The story of the revolt was best told to me by Senator Edwin F. Ladd of North Dakota. He is the original champion of the wheat growers in North Dakota, and as head of the chemistry department of the North Dakota Agricultural College, went out years ago and told the farmers they were not getting their share. He is a born agitator, it was his work that made the Non-Partisan League possible, and he has just been elected on the Non-Partisan League to the Senate of the United States. He is going to Congress to represent wheat. I saw him recently in Fargo, N. D., where he was laying his plans for his revolutionary coup in favor of the farmers.
I went to him to talk about the Non-Partisan League, but, though he had just acquired his seat in the Senate on the Non-Partisan ticket, he talked perhaps ten minutes on the league, and an hour or so on the revolt of the wheat growers and the other farmers.
Farmers Realize Situation
“The farmers who grow wheat,” he said, “are in revolt because they have come to understand their position in the economic life of the country. They know they do the work of growing the wheat and the profit is largely taken by others. Here in North Dakota the situation is so simple it is easy to grasp, and once seen, cannot be forgotten. The rich city of Minneapolis is exceedingly prosperous on the money it made out of the wheat grown in North Dakota. There stands Minneapolis and here are the North Dakota farmers who realize they are not richer on account of the wheat operators.
“The method of handling the wheat crop is also simple enough for any farmer to understand. During the spring and summer the banks lend money to the farmers to grow and harvest the crop. Their notes fall due early in the fall, when they are supposed to sell their crops. The small banks, which did the lending, backed by bigger banks in the bigger cities, reassemble this money, ship it back to the big city banks, which lend it over again to the operators and speculators who handle the wheat through its second period. They are in turn supposed to make the turnover in a few months, to sell and repay the banks, which lend the same money for a third time to the shippers who finally dispose of the wheat.
“The farmer now asks why he should be forced to liquidate his crop so quickly. Is it only so other men can clean up fortunes yearly on the manipulation of the crop he has raised? He wants to know why. He sees no reason why he should let this process continue. So he is making the only protest possible. He is sitting on his wheat and refuses to play the game as it has always been played. He will not hasten to liquidate his crop right away in order to finance the wheat speculator.”
North Dakota Banks Close
“Here in North Dakota the refusal of the farmers to sell has closed thirty or more banks. These banks are not insolvent, but they have no money. It is all in the wheat upon which the farmers are sitting and refusing to budge. When they decide to sell they will pay their notes and the banks will again be able to resume business.
“It is a strike, if you want to call it so. It is a protest against the economic system and shows the spirit that is moving. The Non-Partisan League has been voicing this protest and organizing it. That is why it has grown and is growing now faster than ever in spite of the political fight that has been put up against it. It may look for a harder fight as the organized bankers and wheat manipulators see their profits threatened by the preparations the farmers are making to voice their protest even more effectively through the American Farm Bureau.
“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.