of democracy which has worked so well for more purely political and social purposes; which has preserved law and order; which has protected the country from invasion; which has policed our cities; and which has furnished necessary regulation of other industries. They conceive that this democratic system of gov. ernment of ours was established for the purpose of securing to all individuals, communities and interests the equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They believe in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United States. They hold that one of the purposes of the establishment of the government is that of promoting the general welfare of the people. They have learned through years of suffering and privation that the welfare of the farmers of this country has not been promoted. They hold that where necessary it is as consistent with the principles of the Declaration and of the Constitution to promote that welfare directly, through government operation, as indirectly, by restriction or regulation. In other words, they hold that the government has a positive as well as a negative function. And in so holding they do not mean that the government should take over all activities; that industry should be socialized; that individual enterprises should be curtailed or discouraged. Quite the contrary. What they hold is that when in the course of the development of private enterprises power concentrates in the hands of certain groups and is so used as to prevent or to curtail the equal opportunity of other groups or individuals, and where that cannot be prevented by regulation, then the government should take and exercise that power. They hold that where there are certain services which must be supplied to all in order that equal industrial opportunity may be enjoyed, and that individual energy may be applied so as to secure the maximum production, government may, and sometimes must supply that service.

Nor have the farmers of America arrived at this conclusion with undue haste. They have waited long upon those who have assumed political and industrial leadership; they have tried detached individual political action; they have tried to educate the leaders of their political parties; they have tried voluntary co-operation—and they have found all these methods wanting. Meanwhile they have partaken of the larger national consciousness of the imminence of danger through the decline of agriculture; but unlike other industrial interests they have no motive for delaythey have no reason to hesitate. Altruism, as well as selfishness; patriotism as well as economic interest, call for immediate action.

Furthermore, the farmers are fully aware that any reduction in the cost of food effected by any other means than increased production is sure to react in lowering farm prices. A lowering of prices due to economy in consumption or increased production might have the same result. In fact, it is practically certain that if rising prices are checked and a downward trend begins, the farmer will be the first to feel its effects, the probability being that he will be compelled to sell one or more crops at prices far under actual cost. Such a result would be disastrous, not only to the farmers but to consumers of farm products. It would undoubtedly decrease the farmer's ability to produce, to such an extent that the resulting under-production would bring prices to consumers back to the old level, or above it. Meanwhile, the speculator and the profiteer would fatten at the expense of both the farmer and the consumer. It should be plain that the present agricultural situation admits of no tinkering. It presents a problem upon the right solution of which depends the very life of the nation.

THE DEVELOPMENT IN NORTH DAKOTA

While essentially one with the nation in working out the solution of this problem, conditions in North Dakota have made is necessary for the people to take certain steps considerably in advance of any other state. While others of the agricultural states are conscious of the necessity for the establishment of a public service, for the financing of farm operations and the handling of farm products, the need for immediate action has nowhere else become so great as it has in North Dakota. The development of the present North Dakota situation is well set forth in an opinion rendered by Judge Amidon in the decision of the so-called "Forty-two Taxpayers' Suit," attacking the validity of laws establishing state enterprises for these purposes. Judge Amidon says:

"The people of North Dakota are farmers, many of them pioneers. Their life has been intensely individual. They have never been combined in corporate or other business organizations, to train them in their common interests or promote their general welfare. In the main they have made their purchases and sold their products as individuals. Nearly all their live stock and grain is shipped to terminal markets at St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth. There these products pass into the hand of large commission houses, elevators and milling companies, and live stock concerns. These interests are combined, not only in corporations, chambers of commerce, boards of trade, and interlocking directorates, but in the millions of understandings which arise among men in the daily intercourse of great cities. These common understandings need not be embodied in articles of incorporation or trust agreements. They may be as intangible as the ancient 'powers of the air.' But they are as potent in the economic world as those ancient powers were thought to be in the affairs of men. It is the potency of this unity of life of men dwelling together in daily intercourse that has caused all nations thus far to be governed by cities.

