Pullman herald. [volume], April 18, 1919, Page 5, Image 5

About Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989

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;^r;AprUiß'lolo
CANADIAN FARMERS
HANDLE OWN BUSINESS
(By John R. McMahon, in the
Country Gentleman. Reproduced by
ourtesy of Curtis Publishing Co.)
courtesy w
With small capital and large hopes
Sid Hart trekked into the wilds of
western Canada. A golden sun shone
on an endless prairie of black virgin
soil carpeted with luxuriant grasses.
One of the world's garden spots,
there were enough fertile acres to
feed millions of people. Twenty
miles from a railroad Hart drew up
a his home site, and with laborious
but willing effort built himself a sod
1 house. Pioneer hardships did not
worry him. He saw the good times
coming, the better home, the man's
cite reward for a strong man's work.
: Wheat! Forty bushels to the acrt
■ was" the yield of that virgin soil. No
I fertilizer needed. Turn the ground
over, sow the seed, let Nature do the
rest. A generous government gave
I Hart bis land for nothing. Bounti
ful Nature gave him 40 bushels to
j the acre, and when he drove his first
I load of wheat 20 miles to the rail
road be had a letter all written to his
girl back east, telling her they could
ibe married that fall. He did not
mail that letter. Wheat was 40
S cents a bushel. Forty cents times 40
buihels.
Disasters Breed Progress
Back to the sod house for another
year of hardship and slowly reviving
hope. The price at the second har
vest was 10 cents better, but the ele
vator dockage and grading swal
lowed up the increa.se. Sid married
In desperation. The girl wife was
pure grit; she made a home out of
nothing. Year # after year Nature
went the limit and Sid Hart broke
his back to produce wheat—
wheat—non par lei wheat that gave
Canada world fame and enriched In
-1 dividuals in far-off cities. Sid Hart
• grubbed away on his prairie home
-1 stead with nothing to show for his
toil except a family barely fed and
clothed.
• It is urban theory that the coun
tryman can be easily fooled, because
the fooling is done at headquarters
far beyond his sight. This theory
overlooks the fact that, however
clever the system of exploitation,
there must be some point where the
victim Is grabbed by the neck and
nude to shell out. "Sid Hart knew
that he was held up precisely at the
place where he sold his wheat. He
knew that he was docked unfairly,
graded unfairly, and got a mere frac
tion of the price that his wheat com
manded at the big markets. It did
not take him long to learn this. The
local elevator was part of a monop
oly and gave him a take-it-or-leave
lt price. He conceived the idea of
shipping independently to Winnipeg.
The railroad had plenty of cars, but
none was available when Sid Hart
needed it.
There was a splendid chance at
this time for a missionary to start a
Klu-Klux Klau in western Canada.
The hardy English pioneers, with a
good sprinkling of Americans immi
grated from the border states, cared
more for justice than for law and
order.
There was talk of burning elevat
-0 ors and of destroying railroad prop
; erty. Thousands of Sid Harts were
1 ready to go on the warpath with
I Pitchforks and shotguns. Along came
I » fellow named Motherwell and said:
% "Instead of this rough stuff, which
V*»! get us nowhere, I suggest that
*c organize a Farmers Union."
v "Give them fire and shotguns!"
yelled Sid Hart, and a host of embit
tered men echoed the cry.
V I "A Farmers Union! Ha, ha! That's
'»eh," chortled some well-dreesed
' Mtizens in expensively furnished of
■ f nces far from the prairie. "Those
»°w rubes don't know how. to stick.
| Haven't they tried it all over western
panada and in the United States, and
failed?
ii $&**■ had their Society of Equity
«a inch "" when Noah was a foot
.\_ «• Thlß new bunch will blow up
'» • Tear or two."
: AH thiS happened around the be
' nlng °l tUo twentieth century. To-
W that Farmers Union of western
Wnd ,8 the biggest thing of Us
mH _D the American continent and
luti^ yiD ,be^world' ; Ithaarevo
onized conditions economically
««» Politically m a domain as large
h " Europe. U haß given , d Hart
. ecent home his wife some of the
■edS COmfort *' hls children a fair
'- oon U has mad« the farmers'
ggggl back up and sit down. It
the « », farmer representatives Into
vat national cabinet al* Parliament
gov * and Into (he Provincial
■'iS" ■'. It has made the farm
rSrfi?-* ana miKhtily feared. .It
socialllA ln the van«uard of the
terv.»! rCeB v'ork'ng toward a bet-
T 8 h yßtem ,BoC,6ty- ' t;'
c "W fairy story of this Farm
ers Union would be valuable, to
Americans if the scene wore located
at the antipodes. Happening right
next door to us, under conditions
much like our own, it has a greater
value. And the story concerns us yet
more intimately because these west
ern Canadians regard Americans as
their natural-born brothers and are
anxious for the closest possible rela
tions with them. They do not be
lieve in titles, traditions or Imperial
tariffs. In my trip through Mani
toba and Saskatchewan there was
hardly anything to remind me that I
was among a people different from
our own.
