UNEQUAX FIGHTS 



Interstate Commerce Commission, and the 

 late John H. Marble, then a member of the 

 commission, issued an order that compelled / 

 the railroads to handle the Equity cars as they/ | 



handled all others.^ "^ 



Yet often the farmers came to think that 

 all government, state, national, and mimici- 

 pal, was lined up against them. In January, 

 1914, a grain-growers' convention was held 

 at Fargo, North Dakota, under the auspices 

 of the Equity Society. As may be imagined, 

 the trend of the speeches was not compliment- 

 ary to the existing system of grain-handling. 

 The meetings were held in the Fargo Audi- 

 torium, which seats more than four thousand 

 persons and was crowded. The projectors of 

 the meetings had secured, as they thought, 

 the hall for every day and evening of the 

 session. On the last evening a body of men 

 representing the Minneapolis Chamber of 

 Commerce suddenly appeared with a posse of 

 police, and asserted that they had hired the 

 hall for the purpose of holdmg a meeting to 

 urge the other side of the grain question. 

 The farmers exhibited their papers showing 

 their lease of the premises, but the other 

 party insisted and the police began with un- 

 necessary roughness to throw the farmers' 

 speakers that were on the stage into the 



1 Before the Committee on Rules, House of Represertatives, Sixty- 

 third Congress, Second Session, p. 424. 



133 



