FARMERS' NATIONAL CONGRESS. 



221 



strong plea for ship subsidies, to which the con- 



fress did not make a favorable response, however. 

 Ir. Thurber said: "It is an anomaly that we 

 should be willing to spend $40,000,000 a year on a 

 navy, and balk at spending $10,000,000 a year in 

 building up a merchant marine that will make 

 our navy effective. The nation demands an isth- 

 mian canal, but what is the use of building a 

 canal unless we have a merchant marine to use 

 it?" He also approved the suggestion of the 

 Hon. O. P. Austin that a floating exposition 

 should be organized, using some of the army 

 transports, the services of which will not be longer 

 required, and with the cooperation of our manu- 

 facturers show samples of our wares in the prin- 

 cipal ports of the world. 



In the discussion of this paper, Hon. William D. 

 Hoard, of Wisconsin, said he believed the dan- 

 ger from trusts had been exaggerated by the pub- 

 lic, and that, while trusts should probably be 

 regulated, the people had less to fear from the 

 trusts than the owners of trust stocks had to 

 fear from depreciation of those stocks. He 

 pointed out the effect that enhanced price has in 

 lessening consumption. 



On the second day a very interesting paper on 

 The Rice Industry: Its Relation to Other Indus- 

 tries, prepared by Mr. J. B. Foley, of Louisiana, 

 one of the largest rice-planters of that State, was 

 read by Col. Edward W. Wickey, of Mississippi, 

 who made valuable and interesting comments. 

 Mr. Foley pointed out that the rice district of 

 southwest Louisiana is a beautiful level prairie, 

 marked by winding rivers and bayous. The rice 

 area has been circumscribed only by the ability 

 to irrigate. The rice industry of that section has 

 been developed largely by Northern people and 

 capital. No other equal agricultural area in the 

 United States compares with the rice district as a 

 consumer of the products of other sections of the 

 country. It is a one-crop region. The rice belt 

 buys very nearly all its food for man and beast. 

 It spends every year many thousands of dollars for 

 machinery, which comes from the North. The rice 

 industry of southwest Louisiana is one of the 

 " infant industries," and while the home product 

 at present supplies only about three-fifths of the 

 home demand, the rice-growers of the United 

 States will soon need all our home market. The 

 high price of rice to the consumer is due to the 

 cost of retailing it. For a rice that the mills get 

 for four cents a pound, the consumer pays eight 

 to ten cents a pound. If grocers would sell rice on 

 the margin on which they sell sugar, it would be 

 a cheap food. Some rice-growers make large 

 profits, and some none at all. 



This was followed by an able paper on The 

 Nicaragua Canal: Its Importance to Farmers, by 

 the Hon. Harvie Jordan, of Georgia. He quoted 

 Prof. Emory R. Johnson to the effect that the 

 result of the building of the canal on railway 

 rates would be offset by the expansion of the 

 whole traffic handled. He said : " The time is 

 not far distant when the rapid development of our 

 industries, the expansion of trade both at home 

 and abroad, will require not alone the services of 

 our present railways and the canal, but we shall 

 need more railways and ships to meet the require- 

 ments of our country. The building of this canal 

 is a great national necessity. Its construction 

 would change the geographical position of our 

 commerce on the high seas. We should be 

 brought into direct trade relations with the 

 Asiatic nations, whose 500,000,000 people stand 

 ready and willing to buy our cotton, grain, meat, 

 and other commodities. Millions of .tons of 

 freight from the West and the South would soon 



find new markets at a minimum , i of water 

 rates for freight, which would leave to the pro- 

 ducer and manufacturer a better my.r<_'in ,,)' profit 

 on all commodities intended for ex|>< rt. 



The afternoon session was devoied i.o ,i dis- 

 cussion of oleomargarine and other butler .-ml - 

 stitutes and proposed legislation ailed inu lhe.ii . 

 The discussion was opened by an exhaustive mil 

 carefully prepared paper by Charles Y. Knight, < i 

 Illinois, secretary of the National Dairy L'nioi . 

 He asserted that oleomargarine is a fraud wher- 

 ever sold, and that its fraud is admitted by its 

 makers; that only 50 cents' worth of fat is used 

 in the manufacture of oleomargarine from each 

 head of cattle killed, and that only 1 per cent, of 

 the cottonseed-oil product is used in the manu- 

 "facture of oleomargarine; that the people them- 

 selves do not demand oleomargarine, do not want 

 it, and that it can be sold to them in any con- 

 siderable quantity only through deception; that 

 not all the oils used in its manufacture are made 

 from clean fats; that it is not the equal of but- 

 ter in digestibility or nutritiousness, and is posi- 

 tively unwholesome; and that as coloring it in 

 imitation of butter is done only to sell it as 

 butter, such fraudulent coloring should be sub- 

 jected to a prohibitive penalty. 



Opposing views were advanced by the Hon. J. 

 Sterling Morton, of Nebraska, ex-Secretary of 

 Agriculture, in a very skilful argument. He in- 

 terestingly told of the development of the manu- 

 facture of paper from a part of the corn-stalk. 

 He exhibited samples of paper in various forms, 

 from newspaper to paper board, made from a 

 part of the corn-stalk previously wasted. He then 

 asked if the manufacturers of paper from the 

 materials formerly used should be allowed to com- 

 pel by law the manufacturers of paper from corn- 

 stalk fiber to color it in such manner that it could 

 not compete with paper made from wood-pulp, 

 etc., though the paper made from corn-stalk was 

 just as good, and sold for a less price. He con- 

 tended that compelling the manufacturers of 

 paper from corn-stalk fiber to color their paper in 

 such a way as to prevent its competition with 

 other paper was a parallel to the legislation asked 

 for by the dairymen, to compel the manufacturers 

 of oleomargarine to color their product pink, or 

 else subject it to a prohibitive tax. He also con- 

 tended that the National Government had the con- 

 stitutional right to tax only to raise revenue, etc., 

 and not in order to prohibit the manufacture of 

 a product. 



His argument was vigorously combated by the 

 Hon. William D. Hoard, of Wisconsin, president 

 of the National Dairy Union. He contended that 

 the basis of the traffic in oleomargarine is decep- 

 tion, that it is selling one product for another. 

 The manufacturers of oleomargarine bought the 

 merchants to violate the laws. " It is a question 

 that strikes into the integrity of society," he said, 

 " when men will go before Congress with the 

 claims the oleomargarine men present." He 

 pointed out the difference between coloring butter 

 and oleomargarine butter is colored to conform 

 to the taste of the consumer, oleomargarine is 

 colored to deceive the consumer. 



At the evening session Prof. E. Benjamin An- 

 drews, Chancellor of the University of Nebraska, 

 spoke on The Farmstead Beautiful. " Scientific 

 farming has now put it within the reach of nearly 

 all to have good reading-matter, and to indulge in 

 travel ; and the telephone and the trolley-car have 

 done much to add interest to life on the farm." 

 Trees and hedges temper the climate and add to 

 the beauty of the farm. " Have your home lot 

 square, with lawn all around it. The beauty of a 



