io6 state; pomoi^ogicai, socie;ty. 



fortunes of immense size for dozens of men, and oil was not a 

 commercial article more than forty or forty-five years ago. 



But farmers produce something besides fruit, and there cer- 

 tainly ought to be a dollar somewhere for the producer or the 

 vendor of all these staples. The Standard Oil Company can 

 pay a fine of $29,000,000, the assessed amount of all the wild 

 lands of Maine, and Rockefeller owns up that he is worth $300,- 

 000,000 made within one generation on one staple. Is it pos- 

 sible that in staples as little used as oil the foundations of such 

 fortunes as this are laid? We can scarcely believe our ears. 

 But if it is true, what ought to come out of the proper handling 

 of the big staples like corn or wheat or potatoes or fruit? 



You probably will ask if it is our intention to control the sup- 

 ply of food products, and in reply I am obliged to ask if there 

 would be anything illegal about doing such a thing. For twenty- 

 five years every conceivable kind of a combination has flourished 

 and the only obstacles they have encountered have been here 

 and there a pious exclamation from some good man. No legal 

 obstacles have been raised. And the man who opens his eyes 

 now ui3on present business transactions after his sleep of twenty 

 years in the Catskills will be more disturbed and undone than 

 was poor old Rip by the events of the Revolution. 



Let us not make the mistake of apologizing for what has sur- 

 vived the destructive criticism of a quarter century. It has 

 been pruned back and pruned back until the root and top are in 

 the healthiest condition, and we may as well face the fact that 

 the business problems of the future are the problems of control- 

 ling the supply. 



We have organized this company however not on the gigantic 

 scale. Until recent days the king of every farm was going to be 

 the king pin of the whole country, and there is too much of this 

 spirit yet to be absolutely certain that farmers will get down and 

 pull together. So we have begun small and humble. We want 

 — we are bound to win the farmers' confidence, to have him 

 come to us for advice as to what to do with his stuff, and we are 

 bound to give it. 



We are bound to have sufficient capital to carry through any 

 trade without loss to the man who sells to us or intn.ists us with 

 his wares. We hope with time thus to build up a confidence 



