The Mena weekly star., 1920-09-16
HATFIELD TAKES HOLD
In FARM BUREAU WORK

! Special to The Star.
Hatfield, Ark, Sept. "a get-to-
gether Farm Bureau meeting was
held at the auditorium last night. I'll.
f. Kapp of Little Rock.
81 am not going to make speech" !"
he said, Il am going to talk business
to you men," And he did. In very
forceful and effective manner the
speaker for one hour quoted innumer-
able facts to pose that farmers must
wake up and look out after their own
business affairs, as mere talking and
knocking is ineffective with specula-
tors and profiteers. He did not in a
single instance knock any man or any
business during his whole discourse
"It's nothing but human for all men
to want to buy for as little as possi-
BILE and sell for as much as they can
get" he insisted, and in substance
said that farmers would have to learn
to beat the speculator at his own
game.
Get together by buying and selling
together; hire competent men to find
markets; employ your own graders
to sample your cotton and keep
pounding away until you succeed,
Was the hhty hVtS al x uiiiSHe VI HAS
speech.
He quoted instances where farmers
had saved as much as $50 per ton on
fertilizers and 5000 car on corn by
going in and ordering together And
the same percentage of savings or
profits can be made by selling to-
gether," he argued.
Mr.. Kapp was once a farmer him.
self, and several times he said that in
his early days he had gone to town
with his cotton, not even knowing the
staple, the grade or the market price.
"Now who is to blame for farmer
being beat out of from $40 to $50 per
bale ?" he asked. No one answered,
but at this juncture a deep silence
passed over the crowd.
Before he closed he went into de-
tails as to what it would mean for
progress if farmers were organized
and would throw their whole force in
to getting important agricultural
laws passed.
Right at the present time he said
Arkansas needs a pure seed law bad
ly. And in support of this he quoted
an instance where some Oklahoma
dealer, no longer than last year, on
falling to unload several cars of di-
seased potatoes in that state, shuffled
them over and sold them to the un-
protected farmers of Arkansas.
Much interest was shown by the
business men present as well as the
farmers. Many pledge cards were
signed up at the end of the meeting
and the work is to 60 forward in
Hatfield in manner similar to that
which is going on all over the United
States.
Each local organization will in
most respects be law unto itself,
that is, it will take up problems and
issues peculiar to its own locality and
deal with them accordingly. Women
are also permitted and welcomed to
become members. In fact, every hus-
band that becomes a member en-
titles all his women folks to member
ship. The organization is to build up
homes as we'll as farming interests.
When the speaker finished, d. e.
Myers who acted as chairman made a
short talk. Jeo Lewis was selected
by vote as an advertiser, to see that
everybody got word about another
meeting to be held at the opening of
school on the morning of Monday,
September 20. The first thing to be
done, L. H. Johnson and Mr. Myers
explained, will be to take up the pro-
position of building warehouse at
Hatfield Immediately.
September 20 is to be "cotton day"
all over the south and large crowd
is expected to be present at this meet
inc