UNEQUAL FIGHTS 



From this combination of powers there seemed 

 to be no escape. 



I should not close this instructive chapter 

 of history without telling the rest of the story 

 of the North Dakota Bankers' Committee. 

 When it had laid bare the secret springs of 

 the gram monopoly at the head of the Lakes 

 that was levying so crushing a toll upon the 

 Northwestern farmer, the committee sought 

 an interview with the controlling officers of 

 the Great Northern Railroad. It will be re- 

 membered that the railroads centering at 

 Superior had played the monopoly game by 

 obligingly closing their elevators as public and 

 maintaining them as private warehouses, 

 thereby taking them out of the state inspec- 

 tion or control. The committee wanted the 

 Great Northern to reopen its Superior eleva- 

 tors as public institutions, and to cease to 

 oppose (and hamstring) the Wisconsin in- 

 spection law. Mr. Louis W. Hill, son of 

 James J. Hill, and vice-president of the rail- 

 road, met the committee with affable cour- 

 tesy. Then, supported by other officers of 

 his organization, he politely vetoed the com- 

 mittee's request. But he offered a proposal 

 on his side. The railroad company would 

 lease any or all of its elevators at Superior 

 on a basis of four per cent, on the investment. 

 WTiy not get up an organization of indepen- 

 dent shippers in North Dakota, or, say, in- 



11 147 



