The Washington times., 1921-04-05
WARO
AlN'SHARKS'
Farmers Conference in chicage's
Is Most important Thing Of
Week, Says Hapgood.
By NORMAN HAPGOOD.

"hot 10 Vic nnOSI important LuinB
happening in America this weeki
No, it is not any talk centering
around M. Viviani, for Is a matter
Of fact nothing whatever has hap
pened in our foreign relations that
had not been fully estabilshed be-
fore M. Viviani came over.
AN IMPORTANT MOVE.
Indeed. It Is not anything that TO-
cuses right here in this center of ad-
ministration, legislation, judicial de-
cision. and gossip. 1t Is. in my opin-
ion, something that is happening IN
the La Sale Hotel. Chicago.
1t makes some difference to the or
dinary mutt that he pays q lot more
than he ought to pay for bread, while
the farmer gets less than he ought 70
get for wheat. But can the ordinary
mutt do anything about it? Have yen
and and the rest of us ordinary citi-
fzens brains enough to work 1t out?
The farmers of this great agricuI-
tural country spring real movement
this week. Today and tomorrow the
~
by committee of seventeen.
Wednesday and Thursday. one hun
dred and seventeen reprcsentativ OF
the farmers of thirty-three States will
decide whether or not to put the plan
into immediate operation. The pros
pect Is that they will decide to do II.
Would the ordinary fellow say or
hand that the amount Of American
wheat sold in this country was the
amount raised here, minus what was
exported? He might. but he would be
wrong.
The amount sold is, II my memory
can be trusted, forty times the amount
raised. That is one fact to take away
ana paste under your hat II you want
to understand what Is happening this
week In Chicago. The farmer Is try
Ing to put an end to the wheat specu-
lator.
WOULD CUT WASTE.
The farmers mean to put in actio.
their own marketing machinery on Q
national scale. They thus cut out
waste in distribution and 1t is to be
remembered that most Of the Sc
called cost of production is the cost
Of distribution. They lower exces-
sive freight charges. They stabilize
money that now goes to the middle
men.
One Of the committee Of seventeen
is United States Senator. Edwin +.
L.add. of North Dakota. He puts il
| this way:
"Once the farmer and his helper
sat down opposite each other at the
| same table. In the same way the
producer and the consumer were
close together.
"Then a third fellow appeared at
the table. and a leaf was put in toS
accommodate him. He was the mid
| dleman.
Then another and another ap-
peared. and soon another leaf was
put in. After a while there were so
| many new guests that the original
two no longer had enough to eat"
So we are going to throw some OF
those extra guests away from the
table and bring the producer and the
consumer nearer together.
THE farmers have succeeded in do
ing II in little country like Dem
mark. They did a good deal toward
it before the war in Germany. The
Russian peasants began II long
time ago and in Siberia they copied
a lot OF Danish experience. Perhaps
the farmers are up to the job
"The selling of grain will be con-
centrated in the hands Of a national
sales association. with membership
and voting control limited to actual
grain growers. The big speculative
distributors are worried. They be-
lieve the association will be formed.
But they hope to influence the Sc
lection OF the managers OF the asso-
citation and thus be in a position to
put the movement on what is classi-
cslly known as the blink. 1t IL a
method applied with success not only
In labor unions. but also In the
North Dakota efforts of the Non-Par-
tisan League"
WILL BIND MEMBERS.
The farmers think they see the
money to finance this effort. 1t will,
of course, provide for the gathering
Of market information. Il will have
a subsidiary to take care of export
shipments. 1t will control its supply
| by binding the members to market all
their grain through the corporation
for a period OF probably hve yeara
In Denmark particularly hard
night met the farmers when they
started to pack their own hogs Tho
competing interests offered higher
prices to the individual farmers. The
| co-operatives then tied their members
up on ten-year contracts and speedily
put the private packers out Of busi-
ness
The attacks Of the banks s-d the
big packing and transit interests on
the North Dakota cooperative efforts
have not stopped those efforts. On
the contrary they have given impetus
to this new effort to get away from
one OF the middleman's big gratis, or,
II that word Is libelous from one Of
the middleman's big leaks.
The committeeman hope that they
can handle part OF the 1921 crop
under the new plan. Before long they
hope to become the dominant factor
on the market.
The Farmers Association will sell
only to cash buyers and in this way
they expect before long to kill the
speculative business in grain alto
gether. They will stabilize the price
by stabilizing the movement Of the