The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1920-06-11
BOuck's Speech At
Aberdeen Banquet

The following is the speech of
Washington State Grange Master
William Bouck at a reception ban
quet given the Grange by Abesdeen
Chamber of Commerce, June l:
eve are gratified to see the re-
ception which our people and rep
resentatives have receiver at your
hands and from the citizenry of this
city. The Grange is farmers or
ganization. 1t is fifty fears old,
just old enough to come into it's mind
as thinking unit. 1t was formed
as a clearing house of farmers ideas
and social customs. 1t has kept its
trust right royalty and today we
number in this state many thousands
of the brightest and best of the cit
izenship of the state. The past year
has been one of great growth with
us in membership. We have added
many thousands and our cooperative
efforts are very successful and are
spreading as never before.
Cooperation is our watchword, and
through cooperative efforts we eX-
pect ultimately to find a way out
of our difficulties. The farmer, you
know, has been the lamb for all the
powers that prey-too willingly some
times. Too long have our people
been the last resort of all profiteer-
! ing, until now the farmer is receiv-
ing upon an average of 80 per cent
of the consumers dollar, the other
| 70 per cent is in large amounts going
to spectators and gamblers in food
products. Frankly it is our plan to
reduce this profit at both ends, re-
duce the price to the consumer and
reduce the gamblers profits until
we receive our just portion that our
labors and investments justify, and
the consumer is neither robbed or
starved.
We stand for an honest and Just
marketing system, and Transports
ton is very necessary adjunct to
such system, and railroads under
the present management are men
ace to the producer and consumer
alike. They cannot long remain in
the present speculative state, used
by the gamblers as football of high
finance. They must soon commence
to function for the great army of
producers and consumers of our
country.
We are an educational organiza-
ton standing for the very best in
educational advantages possible to
secure, and to this end we deplore
the tampering with our school sys-
tenn, INDUCED in every two years by
politicians in our legislature. We
stand for state text book system
loIi of lot ~, +nx
books at the expense of the bare
foot boy.
We stand for an honest wheat
grading system, something never yet
known in our state.
We stand for cooperation among
producers in handling their own
products. We stand for co-opera
tive wheat handling.
We stand for cooperative milk
condensers, that the condensing trust
may not entirely be allowed to throt-
tie the milk business in the State
We stand for cooperative fruit
handling among the fruit raisers
We stand for honesty in public as
well as private places. We stand
for Christian citizenship of the high
est type. We stand for one code of
morals for all people and sexes,
We stand for the Constitution of the
United States and the declaration of
human rights it contains. We stand
for men and women, cast in the mold
of our fore-fathers, who would rather
suffer and die than to lose their
liberty; men who will dare assert
their citizenship anywhere at any and
all times. We stand for a dry state
and nation, that our people may not
be added or muddled by strong drink
in these perilous times, and that the
political power of liquor may be for
ever abolished in the land.
We stand against that hideous
monster, militarism, which has ruin
ed and blighted men from time i'm
memorial and made hags and prosti-
tutes of our sisters. Not. a land
or kingdom or principality or autoc-
tracy since time commenced upon this
earth but what it has left blighted,
blasted wreck-ask the kaiser if this
is not so.
Our motto is: Men and women,
the noblest and best and fairest heri-
tave of any land or any time, tall
men sun-crowned, who lift their
heads above the fog of earthly things
and who do and dare to express their
honest opinions at any and all times
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