The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1919-07-17
ABILITYTO PAY.

Never before were lessons in marketing offered Us
in such Vnmistakable terms as at present. In January
the butter market broke badly, with great loss to the
farmers More recently the livestock market has drop
ped down to ruinous levels.
Both tragedies for hundreds Of thousands Of our
producers spring from two sources-marketing through
monopolies and the even more fundamental cause OF
city people being unable to buy. On the first cause
enough has been said. The farmers and others do not
need education as to the evils, but businessliAe, meth
DDS of escape Let us look at the latter for 2 moment.
Demand" say the economists, means desire coupled
with ability to pay" Now our working people and those
Of all Europe like good butter, good beef, good pork,
good vegetables, and good clothes and they like them
in large quantities. The only thing that can vary APP
preciably is ability to pay. And ability to pay depends
on the share the worker gets from industry.
Ever since the war began his share has been going
down and that of the %profteers has been going up. The
widely boosted results of our food conservation cam
paigns came really from the inability of our people to
buy their customary amounts of food and not from the
%self-denial of those able to do so.
Then came the armistice and with it millions sud-
denly thrown out Of work and part time work in peace
industries, which made so-called high wages less than
a living wage. They gave up butter and the small de-
mand from the well-to-do could not prevent the mar
ket from breaking. Now they have had to give up a
large part of their beef and the boys who are leaving
the army are not able to eat so much of it as they did
when Uncle Sam provided. Hence away go the farm
ers' returns for livestock, a part OF them into the NAV
of the packing monopoly, but more into simple falling
off of business. The same thing is true of many 9th
er lines but less noticed because less spectacular. Sup
pose the poor majority had the ability to pay for ap-
Piles, oranges, melons, wool suits, eggs, Strawberries!
The lesson is so plain that the most callous, shrewd,
profit seeking farmer should be the first to boost for
better living conditions for labor. The farmer-labor al
lance is not a matter Of sentimentalism but good bust
ness sense at last on both sides.
Evangeline Booth has written Governor Frazier a
personal letter, in addition to the usual formal en-
graved note of thanks, recording her appreciation Of
what the Governor had done, quietly and without. any
blowing Of horns, to help the Salvation Army in its
great work for the army and navy. It is evident that
the |. V. A. forgot to notify Evangeline Booth that the
Governor represented a state and was the nominee of
an organization that denied the existence Of God, the
s]acredness of marriage and the purity of woman. Or,
if she heard such talk, she judged men and organiza-
tons by their deeds and not by what others said Of
them. There is but the one test of a living Faith: 81
was hungry and We gave me to eat; I was thirsty and
We gave me drink; | was a stranger and We took me in;
[ was sick and We visited me; l was in prison and We
came unto me-" That is the creed of the Salvation Ar
my, to which it adheres without fail, and if our Cow
ernor and we North Dakotans have helped or followed
after that great doctrine Of Love Everlasting-what
should we care if we are called atheists, free lovers and
anarchists.