PACE SIX
HEPPNER HERAT.D, HEPPNER, OREGON.
LOCAL AND PERSONAL
George Giddons of lone
Heppner last Saturday.
George Lcgler of Hamilton left
from Heppner Monday to go to Port
land on business.
Mrs. Dr. Gaunt's mother came in
on the Sunday train and left with the
Doctor and wife for Hardman.
H. Wigmore of Eugene returned
Monday morning. He has been here
visiting his brother and other friend?.
Conductor Ward conducted some of
the young ladies cer the slippery
boards on the lone dance floor last
Saturday night.
J. Putnam of Monument deposited
thirty-five cents with our friend Mr.
Wilkins for one of those meals he
served on last Sunday.
T. A. Driscoll who lives at The
Dalles and who has been in Heppner
recently on business, left Monday
morning for Lexington.
G. N. Peck of Lexington evidently
likes the girls of Heppner better' than
those of Lexington. He spent Sun
day with her and returned Monday
l l.irning.
Dave Rice who lives at Fox, Oregon,
took his family to Portland on Mon
day, lie has a large cattle ranch at
Fox and says that prices are good
He recently sold 33 spring calves at
$30 per head to the local butcher.
(Continued from first page)
and enjoying good home life has no
one to blame but himself. He wants
men and women to make the farm
their home, not a place to stay until
they can move to town. Ho said that
the railroad was ready at all times to
assist the farmers in any way that
they could. He said that the men at
their heads were big enough to know
that the road prospered only as the
towns and farmers along the line pros
pered. His speech was full of inter
esting stories and incidents taken
mostly from his own experience.
After Mr. Smith's speech the races
were held in the road. The band
played several pieces and the crowd
began to drift away late in the after
noon. A dance wns given in the hall
uptown that night.
The first Farmers Union picnic was
a success beyond the expectations of
the men who had it in charge. It was
decided to make it an annual affair
and the place for the next meeting
will be derided Saturday when the
Union has its meeting at one o'clock
in the County Court rooms at Hepp
ner. Wo print Mr. Shumway's speech in
full ns follows:
The Executive Board of the Farm
ers Union has divided the labors of its
workers in the field. Some are organi
sers, some are lecturers, some are pur
chasing agents. Hut I was elected to
represent the wishes of our organi
zation at the Legislature. I belong
to that inenviable class of people
called lobbiosts. I was not given a
large purse wherein to purchase way
ward legislators but 1 was supposed
to present the farmers views on mat
ters pertaining to their profession and
to urge it upon the legislature with all
the eloquence at my command. I have
now served two terms at this occupa
tion and am elected to go again this
coming winter. So I have gained
some insight into the workings of this
complicated machinery. But when
first elected I had distorted views in
regard to our law making body.
I had gathered these ideas from the
newspapers. And newspapers are like
physicians, not looking for sound and
healthy tissues, but continually pro
bing for boils, abcesses and unhealthy,
diseased portion in the body politic.
So that I imagined that the entire
legislature was a mass of corruption.
But when I arrived at Salem I was
agreeably undeceived. I found a class
of men above the average in intelli
gence, composed of almost every pro
fession, but principally lawyers. And
they were doing more hard labor for
the least wages of any profession I
have ever seen.
From my point of view they made
mistakes and serious ones. But I
think that our State Legislature which
prescribes the methods ot their pro
cedure is more to blame than the in
dividuals. For I do think that of all misfit, out
of date and unbusiness like methods
of conducting affairs, our legislature
is the worst i have ever seen, the
farmer has been criticised for his
lack of business methods. But were
he to do business as does our legisla
ture, he would be broke inside ot a
year. It is a copy, the original of
which came into operation many hun
dred years ago in England, their
Parliament, trom which our Congress
was copied and thence our. State
Legislatures.
A body of ninety men are elected
with but little regards to their capa
bilities. And these are sent to Salem
to make laws whereby we are to be
governed for two years to come. They
are placed upon a salary that would
not keep them at a first-class hotel.
