The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1918-03-16
FARMERS LEAGUE
CLASSIFICATION
TO PR0F|TEER|NC.
Officer Asks Minnesota Public
Safety Body To Answer
Charge Of Workers.

81. PAUL, Mimi, March Al
Charges that some members of the
Minnesota Public Safety commission !
are willing tools of the profiteers," |
made in resolutions adopted at a re- !
cent banquet of organized farmers~and |
organized laborers, were brought out |
! by the presentation Of facts and !
figures in an open letter from w. w. !
Liggett, director of publicity of the |
National Nonpartisan league, to the !
safety commission.
The data is submitted, Liggett says,
not in the spirit of captious criticism |
but Gin the hope that your honorable
body will discuss it in the same spirit
| that it is offered and possibly find it
of some slight assistance in the fur
| therance of the federal governments
war program"
No Action to Cut Prices.
Attention is called in the letter to
! the apparent inactivity of the COM
mission in reducing< profteering on
| food necessities within thu state. 1t is
| admitted that the price of milk and
| bread were slightly reduced, but it is
| cited, that here the commission "con-
! tented itself with trifling with effects
Instead of drastically dealing with
| causes. Yet there is mass of evil
| dence to show that unpatriotic profit
cering and easily remedied market in
efficiencies exist and it would be i'm
peaching the intelligence Of your hon
orable body to presume that it was
| wholly unaware of these conditions"
| the letter continues.
It is because Of these conditions and
the fact that the commission appar-
! emily overlooked and ignored oppor-
| tunities to reduce prOfteering that the
| charges were made. A result, the let
! ter cites, has been to lessen farm pro-
! duction, on one hand, and allow an
unnecessarily large financial drain
( upon the city consumers on the other.
| Cites Specific Cases.
! Specific instances of the commits
| sion's failure to discover and circum-
vent profiteers, the real disloyalists
in this national crisis, are given.
The first is shown in the flour sit
uation. On Sept. 26, it is asserted
Mr.: Sanderson, an expert from North
Dakota, before hearing of the Min
nesota Public Safety commission, cited
figures showing excess profits on flour
of from Sill to $1.53 a barrel.
Market prices, not only for the flour
but for all mill feeds, were shown at
this hearing to be excessive. The
! commission, it is declared, allowed it.
self to be bluffed by the refusal of
the millers to cite their costs.
Notorious elevator frauds throug',
Minnesota are mentioned, and it IS
shown that the commission failed to
take any action on them. 1t is point
ed out in Liggetts letter that had the
commission protected the farmer
! from these frauds, returns to the
farmer under government regulation
would have been greater and the
farmer would have been better able
financially to put in a larger crop this
year. x~ !,
Failed to Halt Profiteering.
That the commission has talSen no
action on unfair conditions Brought
out in the federal trade commissions
Investigation into the packing and
live stock industry, is cited by the
letter. One of the instances is the
commissions failure to prevent the
profiteering in fish that Immediately
followed the patriotic attempts Of the
consumer to eat fish to conserve meat
owing to the governments request.
Potatoes have been allowed to spoil
in Minnesota and the commission has
taken no action, Liggett shows. That
40 per cent of the agents who handle
binder Irvine also handle the trust
Irvine is also shown. The commission
is criticized for it's failure to better
the Irvine market situation by an alb
solute divorce of the state owned
plants Irvine distribution, from that
/ 49, ,,<rk-E