The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1910-01-18
ORGANIZATION
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dation, but it is not less essential that
the farmer should get an adequate re-
turn for what he grows
Among the reasons given for this
condition by President Roosevelt and
the Country Life Commission, we find
the following:
In the general readjustments of
modern life, inequalities and discrimi-
separate man suffers most
HE (the farmer) stands practical
ly alone against organized interests
In suggested remedies we find:
There must be vast enlargement
of voluntary organized effort among
farmers themselves. They are rela-
lively unOrganized'
1.-The most important help govern
ment can give, whether national or
go about the task of organization, ed
ucationand cooperation with the best
resultsA
by Relatively organized they mean
as compared to the manner in which
every other form of human endeavor
is organized, from the commonest class
of labor to the professional classes,
merchants and jobbefs associations.
and shippers associations, and the
among manufacturers and the big car
rying corporations. The commission
could readily see after a careful inves-
tigation that the individual who had
nothing whatever to say about the
price at which the products of his own
labor should sell, was laboring at a
great disadvantage, under the present
business system. They recommend an
investigation of the middleman's sys-
tenn of handling farm products, coupled
with his disadvantages in transporta-
ton, taxation, etc
'If the business of farming is to
ever be what it should be, if the far
mer is eXer to get an adequate return
on the money invested, the labor ex-
pended and the risks assumed, he has
got to apply to his business, in some
measure, this modern principle of an
adequate and effective farmers or
ganzation.
L have always believed that the
first place that proper organization
would bring practical results is in the
marketing of farm produce, and if
the present efforts along that line are
intelligently directed and properly
supported by the farmers, it will be
but a few years more until the pro-
Queer and consumer will be brought
a great deal closer together, and few
producer. Under the present system
of handling grain in the Pacific north
west, there are hundreds of men en-
ployed at big wages who work but a
fraction of the year, and earn but a
fraction Of the salaries paid to them.
I'm the little town of Lacrosse, for
example, there are four local managers
for grain handling companies, any one
of whom could transact all the business
connected with the marketing of the
crop, and have plenty of time left to
give good advice to the farmer on all
subjects in which he is interested
In Colfax they have 13 grain Of
fees, and each one plentifully supplied
with managers and assistant manag-
ers. In Spokane they have the same
presage the downfall of the present
system, 1 will always think that it
should.
another place in which intelligent
organization could be effective for
good, would be in the establishment of
an adequate system of agricultural
credit The farmer is the safest pos
sible debtor, the large bulk of his capt.
tai being invested in such way that
it is entirely impossible to lose it
quickly by disaster or mismanagement,
yet he pays the highest rate Of inter-
est for loans of any man in the COM
munity.
In the agricultural counties east
and south of the Columbia river in this
state, there is on deposit with the So
called country books over $20,000,000
the greater part of which belongs to
the farmers, and in the city of Spo-
kane $31 000, 900, some of which is far
mers money, Under these conditions
does it not look like the farmer should
receive as fair treatment at the fl
nanciai institutions as anyone.
TN the matter of the improvement of
country roads, if the farmers were as
ISOLATED together in a useful Organf-