Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1920-10-29
WALL STREET AND A REPLY

w men the ldIIueI markets. MS
wheat with reasonable promptitude
after the harvest, he has completed
his great duty as a citizen. But when
in collision with other farmers, he
holds back that wheat at the cost of
storage and insurance, he ceases to
be farmer and becomes merely an
unintelligent Spectator
Wall Street Journal.
| have no thought of giving wheat
growers advice as to when to market
their grain. This is matter which
every farmer must decide for him
self in the light of all available facts
as to the supply of wheat and the
probable demand for breadstuffs.
But the suggestion that the farmer
any more than any other producer
is morally obligated to throw his
product on the market without re-
Gard to what it will bring or wheth-
er or not the world needs it all at
that particular moment is monstrous.
Why does the farmer owe society
a duty in this regard that is greater
than that which the maker of shoes
or clothing owes or that the packer
OF meats or the Gamer of fruits and
vegetables owes?
Fully two-thirds of the wheat pro-
duced in the country is marketed by
the farmer within less than four
months after it is harvested. All
this wheat is not ground into flour
or consumed as bread in less than
II months from the time it is har-
vested and in some years there is
a considerable carryover from one
crop season to another Somebody,
therefore. must store a large part of
the wheat produced must pay insur-
ance on it, and take the risk of a de-
cline in the market. If the farmer
wants to do these things and take
such risk, whose business is it, ex-
cept his own?
Is 1t true that the manufacturer of
harvesting machinery, for example,
must sell each machine with reason
able promptitude after it is made to
discharge his great duty as a citizen,
or may he not with propriety act as
warehouseman and selling agent,
holding his machines until the farm
er is ready to purchase them and
sell them at fixed price and at the
same price throughout the year?
Who believes that such a manufac-
turer has neglected any part of his
highest duty to society by holding
over from one season to another any
surplus of machines that may have
accumulated? Is it moral for one
class of producers OF essential com
modities to withhold from the mar
ket certain part of their products
TO stabilize the price and to preserve
ar even flow to the market, and i'm
moral for another class to do any
thing except dump the entire prod
uct of the year on the market with
reasonable promptitude after the
harvest
Suppose the manufacturer OF har-
Nesters kept his factories busy all the
year through making machines. and
at some particular season should
dump these machines on the market
at whatever they would bring, how
long would such an industrial con
Germ survive? And suppose these ma
chimes went on the market more
rapidly than they could be absorbed
by their users, and there should step
in group OF middlemen to buy and
store the surplus so that when the
farmer needed harvesting machines
he would find the available supply
in the hands Of the Spectators and
would buy them from middlemen in
stead of manufacturers and at q
! greatly advanced price over that
: which the manufacturer got for