The Elk Mountain pilot., 1920-11-18
(Continued from page twol


got less for their wheat because cf
the presence of these seeds, they got
nothing for this by-product. and they
paid the freight on it to the terminal
elevator. Shriveled wheat, classed by
the combine as good only for feeds
when the farmers had it to sell, be-
came excellent flour under the magic
power of the milling combine.
Practically all the so-cailed dock
age has high commercial value. A
great deal of it goes into the mill
feeds and since early 1917 the dairy
farmers have paid famine prices for
it. In 1918 F. M. Crosby, buyer for
the Washburn-C Crosby company, tes-
titled that his company daily cleaned
about 10000 bushels of wild peas
supposed to be inseparable) and
sold the peas for S32 ton in carload
lots. The value of the dockage more
than covers the costs of cleaning;
yet the farmer finds his wheat
graded down because of It,
The farmers had attempted to over
come this deplorable condition by the
establishment of cooperative ele-
vators. Then they learned something
else, and that was that they were
compelled to sell to the same men
they had sold to before, except that
the sale was made at Minneapolis
and Duluth instead of at the local
oil =;
dockage and grading. but still the
same steal went on But they did
not become discouraged, and lay
down in the traces, but said, we have
started on the right road, but are
not yet cooperating far enough,
what we need is to cooperate to own
the terminal elevators SO that we
may do our own grading and mixing
and docking then we will save the
rest of this waste. But when the
problem was faced it was seen that
millions of dollars of credit and mon
ey was needed to operate the termi-
nal elevator business and so they
said, all right, we will use the credit
of the state to back up our. plan But
they could not do it because big busi-
ness had written the constitution of
the state, and that forbade the use
of the credit of the state to any such
thing. Still they were not discourag-
ed. They said, the state government
is our government and we will
change the constitution of the state
to permit us to do that. 1t took
stitution, but they did it in spite of
the opposition of all special privilege
combined against them.
Now, they said, the state govern
ment, our state government. has
credit and can get money as cheap as
any big business concern and the
state will do for us what we have
been unable to do fer ourselves. They
had still another lesson to learn
The state constitution was amend
ed by vote of to l in 1912 and
again in 1914, but the amendment
provided no money to carry it out.
1t would be necessary to have legis-
lation. OF course the farmers ex-
pected the legislature would at once
proceed to carry out tho constitu-
tional amendment But the legisla-
ture adjourned without doing it. At
the next legislature. two years later,
bills were drawn and petitions were
filed and farmers attended on COM
mittee hearings and the Equity So
ciety spent money and time in an
effort to have the legislature carry
out it's duty. But the farmers were
told by the members of the legfsla-
ture to mind their own business and
"go home and slop the hogs"
The farmers. had used their best
judgment in picking out the good
men on both the Republican and
Democratic tickets. They had even
elected cne socialist, knowing him to
be good man. But it did them no
good. Truly it was discouraging
situation. Many of the farmers were
in despair. Apparently nothing had
been accomplished, but In fact a
good deal had been accomplished
CONTINUED next week.
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