Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1914-05-12
OPEN FORUM.
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SALEM AND THE FARMER.

mereial Clubs Received one of the
letters you have been '-~sendimg out
among the farmers and the list of
questions you wish to have answered
enclosed Herewith.
1t makes me. feel good ,to-see your
expression of concern in our mutual
welfare and interests. Ierealize it has
only been few wears since this
mutual interest has been recognized.
And what pleases me mostsis to see the
rapid growth of this recognition. Farm
ing and eommercialism can no more
be separated than the yolk and white
of an egg without running both for
what they were originally created.
l belong to the farmers Society of
Equity. Let me say few words in
regard to this great organization. In
the first place what is the purpose of
this farmers unioni 1t IS great pur-
pose is to get control of the markets
and put stop to the graft on, and con-
gestion of farm products. To do this
they aim to have the farmer sell their
produce direct to the consumer and
buy direct from the producer. Now
in round terms all this means is to
cut ont the, middle man. This is some
thing the farmer or nobody else will
ever be able to accomplish. The farm
er had just as well try to get along
with one leg as try to get along with
out the middleman.
The farmer is bred to the soil. That
life is in part instructive with him.
Few farmers make good commercial
men. While there are exceptions they
only prove the rule.
On the other hand the commercial
man is bred to that work. His father
and grandfather were commercial men
before him. 1t has become second ma
ture to him. He cOuldn t farm if he
wanted to. Fer while. it takes less
brains to put some seed in the soil,
watch it grow and reap the crop, it
takes more brains, more Unborn love
for the work to be an un-to.date farm
er, than it does to follow any other
line of business.
Now this is what the Farmer s
Society of Equity is going to do. 1t is
going to get control of the middle
men; put two thirds of them out Of
the business; compel the balance to
consider the farmers interest, and al
low them a profit that is somewhere
near just compensation for their
labors, and God grant we won't be
as hard on the middle man as he has
been on the farmer.
One thing the commercial man must
learn to keep in mind, while he is
the white of this world s large business
egg, the farmer is the yolk, and that
is what he lives upon. The farmer is
fast getting educated to an under
standing of this fact. And it is not
many years before the farmers are 60
ing to pull on their traces all in the
same direction.
Now gentlemen you mustn t derive
from my remarks the idea that l feel
spiteful toward you. If i had been in
your place or your fathers place,
/, would have done as he or you have
done.
One thing in particular j like about
you: you seem to know you have got
to begin to unwind your tentacles
from around the farmer s neck. Nc
one expects you to become perfectly
honest with the farmer all at once
But believe me, it will pay you to be
gin right now.
Now what can be done to helT
Salem and the rural district around it
One great drawback is winter roads
But do not expect to get the farmer
to fall victim to such a selfish, un.
principaled proposition as the $S50,OOC
bonding scheme would be. The farm.
er of today is not the old hayseed you
dealt with twenty years ago. He will
average over fifty percent better
educated.
To demonstrate what might have
been done last winter to improve these
roads, 1 will take the Garden road
from Pratum to Salem. With the ex
ception of two muddy hills that might
have been rocked for three hundred
dollars last summer, if a man had been
chosen to hahl gravel one day each
week, or as it was needed, and filled
each little rut as it started to form
fifty loads of gravel would have kept
the Garden road in fine trim, so heavy
loads could have passed over it all last
winter. As it was the road was use
less for freighting good three months
of the winter.
Probably the greatest drawback tC
Salem is its inability to handle the
farmers produce. No home market
There are so many things you have tC
ship out of the town in the raw state
Now we farmers can ship our stuff
from some country side track cheaper
than we can haul it into Salem, anC
pay commission to have the othel
fellow ship it for us. Then we buy Oul
supplies at the country stores because
we can't afford to run to Salem just
for few groceries.
What Salem needs is factories ant
packing plants. The rural distric
around Salem would support fou
woolen mills the size Of the one al
ready in Salem. Salem should hav'
canning facilities to handle all kind
of vegetables. She SHOULD create |
market for the thousands of bushels O.
J apples that lie on the ground and ro
, every year. They would make gooC
cider, vinegar, apple butter, dried ap
pies or canned apples. Salem shoult
have her own cold storage plant TO
, eggs. Sire would get thousands o.
cases of eggs that are sold to the eoun
try merchant, taken out in trade, ant
shipped to Portland.