The Monroe journal., 1922-10-27
ANTI CO-OP'S THROW Off
THEIR SLEEPS CLOTHING
Clarence Poe Writes About the Great
Victory of the Association in
the Nashville Court
a GREAT INDICTMENT OF
SYSTEM" SAYS MR.. BROOM
Auction Houses Claim That Cooper
ative System Gives Too Much Pow
er TO the Farmer and Cooperative
Laws Is Class Legislation. Editor
Of Progressive Farmer Explains.

u
er TO the Farmer and Cooperative
Laws Is Class Legislation. Editor
Of Progressive Farmer Explains.
won't you publish DR.. Clarence
Poe's article on the cooperative
marketing case at Nashville, Tenn ?"
asked Mr.. 7. J. W. Broom as he
walked into The Journal office yester-
day. Its one of the greatest indict-
ments Of the auction system | have
ever read" The letter is addressed
to every progressive farmer reader
in North Carolina, South Caolina and
Wing MIA, and reads:
Dear Friends:-
Il am just back from the hearing
at Nashville, North Carolina, where
the first great onslaught on the CO.
operative marketing movement was
made by the interests that will move
heaven and earth to crush it. This
was the first suit in the Carolinas or
Virginia in which the cooperative
marketing association has brought an
injunction to compel signer to de-
liver his crop, to pay penalty of five
cents pound for each pound he had
sold outside the association, and to
pay the expenses of the association
in prosecuting him, all of which
things are called for by the contract
And in spite Of all that attorneys,
warehousemen and dealers fighting
cooperative marketing could do,
farmers backed the contract.
whether you have signed or have
not signed the cooperative marketing
contract, Mr.. Farmer, | wish you
could have stood with me and with
the others in the multitude that
thronged the courthouse of Nash
county. If you have signed the CO.
operative marketing contract you
would have had your faith strength
ened. If you have not signed it, |
believe you would have had it borne
into your very soul that the Coop
Grating farmers have enlisted in
great battle fro freedom and that it
is your duty and the duty of every
other farmer to get into this great
battle and fight shoulder to shoulder
with your comrades until the victory
eomes--or until you die and pass the
fight on to your children and child
ren's children.
"'For freedoms battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."
II say all this because there in
Nashville, as never before, was re-
vealed with brazen shamelessness
the true inwardness of all the bitter
and determined fight that special in
terests have made and will continue
to make against the effort of the
farmer to free himself from such spe-
cial interests, and instead to "Make
himself master of his own industry"
Wherever opponents of cooperative
marketing have found a farmer they
thought they might fool these last
two years, what have they told him ?
Haven't they told him that co-opera-
tive marketing was weak and futile
thing that could never amount to
much? Haven't they told him that
co operative marketing offered no
special advantages to the farmer and
that he might as we'll let it alone?
But at Nashville last Thursday,
thank God, theopponents of co-opera-
tive marketing threw off their sleeps
clothing. They unmasked themselves.
Here they were not trying to fool
some poor uneducated man with
spurious falsehoods-not at all. On
the contrary, they were going before
a distinguished Judge who couldn't be
misled by mere Stiffness and absurdi-
ty. Consequently, facing Judge DAN
iels in Nashville Court, the opponents
Of cooperative marketing gave utter
ance at last to their real fears
the terrible features that have oppres-
sed and haunted them ever since the
farmers of America began to show
signs of wanting something to say |
about the sale Of products made in
the sweat of the farmers own face.
Speaking under the solemn aus
pices Of great court trial intended |
to break up cooperative marketing, |
what did these distinguished attor-
neys say? Did they say that Coop
erative marketing is futile thing, |
a thing that can never amount to
much, no matter how many farmers
go into it? Did they say that coop
erative marketing promised the farm
er no special benefits, no special ad-
Not within a thousand miles of
such thing!
These distinguished attorneys in
their solemn affidavits appealed to
the courts to break up cooperative
for two great reasons and
two great reasons only
First, they said that cooperative
will give the farmer such
tremendous power that if it goes on
then farmers will soon be
able to dictate the prices of all their
great staple products and that manu-
facturers and buyers and the whole
and consuming world will
be at the mercy Of the farmer.
Second, they said that the cooper
ative marketing law gives the farm
er the producer of agricultural