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

made a dolorous allusion to eight
mills in South Dakota never turning
a wheel the year around on the crop
as that, II might have added to its
bill Of particulars the other seventeen
mills that had gone out OF business
for bad the few years preceding. IL
the face of this, | maintain, We arc
not wisely developing the foundations
OF a great state. We are not Loyal
to our own interests.
These manufacturers Of butter
-four, meals, starch, syrups, cement
and many other industries which we
might establish t. work up our owl
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 our eye
our taste, our purse. Keep our mon
ey at home, invest it at home, in
home enterprises, in home manufactur,
ers, in home improvements, in home
industries. The ma.r 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
dustries.
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
p~ortation 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 -four, wheat or
heavy freight is shipped into this
state. On this rate there has been
a reduction of from forty to 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 whateyer-not eve one-tenth
of one per cent You a readily see
what a tremendous advantage that
gives the outside mill over our local
mills i'm the home trade, and through
lIe IdlltI nave utlh uON tue AOh
sumption Of outside flour to about
twenty per cent OF the total consump-
ton, that twenty per cent has fixed
price of our local mills at the
figure the outside mill could lay
Il down here and get back cost. But
meeting the cost price of these
mills, twenty-seven per cent
Of our W mills have gone to the
wall and the others are struggling on
through a precarious existence.
State Rights
In the great national controversy
now going on over the conservation
os our water powers and mineral land.
the counterfeit is advanced by those
who would relieve the general govern
of its responsibility in this mat
ter, that 1t 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
the Interstate m com
mission the past twenty years has been
lowering the rate of transportation on
through or interstate traffic to the eX-
of all consideration of rates
In state business, that was arrogating
too much in favor of that class of
transportation to the injury of the
and their class of business. A
little more states rights. right here,
| believe, would be good doctrine. A
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
10 the transportation companies and
would have preserved and fostered our
industry. These mills were
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