"As North Dakota has become more thickly settled and the means of intercourse have increased, the evils of the existing marketing system have been better understood. No single factor has contributed as much to that result as the scientific investigation of the state's Agricultural College and the federal experts connected with that institution. That work has been going on for a generation, and has been carried to the homes of the state

by extension workers, the press, and the political discussion of repeated political campaigns. The people have thus come to believe that the evils of the existing system consist, not merely in the grading of grain, its weighing, its dockage, the prices paid and the disparity between the price of different grades and the flour producing capacity of the grain. They believe that the evil goes deeper; that the whole system of shipping the raw materials of North Dakota to these foreign terminals is wasteful and hostile to the best interests of the state. They say in substance: "(1) The raw materials of the state ought to be manufactured into commercial products within the state. In no other way can its industrial life be sufficiently diversified to attain a healthy economic development.

"(2) The present system prevents diversified farming. The only way that can be built up is to grind the grain in the state which the state produced-keep the by-products of bran and shorts here, and feed them to live stock upon the farms of the state. In no other way can a prosperous live stock, dairy and poultry industry be built up.

"(3) The existing marketing system tends directly to the exhaustion of soil fertility. In no way can soil depletion be prevented, except to feed out to live stock at least as much of the by-products of the grain raised upon the state's farms as that grain produces when ground, and thus put back into the soil, in the form of enriched manures, the elements which the raising of small grains takes from it.

"The present movement began at least as far back as 1911. In that year an amendment to the state constitution was initiated, authorizing the state to acquire one or more terminal grain elevators and maintain and operate the same in such manner as the legislative assembly should prescribe. The amendment was adopted in 1913. From that time forward the discussion of the subject of marketing the products of the state has been the main theme of public thought. The movement has gone straight forward. The constitution has been repeatedly amended, including the amendments here assailed-all having for their object the correction of the existing system of marketing the state's products. Year by year the conviction has deepened, in steadily increasing majorities, that public ownership of terminal elevators, mills and packing houses is the only effective remedy to correct the evils from which they believe themselves to be suffering. Their decision is not a popular whim, but a deliberate conviction, arrived at as a result of full discussion and repeated presentations of the

subject at the polls. The acts which the court is asked to restrain are not those of public officials, who are pursuing enterprises of their own devising. Those acts express not simply the judgment, of the state legislature. To authorize their enactment the people of the state have redrawn their constitution. That is the highest and most deliberate act of a free people. These constitutional amendments authorize and direct the state to do what the defendants are threatening to do. Their acts are simply the carrying out of the mandate of those constitutional amendments.

"It is hopeless to expect a population consisting of farmers scattered over a vast territory as the people of this state are to create any private business system that will change the system now existing. The only means through which the people of the state have any experience in joint action is their state government."

THE PLAN IN OUTLINE

A majority of the legislature favorable to the establishment and operation by the State of the industries and facilities necessary to assure the efficient and equitable financing of farm operations and the economical marketing of farm products, so as to protect. the farmers' earnings and to conserve soil fertility was secured for the first time in the elections of 1918. The sixteenth session of the North Dakota legislature, as well as the incumbents of all important state offices, was pledged to the establishment of a state system of rural credits, state elevators and mills, packing plants, state hail insurance, and the completion of the exemption of farm improvements from taxation.

The farmers' organization, through which the victory for state-owned marketing and credit facilities had been achieved, made a careful and exhaustive study of similar public enterprises, in this and other countries, arriving at the following conclusions:

1. That North Dakota required a thorough-going system of state ownership, not merely a corporate or co-operative organization, working under state regulation.

2. That the authority to establish and to operate the state industries, with commensurate responsibility, should be definitely and certainly placed.

3. That such authority and responsibility should be reposed in a small board directly elected by the people.

4. That this board should have absolute authority to appoint and to dismiss the managers or directors of each industry or enterprise, and that the latter should have like power to appoint