Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1910-05-26

clothes did not cost twenty dollars.
Thirty dollars represents the labor
and profit to the Grand Forks tailor.
Now, l did not kick on the price of
that suit of clothes, because it was
the cheapest suit of clothes, consider
ing the quality, I ever bought, meas
uring the clothes by the products of
my farm, and that is what buy
clothes with.
I take three daily papers at pres
ent. Two of them kick vigorously on
the tariff on print paper and kick
about the robber tariff on everything
in most every issue. In the low tar
if and cheap period the Daily Herald
cost me eight bushels of wheat per
year, now it costs me four bushels
per year, and l get lot more paper
for four bushels of wheat than l did
for eight bushels, and if l paid for it
with other products of my farm the
comparison would be much greater in
my favor than with wheat, and from
appearances the editor or printer is
making more money at present than
he was in the cheap days. If my
memory is right, the editor was then
living in few rooms on the third
floor of the Herald block. Now he
has city residence, summer lake
resident, a country home where he
can spend some of the money he
makes in town, as an agriculturist.
In the cheap days he went on foot or
on horseback, now he rides in a tour
ing car, driven by high-priced chauf-
feur. In the cheap days he spent his
winters in cold North Dakota, now he
and his family spend their winters in
the sunniest and pleasantest cline
they can find, and for one am more
than pleased that he can do so, and
I have no kick to make. Don't you
think the touring car, the paid chauf-
feur, the lake residence and all the
other luxuries help to make the farm
products high? do. IN those cheap
days it took eight bushels of wheat
to pay for the other daily paper that
kicks harder than the Herald does.
Now l get that daily, with Sunday is
sue included, for three and half
bushels of wheat, and there is as
much paper in the Sunday issue now
as there was in the six issues in the
cheap days, and print paper, they say,
has doubled in price. But it must
pay, or they would not be anxious
to supply it at their own price. That
editor is also making money. I visit
ed with him in his fine residence in
last winter and he told me
about touring the United States and
Europe with his family, six of them,
with a guide and chauffeur. Travel
ing over eight thousand miles abroad
and shipping an American car to
Europe and back cost money. But I
am awfully pleased that he could do
it. That helps to make farm products
high. If had his brains and his
energy I could tour Europe also. You
know I go to Grand Forks quite often
at present, and for the last few years
two bushels of wheat will pay my rail-
road transportation down and back,
buy highball before dinner, pay for
my dinner at Hotel Dacotah and a
cigar after dinner. In those cheap
days for farm products-you seem to
want us to return tot cost over
four bushels of wheat to go to the
city and get drunk, eat and smoke at
the same places. So the present con-
ditions suit me the best.
One more comparison. In those
cheap days, with low tariff and prac-
tically all farm products on the free
list-no protection to farm products
the farmers manufactured article-I
had some farm loans come due and
could not pay them and must re-
new or make new loans. who could
pay loans with SOC wheat, zoe barley
and &C wool?) To pay the interest on
q one thousand dollar farm loan for
took about two hundred and fifty
bushels Of wheat, anc, say, If had to
pay the interest in those days with
wool or barley, the sheriff would have
sold the farm sure. At present rate
Of interest that I am paying it takes
only fifty to sixty bushels of wheat to
pay interest for one year on a one
thousand dollar farm loan. Now, /
could continue to make comparisons
between past and present that look
good to me, but l think the foregoing
sufficient for this time. The cheapest
thing have to buy, as compared with
the past and measured by what 1
have to sell, is money. The dearest
thing have to buy, as compared with
the past and measured by it's et1i-
cheney and what I have to sell, is
labor. So I think the laborer on the
farm is getting his share of the ad-
vance in prices. l am firm believer
in a protective tariff and one suffi-
Gent to give protection to farmer, Ia
borer, and manufacturer, and it looks
to me as if the present tariff law
was filling the bill and I believe you
should not condemn it, but give it a
fair chance. It seems to bringing
the necessary revenue into the treas
ury to pay government expenses. If
it was lower, more foreign goods
would have to be imported to raise
the money to pay running expenses
and that would have the same results
as in the past and stop our mills,
throw American laborers out of
job, curtail consumption, hurt every
class of people except the man with