The Montgomery tribune. (Montgomery City, Mo.) 1892-1910, 1910-01-28
BOYCOTT AT BELLFLowER.
Montgomery County as Viewed
by an Editorial Writer on the
Globe-D Democrat.

That was an interesting long
distance telephone message which
came to the Globe-Democrat the
other day from Bellhower, Mo-,
in words and substance to the eff
feet that if the trades unions Of
st. Louis boycotted meat, the
meat growers of Bellfower would
boycott the factories employing
the trades unionists. Bellhower is
in Montgomery County, the wide
grain and pasture lands of which
break down to the Wabash when
both the moonlight and the sun
shine fall upon it. Once, when
Roger .. Mills was en- route to
Plattsburg to denounce the pro-
tective tariff as the farmers foe,
looking through a Wabash car
window at the broad and fertile
expanses of Montgomery County,
he said the American farmer
could thrive on his own energies,
no matter how Disseminated
against. In his speech at Platts-
burg the next day he elaborated
the idea of the Missouri farmer 5
economic independence. He fooled
the entire country with it a year
or two later. but once was enough.
The farmer now knows that his
prosperity is dependent upon the
employment Of industrial wage
arner at good wages. This is the
deepest meaning of the communi-
cation from Beethoven. The Mis-
souri, farmer has found himself.
Montgomery County is a land
Of plenty. The dinners it spreads
on it's annual homecoming days
are famed from sea to sea. Printed
reports of the juicy things poured
from it's horn of plenty on such
days have made the jaws Of cpl
cures drip, from Buda. Pesth to
Honolulu. Dwellers in cities have
envied the plenitude Of these
feasts, have grudged the happy
fate of those born in Montgomery
County and have wondered why
anybody should ever leave there
to make an annual homecoming
day possible. These, it is much to
be feared, will resent the message
from Bellfower in which a boy
colt was threatened of all factor
les in which union labor boycotts
meat. Union labor itself will be
astonished at this revelation that
its boycott trust is in danger of
being broken through force of
competition. There will be-, IN
many city quarters, a jumping 20
the conclusion that this attitude
of farmers convicts them of being
the ex%tortioners. but such a con
custom is unwarranted from such
evidence alone. The man who is
getting only a fair price for what
he sells, or a price too cheap to
be fair, is as likely to resent hav.
ing his product ~boycotted as is
the extOrtioner. He is as likely.
and perhaps nor likely, to re-
sort to a reprisal in kind. The
Bellfower farmers do not convict
themselves of greed in threatening
to meet boycott with boycott
What, then, is it they would have
organized labor do?
Bellfower has been uniformly
for protection. 1t has never been
deceived by the sophistry that the
prosperity Of the could
mean the adversely of the produc,
ers. As it's farmers have prosper
ed, and r prospecting, under Q
policy which maintains a higf
level OF prices in the employment
of labor, it can not be assumed
that their wish is to reverse thai
policy. What they condemn is {
boycott of anything, as a remedia
measure, while the powers d
legislation for finding and correct