286 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



l>een made in this direction by the new law providing for 

 a three-year occuption of the homesteads instead of five 

 years as heretofore which has quite recently been passed 

 by Congress. 



Let the good work go on, and let every citizen of 

 this great country help to make it a success. 



The termination of the recent trial of the 

 How Beef Trust under the Sherman Anti-Trust 



to Act proves conclusively that that law as 



Regulate now on the books does not bring the relief 



Trusts. contemplated, nor have any former results 



of prosecutions under this act shown any 

 practical results. It may be set down as a fact that this 

 law does not fit into modern conditions and the quicker it 

 is repealed and proper legislation enacted the better it 

 will be for all concerned. 



The sudden rise of the securities of the packing in- 

 terests and the immediate boosting of meat prices fol- 

 lowed in the wake of the failure of the Government to 

 convict and showed its utter helplessness. 



There is no one in this whole United States who 

 doubts that there exists a packing trust which dictates at 

 all times the prices to be paid for stock to be butchered 

 and also the prices to be paid for the finished product, yet 

 no remedy seems possible except perhaps that of adopting 

 a vegetarian diet, and thus boycott the packing firms. 

 This, of course, is not a very desirable method to fight 

 the beef trust, as cold storage and embalming fluids would 

 preserve their product indefinitely, visiting afflictions upon 

 future generations. 



There is, however, a promising remedy which might 

 be developed to cope with the trust evil; which will keep 

 the bad trusts in due bounds and which will not injure 

 beneficent trusts; for it is nowadays understood that not 

 all trusts are bad. As a matter of fact it would be bad 

 policy to dissolve any trust, since it would be going back- 

 wards in our civilization; trusts have developed methods 

 by which our work may be done quicker, better and 

 cheaper and for these reasons we should foster them, if 

 anything. But we don't want any bad trusts trusts that 

 take advantage of the man who sells the raw material, 

 by grinding him to a figure below a decent living, that 

 hire their operatives at a starvation wage and that sell 

 their product at the highest possible figure the public 

 will stand for. 



The remedy to be applied in such cases is to take 

 Mister Trust in hand and ask him to please be good and 

 here is where the duty of Congress is pointed out, that 

 instead of passing laws forbidding trusts, it should pass 

 laws to regulate them, just as they did with the railways 

 of the United States b> the establishment of the Inter- 

 state Commerce Commission. We don't need to go any 

 further at all, but look at the work and the results of 

 this commission, which say that it has filled the bill and 

 that the Transportation Trust has been pretty well con- 

 trolled by the Government, although even this commis- 

 sion might be improved. 



In order to get not too far into this subject, we will 

 just consider the Packing Trust and suggest how it can 

 be regulated by the Government. A commission should be 

 appointed, a National Packing Commission, whose duty 

 should be to study into every phase of the packing indus- 

 try and to carefully determine the cost of the products. 

 Then it should have the power to fix the selling price of 



such products to the consumer, allowing for a proper 

 profit to the packing firms. 



In this way the packers would quit taking advantage 

 of the stockmen and would pay reasonable prices for the 

 stock offered in the market; they would pay living wage? 

 to their employes, as there would be no object in their 

 cheapening the cost of production, and the consumer 

 would obtain his meat and other products of the packers 

 in good condition and at a reasonable cost. A commis- 

 sion of this kind would naturally have far-reaching pow- 

 ers and duties, as it would have to watch many related 

 points, such as over or under production of raw material, 

 the consumption in the United States and export to for- 

 eign countries. But there can be no doubt that the idea 

 is feasible and in view of late experiences it should be 

 tried. Food products are just as essential to the welfare 

 of communities as transportation facilities; why, then, 

 should their production and distribution not be regulated 

 in a similar manner? 



The age of individualism is passing away 

 Co-operation slowly but surely. The time was when each 

 Practical village had- its shoemakers, tailors, black- 



In smiths and other craftsmen, each of whom 



Farming worked independent of the other and en- 



joyed a secure livelihood in the exercise of 

 his calling. . But the last two decades have brought sweep- 

 ing changes and the independent tradesmen have been 

 practically wiped out by the organization of great firms 

 who are producing shoes, clothes, etc., on a large scale by 

 the use of greatly improved machinery. 



The individual tradesman cannot compete with these 

 aggregations of capital and he has been compelled to join 

 the ranks of the operatives in the factory where he runs 

 a machine to produce a particular unit in the product 

 which formerly he created himself as a complete unit. 



Whether these changed conditions are truly desirable 

 and beneficial we do not pretend to either affirm or deny, 

 so much is certain that the cost of production has been 

 lessened, and that fact approves them from the economic 

 point of view. 



While these industrial revulsions and changes have 

 been going on all over the world, the agricultural condi- 

 tions have undergone very little change, although in 

 isolated cases bonanza farms have been operated on a large 

 scale requiring the employment of considerable capital. 

 The average farmer, however, is plodding on the same 

 way as he did centuries ago, working his homestead and 

 being king of his possessions. 



Even though he has adopted modern methods and 

 machinery the advantage of doing things on a large scale 

 is lost to the small farmer. The big traction engine do- 

 ing the work of fifty or sixty horses economically, he can- 

 not use as his land holdings are too small and he must 

 use either smaller engines or horses, both of which are 

 more expensive to operate and maintain. 



These considerations suggest co-operation of a num- 

 ber of farmers whose lands adjoin and are similar in char- 

 acter. Thus twenty farmers, each having 30 acres of 

 land, might form one concern operating a GOO-acre farm 

 on the same lines as one large land owner would do. and 

 thus reap the benefit of economical operation. These 

 twenty farmers would then really be stockholders of a 

 farming corporation, merging their lands and interests 

 into a common one, everyone furnishing the same amount 

 of capital and labor and participating equally in the net 

 profits of each year's crop. 



