The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1921-09-01
WHAT AILs THE O 4

The /. N. a. propagandists would
have US believe that the only matter
with North Dakota is the Nonpaytisan
League. What then is the matter with
the rest Of the country?
Statistics compiled by the United
States government show that there
are more than 100000 men and wom-
en- without jobs in this country. From
those figures it is safe to estimate
that between 15, OOO, 900 and 10000, 900
persons lack a source of livelihood
these days and that a large proper
ton of that number are suffering
want Or are dependent either upon
relatives or friends or charity for
their support.
Only an infinitismal fraction of
these people live in North Dakota,
population considered, than in any
other state in the union. In all the 9TH
er states the government is in charge
of either the Republican or Democrat
ic parties. The Republicans control
the United States government.
Despite this fact banks are closing
daily in every state even the large
Wall Street banks in New York are
hard up. The railroads are unable to
make both ends meet and are begging
the federal government to come to
their rescue with donations of bill
tlions Of dollars. Automobile factories
are either closed or running only on
part time. They can find no market
for their products. Other factories
and industries are closing down be-
cause the people cannot buy what they
manufacture.
In face Of the fact that the farm
ers have curtailed production and
crops are light all over the United
States they cannot get q price for
their products that even equals cost
Of production. Slack demand is given
as the cause Of low prices of farm
products. Still millions of people are
starving in the United States and in
Europe today because they have not
money or credit with which to buy
| food.
What is the cause Of it all? There
is only one main cause, the competi-
tive, p~rofiteering system. Our credit
and distribution systems, are a part
of that system. These are as out-of-
date and inefficient as the OK power
and wooden plow would be on a mod
ern farm today. The people Of the
world have advanced in all methods OF
production but the credit and distri-
button systems have gone backward
rather than otherwise. Measured eff
cheney the present distribution system
is inferior to that of a century ago
It is altogether too complicated, there
are too many middle men, making the
overhead out of all proportion to the
original cost of the product. This re-
suits in an inflated cost to the con-
sumner. .a " -
That is profiteering, and that is just
what the world is suffering from to-
day. The system that produced prof
iteering also produced war. As long as
the people will stand for the prof
teering system so long will they have
to. pay for wars, both in money and
in lives. Until such a time as the PEG.
pie shall have adopted the cooperative
non-profiteering system, we will have
wars. And in the interim between
wars all manner of food stuffs will be
allowed to rot on the ground, in rail
road cars and storage houses while
millions of little children, women and
men are starving to death. This is
how our present economic system
works. =
The purpose Of the Nonpartisan
League is to substitute cooperation