And if they are unable to complete
their labors inside of forty days even
this pittance ceases.
In the meantime a perfect avalancn
of bills, memorials, and resolutions
comes pouring in upon every subject
under the sun from crabs to children.
Over nine hundred such were present
ed at our last legislature, and many
of them conflicting with the Constitn
tion and most of them poorly drawn
so that they were ambigious and un
certain in their terms. A first-class
lawyer would have hesitated about
giving an opinion upon many ot them
short of several days of research.
But our legislature must pass an opin
ion upon the entire nine hundred in
side of forty days, and then are roast
ed and the howl of graft goes up if
a mistake is made.
Since it is impossible for all of the
members to consider all of the bills,
the work is divided among from
twenty to thirty different committees.
Such as Agricultural, Horticultural,
Ways and Means, Fisheries, etc. And
each subject is referred to its own
committee. All bills carrying appro
priations must go to the Ways and
Means committee. And when the
committees report whether favorable
or unfavorable, the report is usually
adopted by the legislature. Thus from
two to hve members comprising one
committee does probably ninety per
cent of the legislation upon their sub
jects. And we find at the final vote
upon a bill many members voting tnat
have never read it and were absent
when many of the bills were read by
the reading clerk. You ask ninety
per cent of the members how they
voted and they probably could not tell
you of more than three fourths of the
bills introduced.
This committee rule gives Multno
mah County, which elects about one
fifth of our legislature, a very unfair
advantage. She is usually organized
and the farmer counties are not. This
enables her to elect the Speakers of
the House, and thePresident of the
Somite. These in turn appoint the
different committees, a wonderful ad
vantage. But the last legislature
was very kind to the Grange and
Union representatives and passed all
three measures which Brother Davis
and myself were instructed to have
introduced. One forbidding the use
of tho word Co-operative for organi-
I zations which were not and the other
CALL ON
The Jack Rabbit
G
arage
for
GASOLINE
OIL
and nil kinds of
REPAIR WORK
This ikiHirtment in charge of nkilUi mechanics
General Livery
Special Attention to Train Service
Norton Winnard & EIra Hayes,
PROPRIETORS
Agents for "MAXWELL 25"
LOCATED ON MAY STREET Id DOOR EAST o( PALACE HOTEL
for establishing demonstration farms
and for sending two delegates to
Europe to study Kural Credits.
And we were able to cut down ap
propriations several hundred thousand
dollars. One measure alone, the
Panama Fair Bill, the Grange and
Union saved $125,000 by threatening
to use the Referendum.
Many plans have been formulated
at different times and by different
people to bring our legislature to an
up-to-date business way of making
laws. Some propose to cut down the
membership, the Grange proposes to
abolish the Senate, and some propose
doing away with the legislature en
tirely and go to the Commission form
of government. The latter plan
seems to me the most feasible. Be
cause it has been tried by many
cities, such as Portland, with almost
universal success.
Suppose we were to elect nine capa
ble men at a salary of $8000 a year,
to be on the job, not forty days, but
3G5 days every year. And these with
the Governor, the Secretary of the
State, and State Treasurer, to consti
tute our law making body.
mere would be no more loose-
drawn, unstudied laws passed. There
would be no evading responsibility as
may now be done, the House shifting
the responsibility upon the Senate,
the Senate upon the House and both
upon the Governor.
It would be a more economical plan
because nine members at .uWO a year
would be tu'. $54,000 every two years,
while our last legislature costs us
$60,000. Besides we have thirty odd
different commissions etc., most of
them carrying large appropriations,
some with large salaried officials and
most of the official duties could be per
formed by our Commissioners.
But Farmers of Morrow County
;here is another subject which I wish
to speak of todayOrganization. For it
is upon this that we must depend for
iny radical changes we may hope to
make in our legislature or in any
other conditions which bear heavily
upon the farmer's life. The history
of organization is the history of the
world. 1 rom the dawn ot creation
when our rude forefathers organized
to protect themselves from the fierce
;ave bear and saber-toothed tiger, to
the present time whn more than a
million different organizations exist
in the United States, organization had
meant civilization.
