Vol. 6. No. R.
GASTONIA, N. C., FEBRUARY 22, 1912
One Dollar a Year
0 the Officers and Members of the Farmers’
Union:
you ever hear the good old exhorters
revivalists tell you that you must work
your own salvation ?
^^'ell, the same principal applies to success-
^ farming, and to the success of farmer’s or-
^^nizations in securing the reforms for which
th-
contending by legislation, and with
own ranks.
oere s no such thing as enlisting in the bat-
^ life and then paying a substitute. If you
you’ll either have to be satisfied with short
Cl
'^ns, or wake up some morning and find
substitute has walked off with the
the Carnegie medal and the laurel
^®ath. It would be just like you then, to
^ Owl that the world had given you a “cold
deal.”
I lay it down as a broad, first principal, that
we’ve got to learn to manage our own affairs,
whether on the farm or within the organiza
tion, before the world takes us with the degree
of seriousness our numbers and our import
ance to the world really justifies.
If you demand of your representative, for
instance, that he vote for the recall, or trim
ming the New York Cotton Exchange, and he
passes your place and sees the chimney tumbl
ing down, weeds in your fields, and just a few
razor-backs rooting around, he isn’t apt to get
busy and obey your orders.
If you elect as your Farmers’ Union officials,
or the president of some Union enterprise,
some oily, smiling, hand-shaking, baby-kissing
brother, just because he is these things, rather
than for the fact that he has proved himself a
good farmer, a good business man, and a good
leader of men, you are evading your share of
personal responsibility, and you have no right
to complain if things hit the ceiling. Or if you
get into the hallelujah-lick at a meeting and
promise to support almost any old enterprise
suggested, and then go home and forget all
about it, you needn’t come around with the
hypocritical criticism that there “isn’t anything
in a farmers’ organization,” and that you’re
not geting your money’s worth.
These are just a few instances of the need
of exerting personal responsibility, if you suc
ceed in your own affairs, and if you would
have this organization achieve the ends for
which it was founded. It is well to remember
them at the beginning of the New Year.
Charles S. Barrett.
Union City, Ga., Feb. 14th, 1912.
Mr. Editor: The remarkable Scotchman,
Pla^
• Carnegie, whose grasp of the practical has
^arl^^ among the great men of all times,
^yst^ the unwisdom of the competitive
chartered a giant corporation
by absorbed kindred individual enterprises
j^j^^^^^^nging stock, and made an unparalelled
of the iron industry. Norway, Germ-
. ’ -Brazil and other countries have success
ful!
Pr K principle in handling the
^ ferns of agriculture.
Qj proofs that the phenominal success
^t^b‘ enterprises, lie in corporate
are seen in every class of Ameri-
^ Misincss, safe farming, and it only needs
f^H thought to men like ^Morgan, Rock-
"^^uiour’ Pullman, Edison, Hill, Wanna-
to Harvester Co., Kress and Bowers,
scientific and practical
the financial, economic and commer-
lif
® of the times.
^1^ highest order of inte.lligence is shown
those with common interests co-operate
^h a corporation embracing them all, and
5 heve when the farmer realizes this, his
O I
®ud self-interest can be relied on to se
cure his support in changing conditions in
juriously affecting his business by uniting un
der the Carnegie system, the weak scattered
enterprises now unable to earn profits or pro
tect the interests of their founders, into one
corporation, and make them strong enough to
guard against bankruptcy, and insure profits.
Not one of the accepted methods used in
marketing American farm products is based
upon the producer’s interest, all are arranged
to surround the details of selling, with systems
earning profits, but not for the farmer. A
condition only possible because the American
farmer does not use modern methods.
As a rule, the business efforts of farm or
ganizations heretofore have been sentimental,
experimental and educational, but they prove
that to make his business profitable, the farmer
must get away from present systems and or
ganize his own corporation through which to
buy and sell.
As the “Texas Farm Co.Operator” says:
“The farmer must become just as wise as big
business, and whenever he wants to do any
thing and keep clear of the law, just take out
a corporation charter and make their own laws
to govern their own business.”
European farmers not only practice inten
sive farming but annually transact business on
Carnegie lines, running into billions of dollars,
while we in the United States have scarcely
made a beginning.
In Germany, agricultural banks loaned
farmers one and three quarter billion dollars
last year; farm corporations handle the agri
cultural products of Denmark, and throughout
Continental Europe the principle is used to
protect the interests of farmers.
Such institutions will be immeasurably more
useful in the United States because of the in
dependent position of the American farmer,
and the importance of his products in the
financial, commercial and physical life of the
world.
Eliminate the mistakes, adopt the successful
features and unite the properties of .each of
our enterprises in one corporation, control our
products, and create a company so strong that
it can finance the crop, hold or sell it, as the
(Continued on page 5)
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