Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1911-06-23
Trusts Opposing Reciprocity.

According to evidence cleaned from
trust promoting lawyers who testified
before the senate committee on reel
procity, 1t vas proven that the trust
combine is behind the opposition to
President Taft's reciprocity program,
and those who know anything about
how the trusts have protected their
interests so successfully for years had
no doubts as to where the real reel.
procity opposition came from, and
even leading officers Of the National
Grange have found trust influence
sweet, according to evidence, and even
Dakotans wonder what kind Of sugar
was used to sweeten the Aberdeen
Convention" of farmers who farm
the farmers.
The senate committee found evil
dence to prove that the American
Wooden Company, American Paper
and Pulp Companies and the National
Lumber. Co. and other combines had
contributed to the Grange campaign
fund against reciprocity.
1t is a very suspicious transaction
when the grange and trusts combine,
yet it is hardly to be presumed that
the trusts had anything to do with
the election of grange officers, as
trusts are only supposed to look after
trust bushes and trust interests.
The trusts are always innocent un-
til proven guilty, and no one would
believe that the big combines would
knowingly skin the farmers or have
brass enough to ask Grange officers to
help them oppose anything that might
benefit the farmer.
In this connection one is forced to
wonder how so much ''dear farmer"
interest developed at Aberdeen and
how those dear bankers and lawyers
became so intensely patriotic in their
efforts to help the farmers just at this
particular time when the trusts are
feeding the grange on anti-reciprocity
Sweetmeats and it Is a fact, not with
out significance, that nearly all the
Grange officers are residents or the
New England states where trust
farming is carried on between the
| rocks, and that the head of the Grange
Is a close political friend of Senator
GalIinger, noted for for his u%nQuench-
able love for trust interests, ana it
has even been charged that the head
|"of the Grange was using Gallinger's
senatorial frank to mail anti-reciproc-
irv stuff, some of which found its way
to South Dakota
Whether reciprocity is good or bad
for the American farmer, no one is
yet in a position to correctly measure
the result, but one has a right to con-
slider the influences that are opposing
the experiment, and if it is in the in
rerest of the trusts, as Cham oerlaln
of Bookings claims, the trusts have
changed their way Of doing business
since this question became an issue,
but the LEADER is inclined to the be
lief, however, that actual reciprocity
will hit the trusts the hardest blow
| received by them since they became a
menace to legitimate competition,
and in time the people Of this state
may learn why Aberdeen became so
deeply concerned in sending a delega-
tion to Washington to oppose free
wheat and demand free lumber, and
no one would be mean enough to sup
! pose that Aberdeen's im %portance as a
railroad center had anything to DO
with the matter. The railroads used
to send out influence" but it is not
presumed that the trusts would try
to influence them now, but when we
come to think of it, the trusts own a
controlling interest in all railroads
that pass through Aberdeen.