ordinary grades at which the farmers had formerly sold their wheat. As a consequence the farmers of North Dakota lost millions of dollars on that one crop, and their rage and chagrin can be imagined when it was afterward discovered that the mills of Minneapolis not only manufactured this wheat into flour but had the audacity to claim superior quality for this flour on the ground that it was unusually rich in gluten-absorbed a large amount of water and made an exceptionally large loaf of nutritious bread. Copies of the circular letters which the millers sent out to their trade advertising this flour came into my possession and enabled me to expose this gigantic swindle which had been perpetrated upon the producers of North Dakota. It was this fact more than any other that caused the farmers of North Dakota to enroll in the Non-partisan League in such numbers." The causes of unrest spring out of fundamental grievances and abuses which are in large part due to the present marketing system. They may be enumerated as follows: 1. Surplus production. 2. Price fixing by middlemen. 3. Disorderly marketing. 4. Discrimination in fixing grades. 5. Abuses of the marketing agencies. CHAPTER FIVE Orderly Marketing Commerce, said Emerson, is carrying things from where they are plentiful to where they are needed. There is much implied in this thought. It signifies, first of all, an efficient effort at distribution, for that is all that business means in the last analysis. If everyone had all that he needed or desired of the world's goods, there would be no business, no human effort expended beyond the primitive instincts of hunger and shelter. But we require a multitude of things, and this demand increases with the complexity of our civilization. Business, commerce is the production and the distribution of the things which will supply those wants. It is significant to note that Emerson placed the emphasis upon the distribution of products; of course, it implies that the things must be produced before they can be carried from place to place, but the emphasis is upon the distribution side. Indeed, this is not unique. For three-quarters of a century we have, in this country at least, laid the emphasis there, regardless of what our business may be. Business men have laid the stress on the selling side; manufacturers in estimating their costs, have laid aside fully as much capital for selling their products as they have for producing them in the first instance. Anyone, we have thought, can produce; the real art is in the selling and the distribution of the product. And to the distributors have gone the great profits. This theory has given rise to the host of speculators, middlemen, brokers and commission men which attach themselves to our present marketing system. It has attracted the young men of ability and initiative to the side of distribution, rather than to the more fundamental side of production. It has been responsible for the drift of population from the farms to the cities. And, no less important, it has been responsible on the one hand for the high cost of living to the consumer and for the present sad plight of American agriculture. The farmer, living in a world where every other class of business man placed the emphasis upon the side of distribution, failed to recognize the importance of getting in tune with the economic forces at work about him. He did not move with the procession, he did not take a leaf from the experience of other business men and give distribution the attention it deserved in his business. In fact, he paid no attention to it at all. He had inherited from his sires the habit of production, of carrying his products to the local markets and of returning once more to the business of producing. While other business men were forced by grim necessity to state the case as Emerson did, the farmer constantly put off the day of reckoning. When farming became unprofitable in one section, he could "pull his stakes" and follow the Westward tide, where the pioneer standards were susceptible only of the standards of which he was familiar. When the good sections had been settled, he had a temporary respite in the increasing value of his farm lands. Practically two generations of farmers in the Middle West, for instance, have worked out their years, earned a fair living and then taken their profits in the unearned increment of their holdings. That day has ceased. Land values have climbed to a point where it is decidedly unprofitable to own farm land, in view of the prices of farm products. Many Iowa farm lands are unable to earn sufficient profit, over the cost of production, to pay taxes. It means that one of two things must come to pass, in the fullness of time: Either the breakdown of American agriculture completely, or the farmer must turn his attention to the distribution side of his business. He must give thought to marketing and to efficient marketing. The American farmer does not propose to give up without a struggle. Hence the great attention at the present time and the great agitation for orderly marketing. There is nothing mysterious about orderly marketing; it is not a radical program, nor is it socialistic in principle. It merely means that the artificial restraints now imposed upon our marketing system shall be removed so that the law of supply and demand may function in its normal manner. The periodical glutting of the markets following the harvest has resulted in depressing the prices of commodities below the point where they should properly go, had the markets been fed in an orderly manner. It is not at all unusual that the markets should refuse to react properly when they are being glutted with an over-supply. There is no commodity in the world which reacts faster to an over-supply than food. If you are hungry, you will gladly pay a dollar for a dinner, but you will not pay ten cents for the best meal in the world five minutes after. "The great need in marketing today is to have farm products fed to the markets of the country without market glutting. This can be done by |