The farmer has ever been the first
to organize for government, or reli
gions, and has shown his willingness
to shed his life's blood to sacrifice
his all to maintain these organizations
but when once firmly established, he
calmly relinquished the control into
the hands of those who used it to en
slave his fellow men. But in these
organizations, Commercial ones or
ganized to acquire wealth, the farmer
has seldom ever been a part. But he
has been oppressed by them and has
paid tribute to some organization ot
this kind in every action and in every
stage of life. At the dawn of his
creation, when he was first ushered
into this world, he paid tribute to the
Physicians organization, he was wrap
ped in swaddling clothes that paid tri
bute to the cotton trust, rocked in a
cradle that was made by the lumber,
paint, glue and steel trust, and at last
he lies down to his last rest and pas
ses to that bourn from which no weary
farmer has yet returned, he sleeps in
a bed furnished by the coffin trust.
He wanders from one to the other
paying his tribute to each in turn and
50 nicely in each organization control
led that after each has taken his toll
the farmer will have just enough to
keep body and soul together until he
an produce another golden harvest.
Then again they take his crop, put it
into useless sacks for which they have
(ixed the price, weigh it upon their
own scales and frequently they have
fixed the scales, put it in their own
warehouse at their own price, freight
it, put it over the docks into ships that
take it across the ocean and the farm
:r has nothing to say about the trans
portation charges, and as we would
naturally expect they hand back just
linrely enough to keep the farmer alive
long enough to produce another crop.
Which averages to each farm in the
United States about $:!()0, or $t!0 to
?aih man, woman or child upon the
furm. Farmers, remember this, and
it is born out by the history of every
nation in every age, opposed by Or
ganizations, Unorgai.Tzcd people will
either be enslaved or perish. Is not
this slavery?
j The farmers in the United States
produce thirty billion dollars of farm
! produce every year, which price the
consumer pays. But the farmer only
receives six billion or lean than one
half. This divided ai.umg the farmers
after paying their expenses, leaves
them the $:t00 of which I spoke. And
' the organizations are after thin $1100
and since an American farmer won't
, live on less than this, they intend to
supplant him and put on his farm the
cheap foreign laborer. The dregs ot
all the nations of Europe, Asia and
Africa. The Dago, the Hungarian,
and the Turk of Europe, the Coolie
and Hindu of Asia and the Negro of
Africa.
Do you think this a false alnrm?
Listen! Over one half of the farms
of the United States are operated by
renters. In the Inst live years nine
billions of dollars have been invested
by our money barons in land li5,
POO.OOO acres owned bv t3 owners.
Thin is competition enough to force
the rest of the farmers to compete
.with cheap labor as soon as they can
secure cheap foreign tenants. The
East is being inundated every year by
a horde of ignorant foreigner whom
our politicians from fear of losing
vote are afraid to keep out. And the
completion of the Panama canal means
that the West must fuce the Mine and
compete with the same ciass. We
have one of the three courses to take,
submission, revolution, or organisa
tion. Submission is what we have
practiced in the past and it has placed
us between the upper and nether mill
stones of graft and predatory organi
lations. And they have ground us
finer than the millstones of the God,
which grind exceedingly tine. Revolu
tion is horrible to contemplate, yet the
peasants of France were compelled
l' starvation to rebel and one of the
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MINOR
CO.
Sells
DOUGHERTY SHOE GO'S
SHOES
. . Those twelve or fifteen cases of new shoes which we received
last week are now open and ready for your examination. As re
gards wearing qualities you will find them the same reliable shoes
but the styles and shapes are entirely new and advanced. Come
in and see the new English, low heel, lace shoes see the in
numerable styles of blacks, tans and patents in lace and button.
