The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1921-04-07
COMMITTEE Of SEVEN
TEEN MAKES REPORT

There has during the last two months
been a great deal of speculation and
misunderstanding as to the effect Of
the National Farm Bureau committee
of seventeen report on the handling
Of grain This committee spent about
$4,000 in travel, gathering the opin-
ion Of experts, gathering statistics on
transportation and other matters, and
necessarily its report was listened to
with a great deal of interest
At the meeting Of the Tri-State Farm
Bureau at Spokane last week W G Ec-
kartz. chairman Of this committee. gave
very clear and lucid explanation Of
the operation of this plan and his ex-
PLANTATION was received With great
deal of favorable comment
There have been several mis-state-
ments regarding the actual signing up
Of wheat in the middle west and Mr..
Eckhartz cleared this up very COM
pletely by stating first, fhat the farm
ers of Kansas are not signing up half
Of their wheat as reported in the prese
but are actually signing up all their
wheat. not only all the wheat but all
the grain grown by the farmers Of
Kansas on a f've-year contract, also on
practically the same contract that we
are using here. Second that there is
a decided sentiment among all the
wheat producers of the middle states
supporting the same kind Of plans that
we are using in the northwest
There are two very clearly defined
reasnos why the Sapiro plan. so-called,
which is being used in the west, was
not entirely approved by the Farm Bu-
reau committee. The first of these rea :
sons is that there is great deal OF
danger that the article % of the Clay
ton amendment to the Sherman Anti
Trust law may be declared unconstitu-
tional, and if it should be then farmers
and farmers organizations must come
under the application of this law and
the western contract would then be
lin solos Of Miss Margaret Phelps, who
danger is overcome through the con-
tract drawn up by the national organi-
cation, and if any difficulty did arise
the western organizations could easily
take refuge behind their contract. The
second reason is that the contract sign
ed up by the farmers in the middle
states include all the grain grown by
the farmer for five year period The
reason for this is quite apparent. The
state of Illinois has marketed as much
as 1O0,OO0.OO0 bushels Of wheat but
when the price of corn is high the
amount of wheat marketed runs down
as low as fifty million The pooling
of corn is not considered practical be-
cause of the danger of corn heating in
the elevator
Mr.. Eckhartz stated that ii was his
opinion that the whole committee were
strongly in favor of the western pool
ing plan so far as wheat was concern
ed, and that all the wheat men that
he had come in contact with were
strong for this feature and that the
application of the contract presented
by the committee Of seventeen will be
in every essential detail the same as
the application of the same contract
in the west
It is true that each farmer will have
the privilege of signing up his grain
direct with the association or signing
it up with the local elevator compan-
les, which may or may not have the
right to state when the sale shall be
made through the agency. but every
bit Of grain signed up must go through
the same agency, and strong effort
shall be made to give to the central
agency the control of the date of SELL
ing of the grain when the contract is
signed by the grower.
The western plan calls for simply
a central agency for the western dis
trict The national plan is different
from this in that it calls for a national
sales agency to have charge of the ma
tional selling OF grain and through
which all district agencies, such as we
would have in the northwest, would CO.
operate.
In addition to the selling agency the
national plan calls for n national fin
ancc corporation to finance the grain
trade exclusively. This will he one OF
| the greatest corporations ever created
being a s1o0,00OOOo corporation. which
will be financed by the farmers them
selves 1t has been pointed out that
this will mean hundred dollars from
one out Of every six farmers in tn,
PEELED to take this stock but through
the middle states there are many far
mcrs who have considerable amount
J Continued on Page S,)