The Sisseton weekly standard. (Sisseton, Roberts County, S.D.) 1892-1929, 1919-12-26


un
changed as conditions change, and
conditions change as man discovers
and uses natural laws.
When man does not make his law
fit the new conditions, brought
about by the new discovery of natural
laws, things are out of order and
bound to go wrong. Let us suppose
we think territory is best for stock
proper and best fitted at that time for
that territory. Later we find the coun-
try is best adapted to farming, we
start our agricultural pursuits with
out changing the free range" law to
a ''herd law What happens There
is a continual strife between the
ranchers and the s'sod busters"
Now we OF the Non-partisan League
claim our present laws do not fit
present conditions, that tehy are out
of harmony with the laws of God.
President Wilson in 'The New
Freedom" says: eve are in the pl es-
ence OF new organization Of society
Our life has broken away from the
past We have changed our economic
conditions, absolutely, from top to
bottom; and with our economic
society, the organization of our life.
The old political formulas do not cit
present problems; they read now like
documents taken out Of forgotten
age"
A hundred years ago farming was
the chief and about the only industry.
AT that time each community satIlced
for itself. The community village was
the trading and industrial center for
that community The farmer after
supplying his own needs out Of his
own products, took the surplus to the
village store and traded or sold it.
The village merchant in turn traded
or sold it to some one whom the farm
er was likely to meet the next day.
The farmer traded directly, through
the merchant, with the consumer.
To-day we have great industrial
centers, made possible by the advent
of the rail road, and necessary thru
the evolution Of the hand tools to
the great machine. The grandson of |
mil To- to
great milling center. The Old time
village shoe maker is now working in |
some great shoe factory. The village
wheel wright is now in
some great factory. The girl who
used to spin the cloth and fashion the
home spun clothes, is now in tex
tile mill or sweat shop. In fact The
workers in the great centers of popu-
lation are nothing more than the
grand children CT the old time COM
nunity with it's village center. You
ask how about the old time village
The five percent that did
not go broke during the transition
Ire still here, our local mercha nts.
But now he has Eothing to say about
the price at which lie buys, and very
little to say cbout the price for which
he sells.
The whole transaction of trade. so
far as price is concerned, has been
taken away from the producer, the
locsl merchant sno the consumer.
This state of affairs has been brought !,
about through tic evolution of ma
cau2ire5s industry to be cen-
tralized, and the railroads making it |
possible fo4 the producer and con-
sumner to be thousands of miles apart. /
So we coltcad, that with tho old |
order, wacn industry was crude,
small, confined to small communities !
and carried on by individual effort,
the law of individual ownership of the
industries ws.s right and fit The con-
ditions of the tine. But now industry |
is confined 10 whole country, and
IN many cases takes in the whole |
world, is so largo that Individual eff
fort has been subplanted by collective
effort, and with this new order, the
now law. Of tho collective ownership,
will fit and harnenizs with tho new
age.