The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1932-04-08
EVERY MEMBER OF The
UFL A READER OF The
PRODUCERS NEWS

According to the report of the County Organic
er of st. Louis County, Minnesota, 200 members
were recruited to the United Farmers League in
the period of January 10 10 March 20. During
that time he reports that only % subscriptions
were taken for the Producers News He points
out that more subs actually taken but that
they were not reported to him. Furthermore where
one member of the UFL is a subscriber to the
Producers News, other UFL members of his fam
Fly may read the paper
Even if these facts taken into account. it is
still true that the growth of the Producers News
is not keeping pace with the growth of the UFL
particularly in those sections where the United
Farmers League has real mass basis We have
not selected st. Louis County because it is worse
than the other cOunties-n fact, it functions bet
ter than the average We just happened to have
the figures of St. Louis county at hand.
The Producers News should have a circulation
far beyond the limits of the membership of the
United Farmers League In the states with the
biggest UFL membership, however, the crcula-
ton of the Producers News is much less than this
membership If the Producers News is to play
its part In the organization of the toiling farm
masses to the fullest extent it must in the first
place reach those masses. It must spread around
each local of the United Farmers League in a
large area. 1t must be brought into new locali-
ties where the United Farmers League has not
yet been established Comrades who are working
in the field report that the paper can do this if
given the opportunity.
The hundreds of thousands of farmers with
whom we have never come in contact are fed regu-
lary by the capitalist press-that is the capitalist
farm press" and the local news organs of the
capitalist class In addition to this the capitalist
class has the radio, movies and the rest of the
apparatus for misleading the farm masses and
the toiling masses of the cities
In order to organize the small and middle far
mers for resistance to the attack Of the capitalist
class we must break thru this apparatus that the
capitalist class has organized for keeping the
masses submissive while starving and oppressed.
We must reach these masses with our paper-the
Producers News.
We cannot do this if the membership of the
United Farmers League itself does not read the
paper. We cannot be good propagandists for our
official organ, cannot get subscribers to it I'M
less we read it regularly.
Fully as important as getting new members and
new subscribers for paper is the necessity of
developing the membership of the United Farmers
League, The experiences of one section of the
country as reported in the Producers News are of
the utmost Importance for all sections of the
United Farmers League. The United Farmers
League in Wisconsin, for example, must know of
the struggles that are being carried on in Mime
sofa or Montana and contrariwise also The Pro-
ducers News brings to all of us the news of the
struggles that developing, how they are being
organized, under what demands the farmers are
organizing, what methods are being used to win
their demands and what results have been achiev-
ed 1t is necessary not only that the leadership of
the UFL locals become acquainted with this, but
that the entire membership be kept constantly
aware of it. There is no substitute for the Pro-
ducers News in this task. Discussions in the To-
Gals of the UFL can and should supplement- it but
they cannot supplant it.
An immediate task is therefore the spreading
Of the Producers News among the membership of
the United Farmers League Our slogan must be
EVERY MEMBER A READER OF THE PRO-
DUCERS NEWS, not as a purely formal obliga-
ton of membership but as the duty of every mill
tant farmer in the United Farmers League, SO
that our struggles will be better organized. So
that we will rally greater masses behind our lead
ership, fighting for their immediate interests
The spreading of the Producers News cannot
be question of either in the membership or out.
side of the membership We must gain mass
circulation of tens of thousands in the next sew.
eral months. Every step forward in having every
member of the United Farmers League a reader
of the Producers News will mean ten fold effec
tveness in recruiting circulation among the
masses of the small and middle farmers