The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-17
THE FARMERS STEP IN


 buying and marketing associations and the pending control by grain growers associations of all the elevators now owned by the five biggest elevator com panies in the country indicate that the farmer believes he is best served by his own efforts. Some regret has been ex- pressed, mainly by politicians, that the recent sessions of congress came to an end without definite farm-relief legisla- ton; but more careful examination of the situation proves that congress can 1 best aid the farmer, not by making it easier for him to borrow money, but by facilitating the far more sound processes of business principles applied to farm and marketing administration. The fed eral laws permitting farmers to organize and to conduct their affairs cooperative ly without violation of the antitrust laws are the most constructive, permanent and effective aid the government has ever given farmers towards attaining greater economic independence.
 Although MT. LaFollette expects to base his appeal in the Northwest mainly on the Republican failure to pass the McNary-Haugen bill to extend further credit to farmers, yet it must be plain to the farmers themselves that the mer- ger of grain elevators is far more prom ising. The distinction between the two plans is elemental. The McNary-H -Haugen measure, by facilitating farm credits, makes it easier for the farmer to get into debt, without increasing his ability to re- pay his debts. The grain-elevator plan increases the farmers financial re- sources without plunging him more deeply into debt. It is difficult to un- derstand how the farmers would con- slider the first plan at all when the sec ond plan is available. In fact, it is quite probable that by election time the grain elevators will have made such progress in affording relief to the grain growers that MT. LaFollette's chief argument will be destroyed.
 The value to the farmers of organized control of the more than five thousand grain elevators involved in the deal is varied and cumulative. In the first place, it transfers at once from the present companies to the growers the credit on grain in storage, a credit on which the companies have operated almost solely. This credit enables the organizations to advance money to farmers who have grain in storage, without impairing the farmers participation in later price in- creases. At present the farmer has not been enjoying the market advances that occur after his grain has reached the ele- vators. The companies have enjoyed that increment in addition to the profit of operating the elevators and manipu- lating the markets.
 The possession of the elevators also takes away from the grain exchanges their present command of market quota tions and transfers that command to the organizations. Hereafter, prices will be fixed, not on gambling prospects, but on actual products in hand and on crop prospects. The result will be less price fluctuation and freedom from the con- stant dread of price breaks due to manip- ulation and not to fundamental changes in conditions. Indeed, it is altogether likely that the organization can be so conducted as to enable the market to absorb storage and crop reports without it's present vacillating and uncertain re- actions. The grain business wil be a continuous process with its calculations based on the averages of years instead of on the variations that occur from week to week
 Inasmuch as profit making will not be the primary object of the operation of the elevators, it is quite likely that the operating charges will be reduced and that a wide margin of profit that formerly went to the elevator companies will disappear, doubtless to the mutual advantage of both producer and con sumner.
 What the grain growers are doing can be done by cotton growers. In fact, it is being done to certain extent. As the cotton growers become more and more conscious of the strength and benefits of cooperative effort, it is altogether likely that their ambitions will expand accordingly, until they also have re- moved the constant price fluctuations or else modified them to point where the selling price will always contemplate a profit on the production cost, and where the market price will bear more inti- mate relation to the intrinsic value of the commodity. Where wheat and cotton may be stored in elevators and ware houses, doubtless more perishable prod ucts will come to be accommodated in cooperative cold-storage and other plants specifically designed for the pur- pose Farm business is about to develop into the same efficiency that has marked