RESULTS OF FARMERS' COOPERATION 245 



when you get your just reward, you can love your neighbor 

 as yourself. The churches will be filled because humanity 

 will have much to be thankful for, and the saloon will be 

 empty because of no sorrows to drown. Uncertainty of price 

 does not stimulate demand and consumption. Remove the 

 uncertainty of prices of farm products, give the producer a 

 fair profit and the middleman a fair margin and there will 

 be a constant stream flowing to the consumer, causing greater 

 consumption and benefiting every person. 



The plan is simplicity itself, as already explained. Give 

 us a fair proportion of the farmers willing to ask a fair price, 

 based on production and consumption and the result will be 

 accomplished. Give us unity in cooperation among the farm- 

 ers, if that is possible, in the carrying out of this plan, and no 

 trust ever dreamed of would represent such a power of capi- 

 tal as would be behind the American Society of Equity. 



The farmers are strong enough and rich enough now to take 

 this important step. Prompt action will prevent prices from 

 slipping down to an unprofitable basis, with all the hardships 

 attendant on a condition of poverty and bankruptcy that large 

 crops and unprofitable prices will bring sooner or later. 

 Profitable prices for good crops is what we must have, then the 

 benefits will be evenly and generally distributed, and perma- 

 nent national prosperity guaranteed. 



Note — Any attempt to control prices through a large fund 

 as recently proposed by several companies will fail because it 

 will encourage producers to increase production and to hold 

 their crops, which will result in an unwieldy surplus. If the 

 fund is actually used to buy and hold the crops, it will cer- 

 tainly result like the Leiter deal — in an inability to find buyers, 

 who will take them at a still higher price, when they must be 

 disposed of. Neither individual, corporate, nor national aid 

 along this line can be effective, unless the surplus that is bound 

 to result will be destroyed. 