We are prone to be skeptical of
any new big thing. Why didn't we
hear of this whooping Farmers
Union before? Isn't it just another
society with a bloated membership
and largo blocks of hot air In the
treasury? Farmers in the govern
ment? Sure; most of them rant
about that little home farm at elec
tion time. Money talks. Tell us
what those Canadians amount to on
a dollars-and-cents basis.
All right, Mr. Skeptic, take a bite
on these facta:
Membership of farmers'
associations 80,000
Farmers own or oper
ate 606 grain elevat
ors in three provinces
and four big termin
• al elevators at Port
Arthur and Fort
William.
Farmers' companies
. market about one
third total grain crop,
which in this season
of low yield amounts
to something like
(bushels) 133,000,000
Value of grain farmers'
market $177,000,000
Farmers' companies
employ (persons) .. 1,300
Authorized capital . ..$ 5,000,000
Paid-up capital 3,000,000
Reserve funds 2,000,000
Assets of companies ex-
ceed 12,000,000
Paid war taxes past two
years .
Handling grain is the chief but not
the only enterprise undertaken by
the companies and their total annual
turnover amounts to something like
$200,000,000.
For Farmers Only
The skeptic may yet inquire how
these farmers happened to arrive in
this bloated condition of high fin
ance. Wasn't there a rich uncle or
some philanthropist to give them a
start? No, the records show that
they started small, upon their own
resources, and grew like any business
enterprise that fills a public need.
Some may allege that a .fairy god
mother, otherwise the Province of
Saskatchewan, has given the farmers
a powerful boost by lending them
public funds. But there are plenty
of private businesses, from railroads
to ships and munition works, which
have been aided by governments. The
farmers of Manitoba and Alberta
asked no aid.
All this movement in western Can
ada looks at first sight to be as com
plicated as the proverbial Chinese
puzzle. « There are wheels within
wheels of associations and of com
mercial organizations that seem to
overlap and intermingle. There are
interlocking directorates. There are
little cogs that turn big wheels. There
are levers of independent power that
in ordinary business would have no
power at all— like the official organ
of the movement, which is The Grain
Growers' Guide. There are alliter
ative names which have the madden
ing or soothing effect of nursery
rhymes.
"For heaven's sake," said a Winni
peg man, "don't get the Grain Grow
ers' Grain companythat was —
mixed up with the United Grain
Growers, Limited—that is; and re
member that the Manitoba Grain
Growers' association is a noncom
mercial body, while the Saskatche
wan outfit "
•■ In general, each of the three prov
inces has its noncommercial organi
zations, which are known as grain
growers' associations in Manitoba
and Saskatchewan and as the United
Farmers of Alberta in the third
province. Th* commercial organiza
tions are the United Grain Growers,
Limited, comprising the farmers'
business in Manitoba and Alberta es
pecially, and tho Saskatchewan Co
operative Elevator company, together
with a host of co-operative trading
societies that do business within the
province of Saskatchewan. All the
organizations in the three provinces,
commercial and otherwise, have a
common organ In the Grain Grow
ers' Guide. Finally, every outfit in
the three provinces is represented in
a national organization called the
Canadian Council of Agriculture,
with' headquarters at Winnipeg.
Winnipeg is the world's, greatest
primary market for wheat. It is M
because all the vast grain crop o! the
Canadian prairies must pass through ,
this geographical "bottle neck" on J
__^ TWO BIRDS-ONE STONE |
its way to terminal elevators and
seagoing ships at the head of Lake
Superior. A city of 200,000 popula
tion, its main street fairly crowded
with pillared and bronze-doored
banks, Winnipeg*to the prairie man
once spelled Wall street, Gomorrah.
It was the seat of iniquity and ex
tortion. Now the prairie man walks
down the main thoroughfare and,
pointing, says:
1,000,000
"Yes, that's our bank. We use
five floors in this office building for
our business. Over there are the
showrooms for our line of imple
ments. And we have a whale of a
warehouse for our general farm sup
plies over on the edge of town."
