The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1912-10-18
ABUSES DEALERS,
ROBS FARMERS
DOES THE HARVESTER TRUST,
ACCORDING TO W. H. GREEN
OF NEBRASKA.
TRUSTS ENJOY PROTECTION

An Implement Dealer Tells How Per-
kIns Took Thirty Millions Of Prop
erty and Drought Forth a Trust
Capitalized at st2o,ooo,ooo = Gov
ernment Drops Suits Against the
Combination.
w. H. Green Of Creighton, Neb., has
told in The Commoner a very inter
esting story about how the great
Harvester trust intimidates and brow
beats implement dealers and robs the
farmers of many thousands OF dollars
each year by manipulating markets
and raising prices abnormally. This
is greedy trust which was formed
by George W. Perkins, who took prop
erty and old notes not worth S3O,OOO,-
900 and coined them into $120, 100000
worth of property, on all Of which the
American farmer pays big dividends
to the magnates.
Green was for several years a pet
agent of four of the different Har-
vester companies before the trust
was formed, and then he began to
hammer the combine. A we'll
groomed gentleman called upon him
in the early part of 1905 and told
him that he would have to keep still
When he refused, the trust trans
ferred the lines of implements that
he had been handling to his competi-
tors, who had been meek. Green was
left without any goods to handle. HIS
ire aroused. Green contracted for an
independent line of harvesters and
then began an advertising compaign
to sell his goods.
81 was swelled like mushroom"
said Green, until one day a collector
for the International Harvester Co.
presented me with a bill for the inde-
pendent line I had been handling, and
derisively informed me that the trusts
had owned the independents all the
time and had carried on the cam
paign for the purpose of batting suck
ers like myself out on the limb and
then saving the limb off behind
them" The Harvester trust then
then took the independent line away
from Green.
Since that hour the contest between
the Harvester trust and Green has
been guerilla warfare. Green bought
a newspaper after he had been closed
out and trained his batteries on the
trust. He furnished the evidence and
ex-senator w. v. Allen drew the
pleadings for an custer proceeding
against the Harvester trust in Knox
county, Neb., six years ago. Then
Green learned how well the govern
ment during a Republican admins
tration protected the big trust. He
could never get his case brought to
trial. The trust attorneys would be
absent in Europe one term of court;
the next their wives would be sick,
and finally the SUIT was dismissed be-
tween terms without his knowledge
or consent.
A year ago, when the federal de-
partment of justice decided to prose
cute the Harvester trust, Green was
called upon to provide data for use in
the prosecution. The minute he ar
rived in Washington a pack of the
trust lobbyists swooped down upon
him and attempted to persuade him
to refuse the documents to the de-
partment of justice. A hearing was
held before the committee on rules,
and three days later George w. Per-
kins gave the Washington papers an
interview, in which he said that Pres
ident Taft had promised that the
Harvester trust should have all of the
time needed for reorganization, and
that the plans for reorganization were
mutual.
81 was commissioned by the ma
tional antitrust league to call upon
the department of justice and inform
them that if if they started a reor-
ganization scheme for the Harvester
trust, such as they had perfected for
the tobacco interests, that impeach-
ment proceedings against Mr.. Wick
ersham would be started in the house
of representatives within "a hours"
says Green. 'T was shown into Mr..
Fowler's private Office and that emf
nent prosecutor nearly took my head
off with the challenge: DO you come
here to intimidate this Department.
l answered, No. sir, even one
horse newspaper man from Nebraska
knows better than that. I came down
simply to tell you Mr.. Wicker
sham's first assistant then wanted to
know the objections to the tobacco
reorganization and told him that di-
viding an illegal corporation into
parts with the same men owning and
the different divisions
looked to me like apprehending a
band of horse thieves who had stolen
several thousand horses, and the de-
cree of the court being that a large
band of horses was inimical to the
welfare of society, therefore the
horses must be divided into small
bands and each thief to get his pro
rata.
"The fact that the farmer must pay
20 per cent. more for his harvesting
than he paid before the
formation of the trust; the fact that
thousands of travelling men who had
put in their best days with the har-
vester business were left without po-
the fact that every hotel man