62 FARMERS' UNION AND FEDERATION 



are not organized. Had they been unionized their officers 

 would have been on that board to plead for better wages, and 

 at least a dollar more would have been added to the price. 

 The 650,000,000 bushels you produced in 1917 would have 

 brought you that many more dollars, and the 1918 crop 

 probably more than that. 



Don't you think it would pay better to unionize and go 

 into politics to increase your wages, as other classes do, than 

 to go into the mud or dust of the field to raise more wheat to 

 lower your wages with? 



Farmers Punished for Capital and Labor Profiteering. 



Because farmers are not unionized and in politics to pro- 

 tect their interest against classes that are, they are pun- 

 ished by both foreign and domestic laws for the greed of 

 others. Because unionized manufacturers had a high tariff 

 put on imports of foreign goods the manufacturing countries 

 put a high tariff on imports of farm products from the United 

 States 'in retaliation. Thus the farmers not only have Ho 

 buy their supplies on a protected market, but sell their 

 products on the basis of foreign protected markets. Because 

 we have some wheat to export every year about an average 

 of sixteen per cent of annual crop in the ten years from 1904 

 to 1913 inclusive it affects the price for the entire crop. In 

 t other words, we must sell all our wheat at the foreign market 

 price minus their import tariff, transportation and commis- 

 sions to place it there. 



In this matter wheat growers should follow the example 

 of manufacturers to be on an equality with them. That is 

 to unionize, go into politics, have a tariff of $2.00 a bushel 

 put on wheat importations, charge the domestic consumers 

 the foreign price of wheat plus transportation, commissions, 

 and $1.90 of the protective tariff. If your wheat is not all 

 taken at that price, feed it to your chickens, pigs and calves, 

 or store it away for famine years, or ship it abroad for half 



