ADVOCATE AND GUIDE. 81 



ost But Not Price of Wheat Advances. 



Governor Capper summed up the case for the wheat 

 raiser in Capper's Weekly of September 29, 1917, as follows : 



"A year ago, before we were at war, the President and Congress 

 raised the wages of the best paid labor in the country. Recently, in 

 time of war, with the price of every necessity soaring, except one, we 

 have reduced the wages of the lowest paid and most vitally needed 

 working man the man on the farm. We have fixed the price of his 

 product at $2.00, less dockage charges, and he has a short crop at that. 

 I will also confess that I think we should quit making the farmer the 

 goat in every emergency. With the prices of everything the farmer has 

 to buy steadily advancing, with market manipulators and price-fixing 

 organizations paying him for years as small a price as possible for his 

 products, then doubling their value to the consumer, with ten years of 

 uncertain crop seasons against him he somehow was able to plug along 

 until the war came and promised him a reward, the reward of a lifetime 

 in a fair mind you, I say fair price for his wheat crop. Did he get 

 that reward? He did not. Speculation, which for once was in his favor, 

 was stopped and wheat prices immediately slumped 35 to 40 per cent. 

 But even this was not enough. The very emergency which offered the 

 western wheat grower his long-deferred reward, also threatened and still 

 threatens our national existence, and the wheat grower submitted patri- 

 otically to having the price of his product fixed still lower, down to $2 a 

 bushel, less dockage, a price which on many farms this year in the win- 

 ter wheat belt, does not really meet the cost of production." 



And in the Topeka Daily Capital of September 1, 1917, he 

 says: "It is fair to say, however, that but for government 

 interference last May wheat would bring today nearer $5 

 than $2. 



Now, over a year later, we find wheat at the same price 

 and nailed down by Congress for another year with no in- 

 crease, while the cost of producing wheat has greatly ad- 

 vanced in the last year. Living expenses, implements, 

 building and repair material, wages, etc., have increased from 

 100 per cent to 500 per cent in some cases to the wheat 

 raiser, whale he is prohibited from adding any of it to the 

 price of his product as all other classes do. 



It will surely pay to unionize to stop this unfair discrim- 

 ination. 



