The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-01-10
Hurting the Country Town


were No. Early Ohios of the finest
quality and cost the club members
$1.30 per bushel at the car. In the
meantime while this car was being
unloaded, the local merchants were
holding up the townspeople land
farmers who were not club mcmbers)
for $3.50 per bushel for potatoes of
inferior quality. On this basis the
Farm Club members made a clean
saving of $1,000 on this one shipment
and in the face of such profteering
one may well inquire whether the av-
erage country town has greater enc
mics than some of its merchants
whose greed knows no limit and yet
who are always ready to throw fit
about the menace" of the Mail Or
der houses, etc. All over Missouri
one can find towns of this kind
towns in which the grain, live stock,
poultry or produce markets are con-
Quoted on the basis of the "last pound
of flesh" and where merchandise is
also sold on the theory of getting call
the traffic will bear" As a result, it
is not uncommon TO see farmers in
such communities drive miles out Of
their way to some other town, not on
ly to get a Square deal" for what
they have to sell but also fair price
on the things they are compelled to
buy-and last but not least, to have
the personal satisfaction of not being
"held up" Perhaps these unfair
towns are the exception rather than
the rule-and yet in the aggregate
there are a lot of them. Again, per-
haps it is only right to say that these
"high binder" tradesmen are not in the
majority-that the lions share of the
merchants in such towns, where the
towns are of any size, are content with
reasonable profits. All this may be
true but still the fact remains that
these influences, wherever found, are
doing more to pave the way for the
big mail order houses than all other
things combined.
And this is one of the conditions
which the Missouri Farmers Assn.
has started out to cline up" Perhaps
more than any other farm organiza-
ton the corn belt has ever known, it
is the friend of the country town--so
much so that there is an express pro
vision in every farm club constitution
against Farmers stores" or an inva-
sion of the regular commercial lines.
And it takes this position, not because
it wants to be patted on the back by
the town man but for the very simple
and cold looded reason that it regards
the cities and myriad towns of the
land as the great nav into which the
annual surplus of the farm is fed and
that therefore these cities and myriad
towns need the farmers protection if
he would be assured Of dependable
market in the years to come. Per-
haps, in view of the long heard cry
against the so-called "middleman"
this is a new and somewhat strange
doctrine to come from a farm organ
ization-and yet the more you anal
we, the more you realize its absolute
soundness from the dollar standpoint.
If everybody was a farmer, nobody
would be in the market for the farm
er's surplus pork, beef and flour.
Therefore, the consumer is every whit
as vital as the producer and from the
farmers standpoint he is just as much
entitled to protection against destruc-
ton as are the pigs in the barnyard
who will become the big porkers of to-
morrow.
But while the Missouri Farmers
Association is the friend of the coun-
try town and while SO per cent of its
energies are being directed toward
compelling Square deal" for the
farmers grain and live stock; once it
enters a community it soon looms up
as "big stick" in Strengthening out
crooked merchandising methods of the
kind above referred to-for when the
spokesman of 400 or 500 farm club
members ego on the warpath", it
don't take them long to make these
small-bore Shylocks "see the light"
As evidence of it, there was "big
slump" in the retail price of potatoes
in that part of Lincoln county when
the farm club got through unloading
their car. If there are merchants in
your town who are not playing the
game squarely, the townspeople as
well as the farmers should welcome
the advent of the farm clubs.
Farmers Cooperative Elevators
The Missouri Farmers Association
has just issued new pamphlet on
Farmers Cooperative Elevators
which is perhaps the most complete
and yet simple treatment of this very
important question in print. Perhaps
so farmers cooperative elevators
have been or are in the process of be-
ing organized in different parts of
the State by the Association at this
time and as soon as spring weather
opens up, several building crews will
start out in as many different direc-
tons. Only recently elevators have
been financed at Vandalia, Nelson and
Dalton, while dozens of communities
have been held back because of the in
fluenza epidemic. 1t is estimated that
an elevator of $4,000 or 10000 bushels
capacity can be built for from $4,000
to $4,000 less through the cooperation
of the Missouri Farmers Association
than if a group of farmers attempted
to build it on their Gown hook"
1t will require from $4,000 to $780,
600 capital stock to build and finance
an elevator of from $4,000 10 10000
bushels capacity at the average ship
ping point, but it is the best invest
ment any group of farmers ever made,
for it means an honest grain market.
AS evidence of this fact, there are