Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1910-01-27

be depends on his own caprice or
good will.
He now announces to hungry
world and an eager market that his
wheat costs, including a reasonable
profit, $1.25 per bushel. If it costs
another farmer Csc to raise a bushel
of wheat with 75c profit, that would
be entirely immaterial to the first
one. Or if it should cost a third
farmer $3.50 to raise a bushel of
wheat with soc profit added, he
would insist on 81 bushel for his
crop. At this time of the discourse
1--we soar in Utopia dreamland and re-
main there until we hear a request
to join the Farmers Equity Society.
And to say that we jump. is putting
it tamely. Why, this organization
has Hill, Havemayer, Hartman and
Morgan nicely rounded up in the
industrial kindergarten, and the
combined labor organizations play
ing marbles in our backyard. And
that night we dreamt that we were
enthroned on a distant fixed star, the
world, sun, moon and stars doing
homage, and crowned with Cannon's
real coronet.
| The farmer has been and is now a
subject of chance earnings. The
amount of his output depends on his
management, which he has not the
slightest control. The Overload
may lock the reservoirs above, or
they may be carelessly opened and
strike the fields below in chunks OF
ice, wave of rancid air on a July
night blanched with a polar breath,
or a few days of tropical winds will
save Irvine and threshing bills. If he
escapes these and a thousand other
ills that crops are heir to, the farmer
is still met with a chance problem
a market for his product that should
be determined by the price created
from supply and demand, but which
in reality is established by Board of
Trade and Stock Exchange man1pu-
lations.
| A practical farmer can by certain
methods eliminate some of the haz-
ards Of crop failures. But that
question is not considered by the
Farmers Equity. Its aim is, or
should be, to create reasonable and
stable compensation for his produce
in the marts of trade. That brings
us right to the point.
| Today, Wall Street and dozen
other board of trades, speculates on
the farmers products, and absolute
ly determines it's value. That is not
fixed and permanent price, but
changeable to the mood of few
persons. This omnipotent power of
changing the price of a loaf of bread
from one day to another is the most
! dangerous Industrial problem facing
| this country, and is a problem that
the Farmers Equity Society must
| combat and solve. If the Farmers
Equity can master that, the purpose
of it's organization will be accom-
| plished, and we will have a stable
market determined by supply and de-
mand.
| Can it be done? In a large meas
ure it can. All trade and stock spec
ulation is made possible with money.
This money is furnished mostly by
| the laboring and farming class of
this country. Primarily, all wealth
has its origin from products of the
soil, and labor for it's production,
transportation and manufacture.
| From the earliest historical rec.
OrdS down to our day, we learn that
man, in every class and under all
conditions, is and has been a gamb-
ler The most fastidious and respec-
table form of gambling has been
termed insurance. Under that name
one man for a certain consideration,
CANDLES that ship shall make a
! Sofo trim fhot cho11
burn. or that a certain man shall not
die. The other man bets that it will
not do these things, when as mat
ter of fact from the interest he has
in this property anu in his own life,
he is really aiming for the same OBJ
ject as the man with whom he gets.
This gambler who insures another
mans life or property does not pro-
duce one iota. He makes his liv-
ing from his bets. His bet is always
safe and averages IS cents on the
dollar profit. In time and with in
creased business he must find a pro-
ftable use for his money. Every day
there is flow of currency from mil
lions of farmers and laborers gamb-
ling on their property and lives, to
the terminal of all gambling-New
York.
This is the modern Sodom, the
industrial parasite center of 90,000,-
900 of people, who humbly worship
the calf of goldWall Street. They
worship it when they send their hard
earned money in insurance prem
iums. These premiums have al
ready assumed the proportions of
Colossus, and while they temporarily
touch Wall Street the farmers
wheat is a means of speculation.
And while we blame Wall Street and
the government for not suppressing
this evil, let us take some blame our