Until lately the Canadian farm
ers have been too busy doing things
to tell or write about them. Last
summer was the tenth anniversary
of their first real swat at the legions
of privilege, and they let loose with
a gladsome whoop of self-recogni
tion and remembrance in the col
umns of their official organ. More
lately the young Homer of the grain
growers, H. J. Moorhouse, has put
out an Iliad of the movement en
titled Deep Furrows. It is a book of
certified facts garbed in the dress
of fiction. In the following bird's
eye sketch of the past, which can
only touch the high spots, I am more
or less indebted to Mr. Moorehouse's
sparkling narrative.
The Kube Speculator
The first grain growers' associa
tion was organized in Saskatchewan
in 1902 and was followed a few
months later by a similar association
in Manitoba. W. R. Motherwell,
now Minister of Agriculture for Sas
katchewan, was one of the founders
of the movement. Before this the
farmers had complained of their
treatment by elevators and railroads.
A law was passed in Manitoba
in the year 1900 to give the pro
ducers a square deal, but it was ig
nored, and this as much as anything
started the growers on the co-oper
ative warpath. The movement spread
like wildfire. Before anybody knew
the farmers were organized, they
had drawn first blood from a leading
railroad, baling it Into court and
compelling it to furnish cars for ship
ments.
In 1904 the farmers demanded a
better grading and inspection system,
and warned the man higher up that
he was too much addicted to tagging
good wheat with the "Feed" label.
Next year the farmers sent their own
man, E. A. Partridge, to Winnipeg to
look after their interests. My, that
was a joke! The rural agent had
$100 expense money. He nosed
around the railroad yards where
train)oad6 of whet* were moving.in
and out every 15 minutes, day and
night; be rambled into the visitors'
gallery of the Winnipeg Grain Ex
change, where yelling brokers were
buying and telling wheat for all the
world.
They laughed at Partridge for a
simple backwoodsman butting into
large affairs. And Partridge went
home and instigated his fellow farm
ers to go into the wheat bu:i. M for
themselves under the name of the
drain Grower." Grain company. This
was in 1&06. Many approved, but
few. wanted to risk their hard cash.
'♦Apparently some fanners were bo
hard up tbat if yarn were selling at
five cents a mile they- couldn't buy
/
THE IMI.I.MW HERALD
TWO BIRDS-ONE STONE'
enough to make a pair of mitts for a
doodle bug."
When the company got going it
was short more than half the price
of a $2500 seat on the Winnipeg
Grain Exchange. Five men dug into
their pockets and made up the sum.
By the end of September, 1906, the
new company was handling 100 car
loads of grain a week. Splendid!
Just then a brick fell. This was a
notice of expulsion from the Grain
Exchange and ostracism of the farm-
ers' company because it was guilty
. of-the crime of co-operation.
i Appeal was made to the Manitoba
■ government. That government, to
its credit, notified the Exchange to
. lift the ban against the farmers un
i der penalty of losing Its charter.
I About the same time the bank with
• which the new company was doing
j business gave notice that it would
! close out the account. It added that
. there was a little claim of $356,000
. to settle.
i It looked pretty bad for a while.
i Nobody loved the farmers. Then a
: helping hand was extended from an
- unexpected source, and all the way
' across the Atlantic ocean. The Scot
i tish Co-operative Wholesale Society
• was sympathetic in the plight of its
brother co-operators in western Can
i ada, and bought some of their wheat,
! At- that Messrs. Patridge, Kennedy
and Spencer, of the farmers' com
pany, had to pledge their entire per
. sonal fortunes to save the ship from
, going down. Think over what these
. men did, 9 ye of little faith! lt
, takes such spirit to establish any
worth-while enterprise.
"Confound them! They do stick,"
i muttered the hostile watchers.
' Despite the attitude of the Mani
toba government, lawyers agreed
with the Grain Exchange that co
■ operation was a crimethat is, the
co-operative distribution of profits—
- and the company was forced to reor
; ganize on a shareholding basis. How
ever, the amount of stock that could
1 be held by an individual was limited,
and no shareholder had more than
one vote. Meanwhile the young
company was being smothered under
an avalanche of wheat sliding in
from a hundred country points, It
seemed impossible to market the
stuff. There was delay in shipping
at the head of LakejSuperior, and ice
would soon end navigation. A des
perate farmer official jumped to Fort
William and in record time loaded
the last boat out with 310,000 bush
els of wheat —and once more the day
was saved.
