26 FA RMERS' UNION A ND FEDERA TION 



does not get the benefit of the low price of wheat paid the 

 producers of it. Now, the question is, would it not be better 

 for the general public, city union labor, and most everyone 

 else, were the wheat growers to unionize and take to them- 

 selves as their wages and expenses the millions made by the 

 gamblers and speculators in wheat on the board of trade? 

 Then it would be invested in better wages, improvements, 

 machinery and in other ways to make farming successful 

 and desirable. 



Will it pay the wheat raisers to unionize to secure and in- 

 vest those millions for themselves to better their condition? 

 Well, I guess it would. Why not go after them, you wheat 

 raisers, by unionizing for that purpose? 



Reimbursement for Lost Labor and Capital. 



In placing the minimum price on wheat, the wheat grow- 

 ers' union would set it to not only cover the cost of the 

 bumper crop, but to cover the loss in wages, interest and 

 expenses of the poor crop, and that of the total failure also. 

 In no other way can the grower be reimbursed for the loss 

 he now must stand on crop failures. No other class of 

 laborers are required to stand the loss of their labor; why 

 should the wheat raiser be required to stand his? 



City union laborers get their wages though their work be 

 destroyed by the elements to the extent of billions of dollars. 

 Doctors and lawyers get their fee though they lose their 

 case. The wheat grower likewise, to be upon an equality 

 with them, should add his loss by the elements in wages and 

 expenses on crop failures in computing the minimum wheat 

 price. This would act as an insurance against loss by the 

 wheat growers caused by the elements such as hail, drought, 

 floods, storms, lightning, rust, freezing, etc., and by insects 

 such as the chinch bug, hessian fly, green bug, grasshopper, 

 etc. 



