The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1922-07-07
COUNTRY NEWSPAPER
BLOC PROPOSED
(By JOHN HI. PERRY)

/ The only possible way Tor Country
America to obtain justice is by or
ganized combined efforts of couun-
try America through iSs press, de-
clares John H. Perry.
When will the Country America
get its fair share of the wealth it
produces?
There are more than sixty million
people in the country as against less
than fifty million in the cities and
towns of more than ten thousand pop
ulation.
All wealth is produced from the
earth. Country America does the pro-
ducing. Yet, 1t only gets very small
part of what it produces.
AS an example, the R. j. Reynolds
Tobacco Company last year made
net profit of sixteen million dollars
($16, 6,000,000.) They paid Country
America few cents pound to pro-
duce the tobacco, added a few cents
per pound for labor, and sold back
the product for several dollars a
pound and reaped harvest of six
teen million dollars net profit.
How many tobacco growers would
you have to stand shoulder to should
er whose combined net profits would
equal sixteen million dollars? All the
tobacco growers in America last year
didn't make profit of one-half of
of what the r. L. Reynolds Tobacco
Company made.
Or, take the American Telephone
and Telegraph Company. They took
fifty-four million dollars 1854, 10000 900
net profit from the American public.
How many millions of wealth would
Country America have to produce to
make fifty-four million dollars net
profit.
The same unfair and disproportion-
ate distribution of profits is true as to
the livestock growers when compared
the livestock growers when compared
to the Packers Trust The wool grow
ers get $1.96 out of the wool that goes
to make the $40 suit. The same sys-
tenn of unequal profits is true as TO
cotton growers of the South, the gram
growers of the East and West-the
producers of Coutry America every
where.
The United States has a total
wealth of two hundred and fifty bill
lions. Country America gets less than
25 per cent when it should get more
than SO per cent of the wealth Gre
ated annually.
A hullabaloO was made about plac-
ing ONE dirt farmer in the Presi-
dents cabinet Some big city papers
raved at the idea of putting ONE
farmer on the Federal Reserve Board
Country America should hav not only
.ta,. IN, Vol
less than one half of all the Cabinet
members. The country mas six votes
to the cities five. Yet, the countrys
voice has hardly been heard in Wash
ington. 1t has never been needed to
any considerable extent The Farm
Bloc in Congress, with only a score
of members, has been able to make
both political parties sit up and take
heed chiefly because of the SLEEP
ING POWER of Country America.
If Country America will awaken
and demand her rights, irrespective of
parties, it will obtain what Justly be
longs to it politically, lndustrially,
economically, socially, and CONNER
cialy.
II the country publishers of Amer
ica will unity into a Newspaper Bloc,
and demand what belongs to Country
America, no power on earth will stop
them from getting 1t
This government, for the first time
has recognized the right of Country
America TO combine to COOPERATIVE |
This is only one step
in the right direction.
Country America produces the |
wealth of America, yet, when 1t sells |
it's product, it has no say about the
price for which it's products SELL
Mr.. City Man fixes that price for
you, Mr. Countryman.
When Mr.. City Man sells his pro-
duct to Country America, Country
America has no say as to the price it
shall pay for what it buys.
Mr.. City Man also obligingly fixes
that price for you.
Country America through its pub
fishers, can force the rights of the
country producer to have something
to say about the price and the cost
Of the product he buys
What's more, the city men COM
BINE to fix the buying and selling
prices in Country America and for
many years nave combined 10 10 so,
and nothing seriously has ever been
lone to stop it except some political
gind-jamming. Fro instance. former
Attorney General Palmer's broadcast
I'd statements of the guilt of the Pack
sr's Trust, and his intention to send
he higher-ups to the penitentiary.
Such statements, having served their
political purposes, the procedure was
ended.
The same is true with the numerous
by the Federal Trade
and the United States
Senate Investigations, which find div
RS and sundry trusts guilty of con-
piracy. What happens to these find
ngs? Nothing ever appened--NOTH-
NG WILL EVER HAPPEN UNTIL
COUNTRY AMERICA ARISES FROM
rs SLEEP AND DEMANDS FROM
rs REPRESENTATIVE AND IT'S
SERVANTS IN OFFICE
N WASHINGTON THAT THEY
WILL NO LONGER ACCEPT PROM
SES FOR PERFORMANCE
The large dailies of America last
ear made an estimate profit of over
me hundred million dollars They
i'd this because City America abb