The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1917-06-07
question arises, How can they af-


ford it?'
Simply by lowering prices
where there is no creamery. De-
pend on it that it does not come
out of their own pockets. Futher-
more, you rarely see cream stations
for different centralizers fighting
each other in the same locality,
for that would not be a paying
proposition. They evidently get to-
gether in the cities and agree to
pay the same in that community.
They have a monopoly on the bus
mess and as long as there is local
competition they can get together
and dictate the price.
Let us see what happens to
the creamery in the locality where
these inflated prices are paid. The
creamery is forced to meet the
price paid by the cream station in
order to retain the patronage, and,
not having a large enough terri
tory to draw from so that they can
equalitze their prices in order to
meet this outside competition, they
consequently manufacture their
butter at a loss. Their surplus
capital is soon exhausted and the
creamery declared bankrupt.
Then what happens? The CEN
trailer combine gets together,
drops the price, and dictates it
thereafter, for local competition
has been eliminated. This is un-
doubtedly the reason for the hard
struggle for existence of practi-
cally all North Dakota creameries,
and the extinction of large num-
Der of other such organizations.
"The discrimination of express
rates is a little harder to make
plain, for the centralizer combine
in cooperation with the railroads
has apparently by devious techni-
calities regarding the rates, tar
ifs, distances and other conditions
make it a complex problem to deal
with and a still more difficult one
to explain to the satisfaction of
all. Suffice it to say it is their
mutual benefit to have the cream
shipped to the city, and when two
such great organizations want
something, they usually have the
money and ingenuity to get it.
The Farmers Mistake
"The third and last reason is
the lack of foresight on the part
of the farmers. Let us take a
concrete example: "A number of
the farmers organize a creamery,
are soon doing business and are
undoubtedly receiving a better
price for their cream than they
ever did before. the cream station
man reports the situation to head
quarters and receives orders to
raise the price of butter fat three
cents per pound
Here is what the farmer will do
nine times out of ten: He will
desert his own organization, the
creamery that he invested his
money in and pledged his word to
stick to, and sell his cream to the
cream station agent for three cents
higher than his own creamery or
any other creamery could afford to
pay. AS the writer heard it aptly
but recently, that farmers price
was just three cents, for that was
what he was bought for. He does
not stop to think that he is break
ing his word and the trust the 9TH
er men have placed in him, that
his neighbor twenty, thirty or fiji
ty miles away from there is pay
ing that three cents, that the price
of cream will be lower than ever
before after the creamery goes
bankrupt, and that he is assisting
the centralizers in their plan of the
destruction of his own creamery
and of reaping a profit in The end
at his own expense.
IF the centralizers ever get con-
troll of the cream supply in this
state, they will have the former
at their mercy as far as the dairy
situation is concerned and, as a
rule, they have little mercy on any
one. Let us hope that the farm
ers will realize this perilous situa.
ton as it really is, rally to the sup
port of their local creameries and
exterminate the parasitic cream
station which is cancer gnawing
the vitals of the dairy industry of
North Dakota" Chicago Dairy
Produce.
H~....A r--...a -. N..nn