How much Bolshevism is there in America? : $b Also a series of articles entitled "Russia from the inside"Dosch-Fleurot, Arno
History
How much Bolshevism is there in America? : $b Also a series of articles entitled "Russia from the inside"
Dosch-Fleurot, Arno
Communism -- Soviet Union; Communism -- United States; Labor -- United States; Working class -- United States
“This is what is really happening among farmers. One way or another they
are beginning to understand they have been the victims of
disorganization. They have marketed all together and have bred
speculation. Now they intend to change. They do not mean to hold up the
country, but to force a change, so they are organizing, the wheat men in
one group, the corn in another, the cotton and wool in still further
groups, &c. There are dozens of different organizations all working to
the same end, and their strength is being united in the Farm Bureau.
They wish to sell through their own organizations and make the full
profit.
“So far in the United States only the raisin growers of California and
the prune growers have organized effectively. They sell their crops
co-operatively.”
_Canada’s Wheat Financing_
“The wheat growers and the others mean to do the same thing. The method
is simple. It is only necessary to get the different groups organized
and the banks will have to finance us. I have just been making a study
of how it is being done, and how it has been done for the past six
years, in the three wheat provinces of Canada. There it was operated
through the Canadian Government during the war, but it is now being
operated by the banks. There are some 700 co-operative elevators where
the farmers can store their wheat, and from which it is finally disposed
of.
“The method there, which we shall adopt, is to pay the farmer a price on
delivering the wheat and giving him a receipt which entitles him to a
share in the future operations. Last year when the wheat was placed in
the elevators the farmer was paid per bushel $2.15 in cash. When the
price was more definitely fixed he was paid another 30 cents, and when
the transaction for the year was ended another 18 cents. So he got all
that was coming to him. According to the system in vogue here he would
have got the $2.15 perhaps, and that is all he ever would have got. The
other 48 cents per bushel, which totals up on the year’s crop to
millions of dollars, would have gone to enrich the speculators and wheat
manipulators, ‘Minneapolis,’ as we say here.”
“What we need to do is to organize ourselves as they have done in
Canada, store our wheat in our own co-operative elevators and make the
banks finance us through the different periods in the handling of the
crop. There are three periods now, the farming, the holding and the
handling of the wheat. It only needs co-operation for the farmer to
share in all three periods.
“In this period of unrest following the war is beginning a new era in
agriculture. Following the Civil War came the growth of manufacturing.
After this war comes the reorganization of agriculture. For years now
two-thirds of the population has been dependent on one-third. The cities
have dominated. Now the country is going to share equally with the
cities.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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