FATIMEES^ STATE CONGRESS. 417 



secure a million members for the society in a comparatively short time, 

 when we predict enough of any crop can be controlled in marketing to 

 compel the minimum price. Please understand that we don't expect 

 every one of the million to do exactly as they may be directed about 

 marketing. We don't expect anybody to hold when inconvenient nor to 

 market when they don't want to, but we claim that among the million 

 enough will be found who can and will hold back their crops, if neces- 

 sary to make and maintain the price. All we want is enough to represent 

 the balance of power. Or, to state it differently, to represent that part of 

 any crop that appears on the market sometimes and makes a temporary 

 surplus, as to teach farmers that as their crops are consumed in a year 

 they must market them over a year and keep them out of public ware- 

 houses and elevators. 



Please, also, understand that, while the society is getting its millions, 

 there will be millions who are not members and will do the very things 

 the society contends for because they are right, reasonable and equitable. 

 Although the society has less than 100,000 members, the tniths it promul- 

 gated about the equity of dollar wheat spread so generally that farmers 

 did regulate their marketing and did compel a gradual advance in the 

 price until it reached the price we set — one dollar. 



Farmers can organize, because they have done so. Farmers will 

 co-operate when it pays them to do so, as it will when the object Is prof- 

 itable prices. Farmers can control marketing. It is the simplest thing 

 they ever undertook. Nothing complicated about it at all. They don't 

 need daily advice. All they need to know is the value of the crop when 

 produced at the base market, the cost of transportation; and that gives 

 them the farm price. Now the only other thing to do is to sell at your 

 price when the buyer will give it, and stop the minute he won't. When 

 the year is aro-und all the crop Avill be sold, because the world must 

 have it; and you will have got your price. Consumers will pay a fair 

 price for your goods if they can not get them at an unfairly low price. 

 The .world has not produced a surplus crop for many years. Therefore, 

 why may farmers not get a fair price for what the world absolutely must 

 have, our food supplies"? I have touched on this matter very briefly. It 

 is a very prolific subject, and I advise every farmer to think seriously and 

 give some attention to the distributing end of his business, as well as the 

 producing end. 



Replying to Mr. Templeton's statement that he is opposed to a 

 farmers' union to price their products and to all unions, I want to ask 

 him or any farmer. Why have not farmers a right to price their goods? 

 Somebody prices them. Have the speculators or gamblers a better right? 

 Has the food trust a better right? Has the middleman a better right? 

 Has the groceryman or miller a better right? When you drive right up 

 to the grocery with a load of potatoes or to the mill with a load of wheat, 

 what legal or moral bond compels you to ask, "What will you give me 



27-Ag:ri. 



