American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1918-10-22

49,. par" % a udy Tor my time
~ me organizer, and he took me with
: him to call on my neIghbors hecansa
> Of the influence he Thought 7 rntsbt
have with them. | understand r.
: - the usual plan adopted bv he Or
, ganlzers all over the state who are
Working on the store proposition
The FIRST thing that aroused my aus-
piclon was the organizers statement
that the company would turn the mon
ey back TO a person who CHANGED n
IeaFe The community before the TON
year period was up. That Is. n = man
paid 300 and stayed in the eommun-
NY only five years, only $50 Of bis
certlbcate would be used nm ana 10
would De entitled TO the return M sso
iher Is nothing like that in the con
tract ana, OF course, the organfzer'e
prolhlse isn't binding on the companv
another thing that made me mad
was the organizers action In getting
givv from some farmers and then fell
ihkthem mat The 800 wasn't anv good
unless they paid their membersbin
aues 10 date. That meant thai thew
hhu 10 aug up another $16.
IN my " case | had not paid the
membership dues, and ! wasn't asked
20 40 so. Ihat, too. made me feel thai
) was SIMPLY being used TO further the
Store proposition.
wei things went along after the
organizer left Dawson commnnttv
"lthout much stir. The farmers
around Dawson put up $16.5OO into
,he store proposition, and their notes
larry eight per cent interest. The
store isn't scheduled to be opened nm
october l. 1918, so that the companv
"oulu collect. in reality, s1O8 from
each farmer before the farmer gets
even the privilege OF trading at fine
STORE Tor cash. With the eight per
cent added, the Dawson district would
net Sll'S2O to the store of
which 1920 is interest.
When we went to Bismark in the
early part OF December to the meet
ing OF the Farmers Union, quite a few
OF the boys were talking about the
store proposition. and we edcided 70
Try 70 get some more information.
we had a meeting there with Art
LeSeuer. and Jim Manahan. in the
Grand Pacific Hotel.
'LeSeuer told us 1--WE were all
FARMERS Union mem that he drew nm
the agreement that we had signed
nut he pleaded ignorance OF il saving
ne a forgotten what It really did
provide. He told us a story or two
ana then went away on an early train
jim Manahan stayed with us the
rest OF The night-clear to mid-niebt
jim said he didn't know ANYTHING
about the store and told us a LOT nj
tunny stories. That was all we could
get. "'
hlght there we made up our minds
that we wanted to see Townley and
get THIS story straight. At that meet
ing there was myself and Shipley
montgomery. Fay Harding, Frank
Mehring. and several other bovs who
l can't Just now remember.
we told Shipley, our Union Score
tary to correspond with Townlev
about getting a meeting with him 10
talk about this store question. Well ,
II o us a long time to get any salts ,
faction, but finally we got together ,
with Townley on the night of January ,
~ IN a room up In the Grand Pacific F.,
Hotel In Bismark. ,
The engagements for the meeting !
were made between Mr.. Lemke. of :
the league, and Mr.. Shlpley. ,
The Union directors and myself
talked the whole thing over before we
went INTO the meeting with Townlev 7
January 20. a man by the name of :
Tiegan. living up in Bottineau County \
think Il Is. gave us a copy of the con- q
tract- That was the first time I had
seen one since the organizer had n i
ana never had had any chance 10 q
study II much. \
On the night of January %. AT /
o'clock. we we're in the Grand @
Pacific Hotel. and Townley brought
along a whole lot OF friends. II
seemed to me there were fifty of :
them' and. while I can't remember all
them 40 remember that Cove nor
was In the crowd.
"Townley hadn't gotten into the c
room hardly, before he got mad 5
could tell that he was mad clean u
ihrough and he was mad the whole ?
night long. r
"Townley had asked that everything a
DC Kept secret and We had expected y
o meet only himself. n
However We threshed things out a
with the whole bunch for several u
hours, and II was midnight before we y
we're able TO get down to a meeting =
Win Townley himself. The others V
eft-all except one fellow. a rather o.
ice looking. clean shaven young fell =
ow. who Townley told us was his sec ~
He asked that We let him II
stay with Townley and we decided 10 81
10 so. We were. after midnight. In Ct
iession only with Townley and his
'ecretary. and eight or nine Farmers
Inion members, directors. and Of
The first thing that We did after I
We got Mr.. Townley alone was to ask !
to take the store proposition (
from the league. because we
afraid It would hurt the league. |
He refused TO do so. |
Well. sir. he told us that the store
proposition didn't have any direct
connection with the league. but that
Indirectly IL did. and l guess II YOU |