The Julesburg grit-advocate., 1918-04-11
FEWFARMERSFALL'
NON-PARTEANM MAN
Continued from First Page)


organizer left the Dawson community
without much stir The farmers put
Sl6,500 into the store and their notes
carry percent interest. The store
isn't scheduled to be opened TIL DC
tober !, 1918, so that the company
would collect, in reality, $l0s from
each farmer before the farmer gets
even the privilege of trading at the
store for cash With the 8 percent
added the Dawson district would net
$l7,S20 to the store company. of which
$500 is interest
when we went up to Bismark in
the early part of December to the
meeting of the Farmers Union, quite
few of the boys were talking about
this store proposition, and we de'id-
ed to try to get some more laforrla-
ton. We had meeting there with
Art i.e Sueru and Jim Mananan III,
the Grand Parifi" hotel. lie Sueru
told us 1--WE we're 4! Farmers Union
mem that he drew up the agreement
that we had signed, but he pleaded ig-
norance of it, saying he had forgotten
what it really did provide. He told
us a story of two and then went on
an early train. Jim Manahan stayed
with US the rest of the night. He said
he didn't know anything about the
store. That was all we could get.
| "Ri"ht there we made up our minds
thu: We wanted to see Townley and
get his story straight. We told Ship
ley, our union secretary to correspond
with Townley about getting meet
! ing with him to talk about this store
question. 1t took US long time to
get any satisfaction but finally we got
together with Townley on the night
of January 90 in room up in the
Grand Pacific hotel in Bismarck. He
brought along a whole lot of his
friends. l remember that Governor
Frazier was in the crowd and about
fifty others.
"Townley hadn't gotten into the
room hardly before he got mad. l
could tell that he was mad clean
through. Townley had asked that ev-
erything be kept secret and we had
expected to meet only himself. How
ever, we threshed things out with
the whole bunch for several hours, it
being midnight before we were able
to get down to meeting with Town.
ley himself. The others left-all ex-
cept one fellow, who Townley told us
was his secretary. He asked that we
let him stay with Townley and we
decided to do so. The first thing we
did after we got Mr.. Townley alone
was to ask him to take the store
proposition away from the league be-
cause we were 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 it did, and guess that if
you read the contract over you will
find that is the case.
| We all held to the proposition that
the league would be harmed by this
store game, and we wanted to see the
league 90 on to success. Then we
asked Townley that if he wouldn't
take it away from the league to put
it on solid foundation-a business
basis, like the Rochdale plan. Then
he claimed that if he did that-they
would keep him on the witness stand
all the time answering questions.
eve got to talking about the store
atkenmare, where Mr.. Townley said
600 farmers had taken certificates.
That meant collections there of $780,
100. Then l said to him. According
to your own statmeent we only put
$4,000 into the store He answered
yes.
"Then what is to become of the
other $51 1,OOO?' asked.
"Townley stepped up to me, shook
his fist under my nose, and said it
was none of my G-damned bust
ness. Well, says to him, 4 am max
ing it my business. Mind you, I had
put 500 of my own money into this
store proposition.
"Finally Townley seemed to get
good and mad, and standing up there
in front of US, he hollered:
You farmers are a set of C.
damn dogs. We have got to drive