A school teacher and farmer
named Crerar succeeded fi. A. Part
ridge as president. He ls now the
Honorable Mr. Crerar, Minister of
Agriculture for the Dominion of
Canada. Nobody thought much of
his ability then, and he didn't him
self. ' Like others, ho was drafted
from the furrow to captain a big en
terprise. The grain growers made a
legal attack on the Winnipeg Ex
change on the ground that it was ■
monopolistic conspiracy and also
asked the government to amend its 1
charter. The legal attack did not .
succeed, but the political offcutive
caused the Exchange to restore full; :
trading privileges to the fame
company. '-.'•/, i
Again there was trouble with the . 1
bank. It seems that bank aimed to 1
please, but it could, not afford to j t
bother longer with a petti concern
that in its first year had handled a
business of only $1,700,000 and had
declared a skimpy dividend of seven
per cent, cash. The farmers row
fully walked out of that temple of
finance and walked to another bank,
wherein, after they had bought a
large block of the bank's stock, they
were told to take off their hats and
make themselves at home. Since
then many other financial institu
tions have put the welcome sign on
their doormats for the benefit or
the grain growers.
In 1909 a mlnenwerfer fell into
the producers' trenches. The Winni
peg Exchange, which had once barred
the company out because it did not
charge a commission of one cent a
bushel, now reversed itself and abol
ished the commission rule. It
seemed a blow aimed directly at the
farmers, but It was partly a scrap be
tween the elevator interests and the
independent commission men.
"The intention of these elevator
companies," declared the producers'
organization, "is to handle all grain
for half a cent a bushel or for noth
ing, In order to take it away from
the commission men, who have no
elevators, and especially to keep it
away from our company. The ele
vator people can handle farmers'
cars for nothing and still not lose
anything. They have several kinds
of profits, including dockage and
storage, to depend upon. We need
the cent a bushel to cover expenses
and leave a margin for dividends.
The elevator people are trying to
bribe the farmers to send cars away
from us and by keeping grain from
us help to kill us and plant us so
deep we shall never come up again.
The elevator companies are asking
the farmers to help at their own
funeral. Are we going to stick to
gether nt this critical time, or betray
ourselves and perish for the sake of
one cent a bushel? A referendum
vote of our members will decide."
The farmers met the test. Oily
two per cent voted for suicide and
the rest merrily grabbed the sput
tering melnewerfer and tossed it
back to the Hun trenches.
"Charge anything you like to keep
our company going!" shouted the
soldiers of solidarity. And that year
the farmers' company handled over
16,000,000 bushels of grain, more
than twice as much as the previous
year.
Meanwhile the official organ of the
movement, the Grain Growers' Guide,
. had been established. A first-class
' newspaper man, George F. Chlpman,
became editor and is so yet. His big
i stunt in the early days was to run
down and unmask a tool of the ele
vator interests who, under the norn
de plume of Mr. Observer, was filling
' Canadian newspapers with subtle
knocks against the producers' move
ment. Mr. Chipman found that Mr.
Observer was a hired press agent at a
salary of $4 000 a year, and that the
1 «pace occupied by his apparently
spontaneous letters to the press was
being paid for at advertising rates,
amounting to something like $150 a
week.
"It pays to have our own news
paper as well as our own bank," said
i the farmers. However, since then the
Canadian press in general has emu
lated the banks in putting the wel
come sign on its doormat for the
benefit of the grain growers.
Agitation started for government-'
■ owned or farmer-owned elevators,
i and in the midst of it the farmers'
■ company was almost wrecked, this
i time not by an enemy without, but
• by a rash manager within, who tried
to corner the oat market. After this
the company went into the export
wheat business. They wanted the
large profit that accrues from the
high-seas trade to Europe. It was a
laudable ambition, but owing either
to inexperience or physical condi
tions the result of the first largo ven
ture was a net loss of something like
$250,000.
It was a fine chance to call names
and bust up the entire organization.
Names were called directors re
signed and the yowls of knockers re
sounded from Lake of the Woods to
Medicine Hat. A quarter of a mil
lion dollars taken from the sweat of
the farmers' brow and thrown away!
Co-operation was a failure. Men
who co-operated wero entitled to
profits and not to losses. At the an
nual meeting of shareholders Presi
dent Crerar made a full statement
of the facts and carefully avoided re
ply to all personal attacks made up
on him. The members cooled down,
voted approval of the administration
and ordered a check written to cover
the quarter of a million loss. Fur
thermore, they instructed the presi
dent to seek out any number of hairs
of the export dog that had bitten the
concern. '.
