The nonpartisan leader. [volume], September 16, 1918, Image 8

About The nonpartisan leader. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1915-1921

Image provided by: State Historical Society of North Dakota

                
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ThE QUESTION OF SEIZING
1917 WHEAT
farmers in the West have
been caught by the wheat
searcher through failure to under
stand the situation. A Minnesota
farmer, for instance, wrote the Non
partisan Leader on August 28 that
"the wheat searcher has come around
and ordered me to haul this wheat to
the mill. I did as I was told and now
the searcher wants all of this money
for the Bed. Cross. I would like to
know if this is lawful."
Briefly the situation is this: Last
spring, when our wheat supply was
so low, the president issued a procla
mation to the effect that all wheat
beyond what was needed in the cur
rent season for seed should be shipped
in. Where this order was not com
plied with, wheat searchers appear' to
have given the delinquent farmer or
other holder of grain the choice be
tween meeting an action in court for
failure to comply with the president's
proclamation or contributing the
whole or part of the sale price to the
Red Cross.
The possible injustice in the situ
ation is the fact that many of the
farmers caught with surplus wheat
did not know of the order or did not
realize that it was. more than some
of the many volunteer war aid plans.
Legally, however, in America "ignor
ance of the law is no excuse." Also
some local agents may make too rig
orous an interpretation of the ruling.
Appeal can be made to higher officers
in the state food administration.
HELPING BANKS TO LEND
TO FARMERS
I've
JL A J- JL JL A^jfc 1# JL1.
skshed a
willingness'to make advances to banks
and trust companies which have made
loans to farmers and cattlemen*,
should ease the general financial situ
ation and in large measure enable
bankers to extend accommodations to
farmers having such collateral. Banks
are urged to avail themselves of the
offer of the war finance corporation."
Bankers in different sections
appear to be using the tight
money argument as a political
club, and are thereby seriously in
terfering with the war.
REDISCOUNTING FARMERS'
NOTES
THE
national banks and any others
that are members of the federal
reserve system can also add greatly
to their lending power by rediscount
ing the farmers' notes which they
hold, at the central Federal Reserve
bank. This government institution
will carry the paper for them at 5
per cent and they can use the money
so obtained for further loans.'
FARM
local bankers tell
farmers that the bank will be
unable to renew loans or make new
loans because of the tightness of the
money market, they should be told
that the government war finance cor
poration was formed to meet just
such needs as that. In its Weekly
News Letter for August 7 the de
partment of agriculture said:
"The recent action of the war
finance corporation, indicating its
nrreE
to work
OH "THE FARM DUKIH6 MH
VACATION. 4JHILC I'M OU1
ENOOV1N& THK
v"*'
... COOtrrFRCSH AlR
LL IrtUeSTKMTTE THE
H.P.L. Foe fwaeLF.
drawB his £arm WeM
3*
labor conferences," says the
department of agriculture, "will
be held during*
GOVERNMENT RULES EXPLAINED AND COMMENTED ON
BY A. B. GILBERT
If There Is Any Federal Regulation Concerning Food, Fuel, Labor, Farm Machinery Costs, or the Like That You
Do Not Understand, Write a Letter to Mr. Gilbert, Postoffice Box 575, St. Paul,
Minn., and He Will Look It Up and Give You the Facts.
Getting the difference between 5
per cent and what is charged on the
farmer's note for simply doing the,
bookkeeping ought to be attractive to
a real banking institution and in ad
dition there is the motive of patriotic
service. The business pian of 'AM&W
ica would be broke today without this
rediscount system, and it ought tb be
used more extensively than it is in
handling farm paper. FIND OUT
WHAT YOUR BANKER IS DOING
WITH IT.
FARM LABOR CONFERENCES IN
EACH STATE
September and the first
part of October in every state in the
Union where federal labor specialists
ajid officials of the states relations
service will discuss labor questions
and their solution with officials of the
state agricultural colleges, state farm
help specialists, county agents, exten
sion leaders and others interested."
It would probably be worth while to
have some direct farmer representa
tion at these conferences also.
THE HEMS ARE
