The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1922-09-14
Setting John Wallin Right

Mr.. John Wallin published an arti-
Gle in last issue of the Independent
over his signature, in which he took
erroneous premises, yet arrived at
correct conclusions. "
His conclusion that owners of farm
products, as wheat, should regulate
their own selling prices subject to
supply and demand, is but following
the footsteps of the miller who con-
verts the wheat into flour; of the
wholesaler and jobbers who handle
the flour; of the retailers who sell the
-four to the consumers.
That farmers SHOULD set (regu-
late) their own selling prices" as he
says, is shaping Townleyism or So
cialism in the face. For socialism adj
vocates regulating prices by the
State (Government) and on basis OF
"cost to produce" and without a
profit. That is records Of the Nation
al socialist platform. And it is just
what Mr.. Townley advocated in his
Townley's page in August issue OF
the National Leader.
Mr.. Wallin's premises that it is the
duty of townspeople or buyers to pay
higher price for wheat and other
farm products, without the farmers
exhausting any efforts towards
building up their own market system,
is an erroneous position, and his in
uendoes about ''viciousness, and
meanness to farmers" is wholly out
of place. 49,. ..r..
The farmers did not help the mer-
chants, bankers, millers, etc., build
up their market systems, except
where farmer was a beneficiary by
being a stakeholder. No political
party helped to build them. No taxes
we're used to build them. Every ave-
nue. used by others is open to the far
mers to use. Now it is but sane reas-
oning to say that if farmers did not
help others to organize their market
system, then it is not the duty of
others to help farmers to build up
their market system, any more than
to employ lawyers to draw up legal
papers and have bankers to finance
their holdings.
Now, Mr.. Wallin's insinuation that
it is the duty Of buyers of farm prod
ucts, as wheat, to pay full value &C
cording to cost of production or some
other basis, is not the practice OF
farmers in buying.
During the past three or four
years the Changers at Des Laos, Lone
Tree, Berthold, and other places
bought car after car of fruit, fence
posts, etc. In many instances the 10.
cal merchants confessed that the
Changers bought fruit cheaper thar
the merchants could, and in fact tried
to buy from the Changers. Now
! IiI +ho L,,,, =
from whom, and under what condi
tons did they buy the fruit?
They bought the fruit from unor.
gained fruit growers in Washington
California and Idaho, and was bought
at ruinously low prices to the fruit
growers. But now those fruit grow.
ers are organized-not by the state
and the Changers cannot victimize
those fruit growers any more.
In buying the fruit did the Ware
county farmers make it their duty
to see whether the fruit growers got {
fair price,? No. A thousand times
no. Instead, the farmers smiled
laughed, Dragged and boosted to each
other, to their families, to their neigh
bors, to the merchants about thei1
bargains. The farmers did the same
when buying fence posts.
Whether buyer is farmer, mil
Ter, merchant, laborer, or professional
man makes no difference, they all ex
ercise the same human nature in buy
| ing as cheaply as possible
Townspeople whether bankers
merchants, professional men, laborer
/ or others, are and have always bee
4 ready to show a brotherly feeling TO
the farmers in all of their co-opera
1 tive undertakings to better their con
ditions, but never in promoting SO
cialsm.
/ Let the farmers organize post hast
against price-tumbling, just as other
have organized, and everybody wi
be with them.
"A Ward County Farmer