Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1914-12-31

because of ill-health, disagreeable
neighbors or the allurements of real
estate men in other parts of the coun-
try, is willing to sell his h~alf-section
farm at $37 per acre. A man from
Illinois is taken out to the farm with
it's excellent buildings and improve
ments. Only the bright side and pos
sibilities in exaggerated form is de-
picted to him, and he is induced to
pay, or undertake to pay $50 per acre
for the farm. And thus $22, or so
per cent Of water has been injected
into the "value'' of this farm and the
proceeds pocketed by the banker-real
estate man, while the buyer, having
bought it for speculation and to cash
in when the waterless values reaches
S75 or 500 per acre. sends a man
with but little financial means from
Illinois to work this farm, where he
is not familiar or fitted to cope with
local conditions, and the result is dis
asterous to both men and also to the
farm and the surrounding community.
For the past fifteen years Illinois
and adjacent states have been a fer
tile and productive field of supply for
this traffic, but so many have gone
back poorer, but wiser, that the peo-
pie thereof have got wise to the fact
that it is but a form of highway rob-
berry, under the guise and protection
of "business' Therefore the supply
for new business is giving out, and
therefore also the farmers of this
state are to be asked to supply a club
for lambasting their own heads with,
in the form of ar appropriation by the
Legislature to aid in the bringing in of
Belgian and other foreign emigrants
so that the profitable business of this
North Dakota triune of industrial
pirates may continue to flourish and
prosper.
If the good old American and Cana
dian pioneers and near-pioneers and
their families, who during the past
twenty years have been driven out of
farming and out of the state by the
business of this same triune and the
business methods of lesser microbes,
we're still here as prosperous and con-
tented farmers-as they should and
would be had they been properly and
adequately protected from the same
there should now be within the bound
aries of our state at least l, 800, 900
prosperous and contented people, and
the eastern half of the state would
not have lost during that time 25 per
cent of its farm population.
Now therefore, we ask hat the
incoming legislature of North Dakota
provide and place upon our statute
books properly drawn and adequate
laws for removing or correcting the
evils here pointed out, to-wit:
In the case designated as firstly;
reduce the legal rates Of interest not
merely to 7 and 10 per cent, but to
5 or 6 and 8 per cent.
In the case designated as secondly;
place upon the statutes a provision of
law whereby n of the present force
of county officers will be authorized
and required to draw up, execute and
negotiate or sell farm loans drawn at
; per cent. All premiums received
thereon to be added to the principal
OF the loan and paid over to the Dor
rover. The %appraising of the pro-
perty to be done by al official or Off
Gals of the township where located.
In the case designated as thirdly;
make no appropriation for the bring
ing IN of emigrants, no matter whose
fleld-marshal or general-in-chief re-
quests you to do SO. And, if the
powers of the state as such will per
NIT, provide laws whereby the state
will be the only agent or thing that
Will or can intervene between the till
er Of the soil who wishes to part with
his land and another tiller of the soil
who wishes to buy the same. No n
'oS III "SIual dlulcl SllOulu cNcI UC
permitted to own or control agricul-
tural lands as such, and the sooner
this principal is embodied in the law
Of the land the better it will be for
the industry in all its branches, and
the farther we will be removed from
a cataclysm of anarchy or a French
revolution in this country.
Besides the above, and in keeping
with them, we want the law which
provides for levying a half-mill tax
to support the so-called better farm
ing movement or work, removed from
the statutes. AS the case now stands
it is too much like kicking and beat
ing a Well-bred shepherd dog until his
body is covered with bruises and he
can scarcely walk and then asking Of
him contentedly and we'll to herd your
cattle or sheep. He will not because
bn SIrorn1y 1@~ ,,-4 40 90 -- ,,~o@