112 THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 



now generally believed, under one control, with all the 

 possibilities of profiteering and market manipulation. 

 So long as these iniquitous practices are made easy, 

 they will continue to increase. Milling and other in- 

 dustrial enterprises would spring up in these small 

 cities, to the great advantage of producers, consumers 

 and laborers; live stock would be slaughtered at the 

 nearest packing town; and the grain shipped to the 

 nearest mill; greatly reducing the cost of living to 

 wage and salary earners, and giving them better sur- 

 roundings ; and at the same time increasing the farm- 

 ers' profits. 



It is absurd that cattle and hogs in Central Iowa 

 must be shipped to Chicago or Kansas City for slaugh- 

 tering; and wheat shipped to Minneapolis to be 

 ground; and a large proportion of cured meats and 

 flour shipped back again to the communities from 

 which the wheat and live stock came. 



Every unnecessary expense in the exchange of com- 

 modities must be deducted from the price received by 

 producers, or added to the price paid by the consum- 

 ers. Men who " labor for those things which make 

 for righteousness " and physical health, should be in- 

 terested in this. Great cities, from time immemorial, 

 have been the plague spots of civilization. 



Because the small manufacturers of New England 

 found that on account of discriminating freight rates 

 they must first ship their wares to the seaboard, and 

 from there reship them to the consuming centers of 

 the West, they moved these factories to cities on the 

 coast. With their exit from the rural communities, 

 New England agriculture began to wane, and farm 



