FARMERS' EXCHANGE COLLAPSES 



merce had many rules, some of which were 

 supposed to enforce fair dealing and equity. 

 It was also, by statutory enactment, a part 

 of the judicial machinery of the state of 

 Minnesota, and therefore under a peculiar 

 obligation to support justice. Yet in this 

 case it steadily refused to support justice or 

 to uphold righteousness, and the directors of 

 the Farmers' Exchange were left to pay for 

 the twelve cars of wheat that had been 

 taken from them, approximately $12,000. 

 Some of the victims went into debt and mort- 

 gaged their possessions to make the amount 

 good. That was the end of the Farmers' 

 Exchange and of this phase of the grain- 

 growers' effort to win free from the thing 

 that oppressed and impoverished them. 



"Somebody was a defaulter," said the in- 

 judicious Mr. Koon. Not much doubt of 

 that now, for the whole significant story 

 came out before the committee of the Min- 

 nesota House of Representatives that in 1913 

 was investigating the gram trade, and some 

 of the testimony is so important that I will 

 quote it in full. The witness is one of the 

 farmers that were stung in the way I have 

 described: 



Question. Your society or exchange brought the 

 matter right up to the Chamber of Commerce? 



Answer. Yes sir. I studied this organic act [of the 

 Chamber] and their laws and regulations and thought 



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