The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-04-21
THE PRESENT CONGRESS
AND THE FARMERS
Continued from page one.)

The hackers and Stock l ards &C
prohibiting hackers from engaging II
any unfair or deceptive practices, o.
giving any preference or advantage
to any person or locality, or engag
lug in any act in restraint of trade
or such as would tend to coutro
prices or create a monopoly. This
act also requires stock yards to render
the same service to all corners for the
same charge and to file a schedule OF
such charges which must be kept open
for public inspection.
The Futures Trading act abolish
ing all trading in "privilegcs,'
"bids," "offers," "puts and calls
"indemnities," and cups and downs
in grain exchanges, and making such
exchanges freely accessible to farm
ers' cooperative organizations, and
generally subiecting them to public
ity and federal control.
The regulation and enforcement of
the two acts last mentioned are left
with the Secretary of Agriculture,
who is also required to investigate
marketing conditions of grain and
grain products, including supply and
demand, cost to the consumer and
handling and transportation charges,
and to make such information public
for the benefit Of producers and con
sumers alike.
The Good Roads bill, making 49,
100000 available for road construc-
ton work in the several states, with
special provision for farm to market
highways.
And last, but by no means the least
important from the standpoint of the
future development of agriculture, a
law taking farmers cooperative mar
keting organizations out from under
the antitrust provisions of the Sher-
man-Clayton acts. This bill will en-
able the farmers through their own
organizations to market their produce
n an orderly manner, thereby stabil-
izing the market and making more
certain a fair price for what they have
to sell. To enable the producers to
fully avail themselves of this measure
an adequate system of credits should
be worked out. A number Of bills
are now pending with this object IN
view, but none of these offer a solu-
ton in the judgment of the writer.
The above constitute only a part
of the ambitious program outlined by
those upon the republican side who
are seeking to clip agriculture rise to
the same plane as that enjoyed by
other business enterprises.
There remain of this program still
to be enacted a number of bills, in
Guiding the following:
A bill to prohibit the manufacture
Of filled milk.
A bill regulating cold storage in
such a that none but pro-
ducers of certain agricultural pro-
ducts may keep them in cold storage
beyond a specified period.
A bill to increase the maximum Of
individual Federal farm loan bank
loans from $4,000 to $4,000.
A bill to put a representative OF
agriculture on the Federal Reserve
Board, with a view to making the
practice Of that body more helpful
to agriculture. This measure has pas
sed the senate and is now pending
in the house.
A bill to authorize Farm Loan
banks to extend medium time COM
modify credits to farmers on the Sc
curity of their products and livestock.
While not distinctly a part of the
above program it is worthy of note
that the present congress has done
much in the way of extending relief
to settlers upon government irriga-
ton projects and in extending the
time for payment of moneys due upon
homestead entries and government
land purchases upon the Cheyenne
River Is. d. Standing Rock On. and
S. d. and other Indian reservations,
1t is also reasonably to be expected
that much good will develop as a re,
suit of the labors of the Joint Com.
mission of Agricultural Inquiry head,
ed by Representative Sidney Ander,
son (Rep.), of Minnesota. The Great
Lakes-St. Lawrence deep waterway
project is also in a fair way to be put
into concrete form for definite actor
by the congress. Should this project
materialize it will rest as an achieve
ment second only to the construction
of the Panama Canal. 1t will not
only virtually make ocean ports o.