
as food is needed prevent gluts and
sustain a fair profitable price, the
price that organized farmers by repre-
sentatives elected established at har-
vest time.
This certainty of values removes
uncertainty on the marts of trade,
gambling that goes along with it and
damaging fluctuations. By this plan
farmers control their production, dis
tribution and prices as all other man.
ufacturers do, and knowing to GER
tainty what their products are to
bring, they can plan expenses for
their operations ahead and 90 on the
labor market and feel warranted in
securing good help for their seasons
work. The foundation for this is
solid; it is in the facts that consump-
ton will equal production and it
takes year to consume the crops,
and the demand will be equally as
great in the eleventh and twelfth
month after harvest as in the first and
second month after.
But how is the poor farmer going to
hold for price? He need not hold
long-perhaps not at all. Every
days demand must be net. The best
statistics show that stoppage
of twentyseven days would empty
every warehouse, elevator and cold
storage as bare as Mother Hubbard's
cupboard! Four hundred freight
trains day of 40 cars to the train
and running 365 days in the year are
required to bring the products to the
mouths of hungry people! Farmers,
do you realize it's magnitude and your
relation to that fact? Do you realize
that the past inactivity of farmers re-
garding their marketing has lost their
power of pricemaking into the hands
of the spectators and gamblers and a
few produce kings?
Do you know that 1900, 900 farmers
families have an income of less than
$500 and that the average income OF
other laborers is more than $1,000?
The latter are sufficiently organized
to gain their demands and protect
themselves against the oppression OF
greedy capitalists; you are not and
you have to take for your products
that is for your whatever they
please to offer. The cost for you to
organize will be but triae compared
to your yearl y loss without it. The
plan is simple; cooperate for a
proper system of marketing and that
will sustain the prices that will bring
you prosperity. President Roosevelt,
in his last message, said: "Organiz.
alton has become a necessity in the
business world: it has accomplished
much for good in the labor world; or.
ganization is not less necessary for