The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-07-15
ELIMINATION OF MlDDLEMEN.
Experts Say There is no Way Pro
Queer and Consumer Can Get
Together Without Him.


The following. which recently ap-
peared In the Topeka Capital, signed
by ]. F. FARRELL, publicity agent for
the Santa Fe railroad, and we'll known
about the country, will have more or
less interest to the people of all sec
lions interested in the general dis
cussion as to whether the middleman
can be eliminated or not, and thus
reduce the high cost of living.
Mr.. Alfred Docking of Manhattan,
in an interesting article on the SUBJ
ject of cooperation, published in the
Capital June %, admits that it is
absurd to think the middleman can
be eliminated. The men and ma
chinery for distribution are just as
necessary under a cooperative sys-
tenn as now, he says.
Such statements as these from so
Icapable student of industrial condi.
lions as Mr.. Docking will go a long
way toward removing prejudice from
the consideration of the very import
ant question of how to collect and dis
tribute the things the people want in
the most satisfactory manner. 1t
has become fashionable to knock on
the middleman and / believe that a
motion to eliminate him would carry
by unanimous vote wherever two or
more citizens are gathered together
without thought about how they
would get along without him.
Mr.. Bookings plan for farmers,
fruit growers and other producers to
organize for the purpose of selling
their products at a point where the
demand Is, rather than to sell 1t at q
loss where there is no demand, Is a
most excellent one, and 1t is operat-
ing successfully In many places. But
even If every producing community in
the United States should so organize,
| the middleman still wouls handle the
goods, unless the consumers in every
locality should have a cooperative
buying association, which has not
been suggested.
THE average wholesale grocer, for
instance, carries in stock from 1900
to 5000 articles in general use To
him the middleman-the producers
cooperative associations sell their
wares, not to the consumer. The
wholesale dealer buys his stock by
the car load, sells 1t to the retail deal
err another middleman, If you please
by the hundred pounds, and he, in
turn sells 1t to the consumer by the
lpound, Or thereabouts. The whole
saler's car load freight rate, the re-
tailer's hundred pound freight rate
and the expense and profits of both
dealers, all together, are not nearly
$50 heavy burden on the consumer as
would be the freight and the extra
handling of the small quantity direct
from producer to consumer.
THE price of nutmegs, cloves, to-
bacco, sugar oranges, lemons, coffee
and hundreds of other articles people
use all the time would be prohibitive
.Iif the consumer dealt directly with
the producer. The consumer, if he had
Ito buy directly, would do without
tueSS lHiuSb, every COulLuuulIy WOulQ
manage somehow to live on it's own
production, and the country's business
would stagnate. Nobody wants it
that way.
1T has been argued that we really
{ would live longer and be happier were
we dwelling in caves, eating little
land wearing less, and am not GO
ling to the trouble to dispute the claim,
but my guess is that we do not care
for the simple life; we the people no
longer desire to be called plain and
:, common, except at election time; we
want to live the higher life, what
ever that means; and we are going
to live 1t, even at an increased cost.
True to the ways of mankind, we lay
!. the blame for our expensive follles on
somebody else, and perhaps the
middleman is as good a scape-goat as
can be found, although we make our
4 selves ridiculous when we talk about
eliminating him. The middleman Is
here to stay, so long as the producer
. produces and the consumer consumes.
Boohool