The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1922-12-28
NELSON RAPS
ORGANIZED LABOR
Continued from first page)

wheat, but it was owing to the fact
that the Government formed Grain
Corporation to handle the grain, and
sold it to the warning nations of Eu
rope, and they were obliged to pay
our war prices at that time. They
had to deal with our Grain Corpora
ton, and they absolutely needed our
wheat supply, and it was furnished
through the corporation. But we pail
for it ourselves. The proceeds of the
Liberty Bonds were loaned to those
countries in Europe to buy our agri-
cultural products. The money we
loaned them did not leave the coun-
try; it was devoted to the purchase of
agricultural products on behalf of
those countries in Europe, and all
we have got in place of it is their
government bonds which, except in
the case of England, are of little val
ue.
Wartime conditions do not exist
now, and we cannot force the coun-
tries in Europe to buy from US q
! We did during the war, as you *
readily see on reflection.
If prices for what the farmer has
to buy would come down in proper
ton to what the farmer has suffered
in defation, it would not be so diff
cult for the farmers.
You use this expression in your let
ter, els there any wonder that the
result at the last general election
turned out the way it did," etc. The
| only wonder to me is that the farmers
combined with organized labor, wher
the intrests of the two are diane
trically opposed to each other. In
: other words, the farmers combined
with the element of the population
that were insisting on maintaining
wartime wages, and railroad and union
labor got the best of the bargain. I'm.
til the farmers can see where theil
true interest lies, it is exceedingly
difficult to help them as they ought
to be helped.
Low prices for what the farmer
sells, high prices arising from the in
ordinate cost of union labor for every.
thing the farmer has to buy, includ
ing railroad transportation and Goa
supply, is the difficulty.
l am, today, owing to the great
! coal strike, paying two dollars a tor
more for coal here in Washington
than l paid year ago, and the min
ers are getting more than twice the
wages they did before the war. The
strike of the miners and the strike
of the railroad shopmen, coming al
the same time, as they did, worked
endless injury to the country, ani
worst of all to the farmers.
I hope you will study over these
things and think them over. AS ar
intelligent man, you cannot help but
see that the situation is as l have
depicted it.
l am as anxious as anyone to helI
| the farmers, and have always fell
that way, but l am not a demagogue
and l have always believed in tell
ing the people the truth as 1 have
aimed to do in the foregoing lines
The Committee on Agriculture is
now formulating a bill, as l under.
stand it q am not member of the
committee), to help the farmers get q
better and longer time credit. The
bill has not yet emerged from the
committee. When it does and comes
| up for consideration, | shall be very
glad to support it. But that does
nodt reach the price situation, an to.
day we cannot compel Europe to buy
, our products at the prices we fix up
on them. When our wheat gets to Eu
rope, it enters into competition wit
the wheat of South America, with
| the wheat of Australia, with the
wheat of British India, and other
wheat-producing countries.
l receive a daily paper from
Christiania, Norway, and / perceive
from reading that paper that in Nor.
!; way they are buying their wheat and
J rye from Argentina, because they car