The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1910-07-21

a wheel the year around on the crop
OF 1908. Think OF such advertising
as that! 1t might have added TO its
bill Of particulars the other seventeen
mills that had gone out OF business
fer bad the few years preceding. IL
the face of this, | maintain, we are
not wisely developing the foundations
of a great state. We are not loyal
TO our W interests.
These manufacturers Of butter,
flour, meals, starch, syrups, cement,
and many other industries which we
might establish to- work up our own
raw materials should come in as the
complement of our agricultural re-
sources. In what ways open TO us
can we preserve and develop these
industries so much needed for our ex-
pansion and enrichment?
Loyalty
First, we need To- be loyal to the
manufacturers Of our own state, pat
ronize home industry. Made in
South Dakota" should be the brand
or trademark that attracts IA eye,
our taste, our purse. Keep u mon
.ey at home, invest it at home, in
home enterprises, in home manufacture
Iers. in home improvements, in home
industries. The ma,i that draws his
wealth from South Dakota's soil and
spends it on "hot air" in California
or invests in a gold mine in Colorado,
is not building up South Dakota.
Legislation
Second. we should legislate wisely
for the protection of these home in
dustrics.
One of the chief causes which has
led to- the destruction OF our milling
industry, and in these times of fierce
competition has done the same for
every manufacturing industry estab-
lished by us, Is the %inequity of trans
portation rates under which our mills
have labored to preserve trade in our
own territory. For the past twenty
years. there has been a gradual re-
duction Of interstate transportation
rates in commodity or carload lots,
and no reduction whatever in these
commodity rates in our own state. 1t
IS on this commodity or carload lot
rate that all outside flour. wheat or
heavy freight is shipped into this
state. On this rate there has been
a reduction of from forty 10 forty
three per cent in the past twenty years
and on the commodity rate on which
our mills have had to do business
within the state there has been no re-
duction w-hatever-not even one-tenth
of one per cent. You can readily see
what a tremendous advantage that
gives the outside mill over our local
in the home trade, and through
the latter have held down the con
sumption of outside -four to about
twenty per cent of the total consump-
ton, that twenty per cent has fixed
the price of our local mills at the
lowest figure the outside mill could lay
down here and get back cost, But
in meeting the cost price of these
outside mills, twenty-seven per cent
Of our own mills have gone to the
wall and the others are struggling On
a p%recarious existence.
State Rights
In the great national controversy
now going on over the conservation
Of our water powers and mineral land,
the counterfeit is advanced by those
who would relieve the general govern
ment of its responsibility in this mat
ter, that it is the province and duty
of the respective states to safeguard
these resources. There is probably
both law and logic for this position,
and | have thought as the central gov
eminent with relentless persistence
through the interstate commerce com
mission the past twenty years has been
lowering the rate of transportation on
through or interstate traffic to the eX-
clusion of all consideration of rates
in state business, that was arrogating
too much i'm favor Of that class of
transportation to the injury of the
states and their class of business. A
little more states rights, right here,
| believe, would be good doctrine. A
little of the credit accorded the earn
ing power of interstate commerce
ought to be accorded to state business
and a more equable division of the
reduction of rates between state and
interstate business accorded. In the
case Of South Dakota it would not
have reduced the total compensation
to the transportation companies and
would have preserved and fostered our
milling industry. These mills were
built and prospered under conditions
unaffected by the long and short haul
clause. Now, a mill in Minneapolis or