The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1911-10-19
AFTER THE Nrpp1E,,,,>

Ten thousand heads of families in
New York. Ave hundred retail dealers
and several hundred farmers in the
pennsylvania Grange and other or
CARNATIONS. mayors of cities and
other self-sacrincins persons are
moving against the suppression of the
middlemen, and the movement should
be encouraged. There are too MANY
agencies between tho producer and
the consumer, too many men who get
rake-oT on the business of the
country which they do nothing really
to make; but II is important that the
movement shall be pressed with great
wisdom and caution lest tho last
estate of the consumer be worse than
the first. There have been middlemen
since tho world began, and there will
be middlemen to its end. There must
be middlemen so long as there is
trade. The man who grows corn or
wheat or cotton must find market
for his products, and in the very ma
ture of things he cannot himself take
them to market and sell them di-
rcctiy to the consumers. He. can
create agencies of his own for the
sale OF what he makes. but he will
have to pay for tho service rendered
him whether 1t be rendered by his
own agents or by the agents of
others.
How to get at the middlcmcn who
have squeezed their customers, or
clients, we do not know; but these
middlemcn arc the greatest combina-
tion in restraint OF trade of which we
know anything, and in some way they
should be regulated by law. But how
are they to BIO reached? AS the Chris
tian Science Monitor says, Labor is
at one end of the line, the consumer
at the other. and between them are
the commission men, warchouscmcn.
mill-owners, bankers. jobbers, whole
salers, retailers--the middlemen; that
is to say, the great mercantile class
OF the world Yet all of these, in
Guiding the producer, are consumers
Anything that affects consumption
affects production" 1t was the pro-
ducers and consumers that DeMorgan
had in mind when he wrote:
Great heas have little neas upon
their backs TO bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and
so ad inhnitum."
The experiment made by the West
cfn mayor, who brought the sellers
and buyers together in his town, was
interesting enough; but it did not
prove anything in particular except
what he did in this small way would
be good thing if it could be done
all communities. The community
which makes only enough for the
needs Of it's own people will not make
much progress: it is the overproduc-
ton that must be disposed of, and
this cannot be handled except through
the ordinary channels of trade The
South produces twelve or thirteen
million bales of cotton. and not one
half of this immense production can
be sold directly from the farms to
the mills. 1t Is so with all the other
great staple crops of the country.
How to get rid of the middlemen and
their name is legion, between the pro-
Queer and the ultimate consumer is
the question. Shall IL be settled by
Government agencies or by organiza-
ton among the producers? The Gov
eminent cannot undertake it with
out running government into rank
socialism. Can there be combination
among the producers without subject
Ing them TO the perils of prosecution
in the courts for organizing In re-
straint OF trade? II is a most I'M
portant and vital question. and can
be solved only, as our Christian
Science friend says, by the exercise
of ordinary common sense"