MIGHTYGLAD TO 1-ftV, & ,.g
^SCRAMBLED EfiGS IH
LIMITING CREAM STATIONS
DAIRY
AND FOOD Commissioners
Weigle of Wisconsin and Soren
sen of Minnesota appear to be on the
right track when they recommend to
their respective state food adminis
trators the limitation of cream sta
tions. They believe that where there
is a good local creamery there is no
war-time excuse for duplication of
cream buyers and burdening our rail
roads with cream shipments. Such
ruling would hit some big interests,
of course, among them the packing
trust, but if the organized farmers
in these states and towns which wish
to develop local business get behind
the plan it may go through. Also
other states can help win the war
and give the local creameries a square,
deal in the same way.
North Dakota, by the way, already
has done it. The council of defense
of that farmer-controlled state is
ahead of the rest of the states in real
patriotic endeavor, as usual.
Some so-called dairy papers, among
them Hoard's Dairyman, think such
a ruling tyould be un-American, but
what of that? Hoard's Dairyman
showed wide-awake farmers its true
colors when it made editorial attacks
feiWR itiie Nonpartisan league.
DECREASED COAL PRODUCTION
FOR
the fourth consecutive week,"
declares the Iron Age for August
22, "the bituminous coal output of the
country has shown a decided decrease.
It is now more than 2,000,000 tons a
week behind the amount estimated by
the fuel administration as a summer
month output to equal the country's
prospective needs. This is a shortage
of more than 16 per cent." The fuel
administration is probably doing all
it can as a regulating body, but mere
regulation is not going to give us ade
quate fuel next winter. The big evils
in coal production, like those of the
shipping, railroads, and the packers,
spring from monopoly ownership
they are evils inherent in monopoly
and we can not get adequate fuel sup
ply until Uncle Sam takes away the
private monopoly.
THOSE RUBES
HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE TO ...
WONDER WH*rS THE MATTCR
jWlTH MVT ARMS?
Government reports from many sections speak of the splendid work the townspeople have done in the harvest fields this year. Those'business men who
got a better view of the farmer'sproblems tiuu they eotdd have got otherwise in a lifetime. Think of what *ew nuderetandrng a man who-
the kept firm papers and land specaiatoro eould pick up! And those sidewalk farmers who went
•long with
others because it was the "thing to do," learned a lot, too.
JPAGE SIOBT
9
f*
-'N
A BIG FOOD ORDER
FOOD
ADMINISTRATOR HOOV
ER says the allies must import
in the year, starting September 1,
500,000,000 bushels of cereals, 4,000,
000,000 pounds of fats, 900,000,000
pounds of beef for the civil popula
tion, and' 1,600,000 tons of^sugar. In
addition beef must be imported for
army needs and oats for army horses.
This big order, of course, must be
supplied chiefly by the United States.
But Canada has the poorest crop of
wheat in years. Our own wheat is
much below the spring estimates. Our
cattle raisers in many parts suffered
from drought in 1917 or 1918. The
further we go along the more does
the failure of congress to pass the
Baer bill to give aid to needy farm
ers in 1917, stand out as a gross
blunder for political purposes. We
can put the same tag on the failure
to strafe the packing trust and the
gamblers in stock feeds at the begin
ning of the war. Let us add also the
cutting down of farm loans. We can't
feed Europe and our American mo
nopolies at the same time,
MILLERS WOULD HANDICAP
OUR ALLIES
THE
flour millers met in St.. Louis
on August 23 to protest against
exporting wheat instead of floor. They
ideclare publicly that while it is easier
to load and unload wheat than floor,
the flour would take less space and
grinding here would keep the mill
feeds at home. What they are after,
of course, is the profit on the milling
of the export wheat. In addition to
the greater ease in handling wheat
in the berry, the European millers
take a much larger percentage for
flour than we do consequently a
given number of bushels of wheat will
supply much more human food in
Europe than here. Also there is the
important fact that the allied cattle
as well as the allied peoples most be
fed. The patriotic excuses that profit
seekers invent, woold be funny if they
did not "get away with it" so often.
t-ove TnE COWS AND
CHICKEHS
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