The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1918-02-20

serve. have utterly failed in former
attacks of this nature made against
the American Society OF Equity and
its cooperative enterprises, against
the stores Of the Farmers union and
other cooperative business ventures
Of farmers. These papers, and the
interests they serve, are now pushing
forward the small business men OF
the state and attempting to scare
them by sensational and untrue &C
counts Of the purpose of the farm
ers in organizing these stores.
OF course, they have intimated
that there is something crooked about
the Consumers United Stores COM
pany. OF course they have attempt
ed to discredit the management of
the company and to twist the facts,
in some way, to reflect on the Nom
partisan league, which dominates
North Dakota politics, and on Presi-
dent TOwnley and other officers of
the Nonpartisan league.
Il might say that, If such a con-
tract as the Consumers' United
Stores company has with the farm
ers existed between the oil trust and
the farmers, between the sugar trust
and the consumers, between the
leather trust and the laboring man
and between the steel trust and the
government, the problem OF the high
cost Of living would be largely solv-
ed, and the government would not
now be forced to exert tremendous
efforts to prevent itself from being
skinned by prOfiteers. 1t Is natural
that papers like The Grand Forks
Herald and The Fargo Forum, and
their imitatOrs in North Dakota, can
see nothing good in cooperative
enterprises of farmers. The very
success of the stores that have been
established by the stores company
has provoked this attack.
STORES NOT FIGHTING
NORTH DAKOTA MERCHANTS.
You may rest assured that If the
Consumers United Stores company,
and the farmers who belong to it,
were not making a success, were not
serving the farmers in a beneficial
way, there would be no attack Of this
kind.
The Consumers United Stores
company, contrary to what these at
tacks seek to show, is not fighting
local merchants or any other legiti-
mate North Dakota business enter
prise. The effort to convince the
people that the farmers have organic
ed these stores to injure somebody,
or to hurt the state, will, Of course,
fail. Farmers have a perfect right
to organize cooperative business
enterprises. In fact, during the cam
paign in 1916 in North Dakota, these
same newspapers stated that state
ownership of elevators and other
terminal facilities was wrong, and
these things should be done CO.
Operatively by the farmers. And vet,
when the farmers attempt to work
comparatively, even in a small way,
they are still not immune from at
tack.
The Consumers United Stores
company is not directing its energies
toward injuring any business man in
North Dakota. or any other North
Dakota citizen or individual. 1t is
seeking merely to give the farmers
some relief-and is doing it-from
the big trusts which are expressing
alike the farmers and the small mer-
chants of North Dakota. The enemies
of the North Dakota farmers, who
are attempting to line up the small
merchants and the business man
generally against the farmers stores,
are doing nothing themselves to solve
the problem of trusts and monopolies