. Saskatchewan solved tho elevator
problem by a system of provincial
loans whereby the grain growers' a*
sociation built and operated elevat
ors. Manitoba adopted the plan of
government ownership and opera
tion. It acquired 74 elevators. This
system was an expensive failure. It
proved that government ownership
would not work. It did not prove,
however, that private ownership was
the only salvation. VVV ,V
"How about farmers' co-operative
ownership?" suggested some of the
producers. The government of Mani
toba accepted the Idea with alacrity.
It looked like making the farmers
the goat for an unprofitable experi
ment in paternalism.
"Take it and I hope you choke,"
said the ambushed interests. But
the digestion of the organized agri
culturists was equal to their appetite,
and besides- consuming Manitoba's
system of elevators in 1912 they
topped the repast with the lease of
the Canadian Pacific Railway's ter
minal elevator at Fort William,
which has a capacity of 2,600,000
bushels.
; SUMMONS, V
In the Superior Court of the State of
Washington, in and for the
County of Whitman. ,
J. W. Burgan and Evelyn F. Burgan,
his wife, Plaintiffs, vs. Jacob
Price, Eva M. Price, A. W. Mott,
and also all other persons and
parties unknown, claiming any
right, title, estate, lien' or inter
est in the real estate described in
the complaint herein, Defendants.
The State of Washington to the
said Jacob Price, Eva M. Price, A.
W. Mott, and also all other persons
and parties unknown, claiming any
right, title, estate, lien or interest in
the real estate described in the com
plaint herein:
You are hereby summoned to ap
pear within 60 days after the date
of the first publication of this sum
mons, to-wit: within 60 days after
the 14 th day of March, 1919, and de
feud the above entitled action In the
above entitled court, and answer the
complaint of (bo plaintiffs, and
serve a copy of your answer upon the
undersigned attorneys for the plain
tiffs at their office below stated, and
in case of your failure so to do, Judg
ment will be rendered against you
according to the demand or the com*
plaint, which has been filed with the
clerk of said court.
The object of this action is to quiet
title in the plaintiffs and to exclude
you and each of you from all claim
of right, title, lien, estate or interest
in or to the following described real
estate, situated in Whitman county,
Washington, to-wit:
Commencing at a point where the
north line of the tract of land con
veyed by John Glaspey to Lawrence
& Holbrook of Garfield, Washington,
intersects the west boundary of the
right-of-way of the Northern Pacific
Railway company, and running
thence 88 degree 15 minutes west
330 feet; thence north 1 degree 45
minutes east 103.9 feet; thence south
88 degree 47 minutes east to the
right-of-way of the Northern Pacific
Railway company; thence south
westerly along said right-of-way to
place of beginning, containing .86
acre, and all being in the southwest
quarter of Section 32, Township 15
North, Range 45, E. W. M.
Dated this Cth day of March, *919.
NEILL & SANGER,
. Att'ys for Plaintiffs.
P. O. adress: Pullman, Wash.
Mchl4Apl2s
NOTICE OP APPOINTMENT AND
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
Estate of Sarah E. Duffey, de
' ceased.
i Notice is hereby given that the
, undersigned has been appointed ad->
l mlnlstrator of the estate of Sarah E.
, Duffey, deceased, and has qualified
as such administrator,
i Notice ls hereby given to all per
i sons holding claims against said de
ceased, to serve the same on me or
on Neill & Sanger, my attorneys of
record, at Pullman, Washington, and
file the same together with proof of
such service with the Clerk of the
Superior Court at Colfax, Washing
ton, within six months after the date
of the first publication of this notice.
All claims against deceased not
served and filed as aforesaid shall
forever be barred.
Date of First Publication April 4,
19 ltf.
, ROBERT NEILL,
Administrator of estate of Sarah E.
Duffey, deceased.
Neill & Sanger, attorneys for the es
tate Pullman, Washington.
Apr 4 may-
NOTICE OF SALE OF STRAY
STOCK
Notice Is hereby given that there
has been taken up by the em pound
ing officer of the City of Pullman,
Washington, three work horses,
described as follows: One white, one
brown nnu one bay. If said horses
are not claimed and the expense of
feed and care not paid for before 10
o'clock a. in., April 10, 1919, they
. will be sold to the highei
I cash, at the Palace Ba
; sale at the above nam*
date, f - C. M.
Empoui
Pago Flro