THE IEEIGATION AGE. 



1097 



THE TRUTH ABOUT FARM MACHINES. 



By Edwin L. Barker. 



The International Harvester Company's answer to the 

 so-called Townsend Report has left that document with 

 more holes than are to be found in the seat of an up-to- 

 date binder. 



The report, in the main, consists of a group of un- 

 truths and misstatements of facts, many of which are 

 easily recognized by farmers, dealers, and others familiar 

 with harvesting machines and the harvesting machine in- 

 dustry. 



The erroneous report, and the more erroneous "yel- 

 low" versions of it, could easily mislead those ignorant 

 of harvesting machines and agricultural conditions. But 

 not so the farmer and the dealers. They are well versed 

 ir. the subject of farm machines, and since they are the 

 more vitally interested, a brief summary of the report, 

 together with a portion of the International Harvester 

 Company's reply, may be worth a little space and time. 

 On July 26, 1911, there was received in evidence by the 

 Stanley Committee, at Washington, then investigating 

 the United States Steel Corporation, an unsigned docu- 

 ment, which was said to be a copy of a report concerning 

 the International Harvester Company, made by Burdette 

 D. Townsend, Assistant United States District Attorney 

 for North Dakota, in 1906. Even in the minor essentials, 

 such as the names of the voting trustees, chairman of 

 the board of directors, and the president, the report shows 

 a woeful lack of investigation and intelligent considera- 

 tion. 



The report charges 

 that of the nine differ- 

 ent makes of binders 

 purchased by the Inter- 

 national Harvester 

 Company at the time 

 of its organization in 

 1902, all but three the 

 Deering, McCormick 

 and Osborne h a v e 

 been abandoned, and 

 that repair parts are 

 not furnished for any 

 others. 



Farmers, dealers, 

 and, in fact, every man, 

 woman and child at all 

 familiar with farm ma- 

 chines or even with 

 farm life, knows that 

 such a charge is abso- 

 lutely untrue. 



The old Minnie, 

 Buckeye and Keystone 

 companies were practi- 

 cally out of business in 1902, being in the hands of cred- 

 itors. The Keystone binder was an experimental ma- 

 chine, and only a limited number were sold during one 

 season. But of the six other binders Champion, Deering, 

 McCormick, Milwaukee, Piano and Osborne all have 

 been and are today being manufactured, and are sold 

 in the principal agricultural countries of the world. 



Would the International Company continue to adver- 

 tise these machines if they were not being manufactured? 

 Well, hardly. 



The report states that the International has been able 

 to create a "monopoly" because the company owns the 

 patents which protect the knotter in the self-binder. 



Could a statement be more absurd? It is a well 

 known fact that the Appleby patent on the knotter expired 

 in 1896, and since that time there have been no existing 

 patents upon any essential part of the binder. Today any 

 man, or any organization of men, can manufacture binders 

 without fear of prosecution or the payment of royalties. 

 The claim is made in the report that the International 

 purchased several of the plants, including the Minnie, 

 Buckeye, and Keystone simply to close them. 



If this statement were not so serious it would be 

 funny. Every plant has been enlarged and improved. 

 And right now each of these plants is giving employment 

 to more men than ever before. 



Men whose memories go back no farther than ten 

 or a dozen years, remember the fierce, demoralizing, cut- 



Insinger, Chairman Board of 

 Governors, 19th National 

 Irrigation Congress. 



throat competition which existed between the various 

 harvesting machine companies. They also remember that 

 repair parts frequently were hard to obtain, and in some 

 instances were not to be had at all. This brought untold 

 loss to the farmers, crops suffered, and gloom settled over 

 many a harvest field. One season a farmer would buy 

 a binder, only to discover the next season that he could 

 not obtain a repair part because the company had gone 

 out of business. 



The entire harvesting machine industry was in a de- 

 moralized state. This was the condition when the Inter- 

 national Harvester Company was organized. Several of 

 the plants were bankrupt and practically out of trade. 

 Through the organization of the International, harmony 

 was brought out of chaos, plants were restored to their 

 full working capacity, machines attained a higher ef- 

 ficiency, repair parts for every machine were to be had, 

 dealers found themselves upon a firmer footing, and 

 farmers bought with greater confidence and surety. 



Is there a farmer or dealer who would like to ex- 

 change the present for the past? 



In spite of the report's charge of "monopoly," the 

 International still has plenty of competition. 



The Acme, Johnston, Wood, and Adriance-Platt com- 

 panies are active in the binder trade, "and these and sev- 

 eral others in the mower field. During the past two years 

 three other manufacturers have entered into this trade. 

 Also may be mentioned the Minnesota State Prison Fac- 

 tory, which, with its prison labor and public funds, is 

 forcing free labor and private capital into competition. 



The report tries to make much of a "binder twine 

 trust." There is no such thing as a "binder twine trust." 



There are a half dozen or more competing twine man- 

 ufacturers, to say nothing of the seven state penitentiary 

 twine mills. 



The quality of binder twine has steadily improved, 

 while the prices have steadily fallen. Since 1902 the prices 

 on binder twine have decreased about 40 per cent. Com- 

 pare your 1902 bills with those of 1911 and see if this is 

 not true. 



But the dealers and the farmers those who sell and 

 buy binder twine know this. They also know that the 

 twine they now sell and buy is much better than the twine 

 they sold and bought ten years ago. 



The report has much to say about the prices of 

 binders. This subject has been discussed over and over 

 again. But to go to the bottom of prices, it is well to 

 go back to the beginning. 



In 1879 the twine binder was sold to the farmer for 

 $360. In the eighties a binder cost $240; and in 1891, 

 with the expiration of the basic patents, the current price 

 was $140. When the International Company was organ- 

 ized, the price of a binder was about $125. This price has 

 been maintained with but little variation, notwithstanding 

 the fact that since 1902 binder materials, such as iron, 

 steel, lumber and cotton duck have increased on the 

 average more than 30 per cent, and the wages of labor 

 employed have advanced about 27 per cent. Three years 

 ago it was necessary to advance the price of a binder 

 7 per cent. Recently some of the raw materials have 

 declined in cost to such an extent as to permit of a 

 f. per cent reduction in binders for 1912. 



Today a farmer can buy a much better and more 

 satisfactory binder for less than one-half the cost of a 

 machine thirty years ago. Yet today the farmer, thanks 

 to his more business-like methods, improved farm ma- 

 chines, the study of the science of agriculture, and the 

 trade and agricultural press, does less hard work, and 

 sells his crops for more money than he ever before re- 

 ceived. 



The report speaks of rebates from railroads, and of 

 special concessions from the United States Steel Corpora- 

 tion. The International denies that it receives rebates 

 from railroads or any special concessions from the steel 

 corporation, and states that during the past seven years 

 it has bought from the steel corporation only 10 per cent 

 of its total needs. 



In a discussion of prices, with which the report con- 

 sumes much space, the fact that a modern binder is made 

 up of more than 1,200 separately formed parts, and that 

 every part must work with clock-like precision, is entirely 

 overlooked. 



Also, the cost of transportation, and selling is ignored. 