Get them NOW you must remember that the "Fourth of
July" is almost here an you certainly wan your shoes comfort
able by that time. Choose while the stock is complete.
For your harvest work we have the shoes you need any
weight of shoe you may want.
Try our light "Flexo" shoes or the wear-tested "Elks". Do
not overlook the fact that we carry the famous Nettleton and
Nap-aTan shoes.
We have what you want in Dress or Work shoes.
Cfti
IN
Leaders in Shoes
FOR SHOE NEWS or NEW SHOES, See MINOR'S
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O&i. S? iif SlC! if it tif. iSJ 0 S. $. si iC! is?.. iJ
cruelest wars of history was the re
sult. Uur forefathers by unjust vaxa
tion and oppression were compelled
to rebel from England, and for eight
years gave their lives freely and died
from bullet, hunger and cold for that
liberty that we are indolent to go to
the polls or organize to sustain.
And again our country called the
farmer in her dire need and again his
blood flowed in torrents across the
plains. For four years he bared his
breast to the storm in the Civil War.
While the money barons, traitors to
their country, their God, and their fel
low man, took advantage of their
country's dire need, took advantage
of their country s travail, and coined
her hearts blood into golden eagles,
which enabled them to form these
gigantic trusts and accumulations of
wealth, by which we are enslaved to
day. Twelve men control one third
of the wealth of this beloved land, and
one fourth of a million men control
three fourths of the wealth of this
country.
Since we must either submit, rebel
or organize, and submission means
slavery, and rebellion is too horrible
to contemplate, why not practice the
methods followed by all other profes
sions and organize. Not indeed in a
predatory organization, such as have
been enslaving the farmers bringing
the stoop to his shoulders, tearing the
bloom from his daughters cheeks, and
lining the asylums and silent sleeping
places of the dead with his wives. A
food trust is the worst trust upon the
earth, and starving millions would
.urse us with their dying breath. But
such an organization as is the Farmers
Union, which declares that we would
garner the tears of the distressed,
the blood of martyrs, the laugh of
innocent childhood, the sweat of
honest labor, and the virtue of a hap
py home as the brightest jewels
known.
We have been organized only about
twelve years yet we have done a
wonderful work. Let me tell you a
few things we have accomplished here
in the Northwest, and have done it
without adding one cent to a sack of
dour or a bushel of potatoes.
We have reduced iie price of sacks
five cents, thus saving the farmers
of Oregon, Washington and Idaho one
:ind one half million dollars annually.
We have raised the price of wheat
live cents a bushel and saved three
million dollars. We nave built a chain
of several hundred warehouses and
weigh our own wheat and have re
duced the price of storage from
75 cents a ton t otifty cents. We
have reduced the price of binder twine
rive cents a pound and many, many
other things.
Now lest this be considered the
ravings of a fanatic, I have brought
my evidence. This is prepared at the
request of our State Secretary, Broth
er Sikes, who says, "Two years ago
there were two large locals organized
near Soldier, Idaho. The local dealers
were asking fourteen cents for sacks
but these locals contracted their tacks
with our Terminal to be delivered at
8 Sc. Not twenty miles in an unor
ganized place, sacks sold the same
year for lie. Morrow County was not
nrgnnixed until 1910. But Gilliam
County west and Umatilla County
east, were organixed in l'X8 and U'OJ.
In UK)!) these two counties bought
their sacks through the Farmers
Union dealer at Cc delivered, Sile
Morrow County not yet organized
paid 8c for sacks, not five cents higher
but would have been only through
fear of the Union."
Mr. Sikes again says, "Jan. 11,
1913, 1 stopped in Madras, Cook Coun
ty. The prevailing price of wheat
was (5c and had been for some time.
I telephoned to Curry, our terminal
agent and found the true price to be
70c. The next day five miles from
Madras with no Farmers Union, I
found the price to be 64e. Brother
Crow, State President of Washington,
cites case after case of a difference
from three to seven cents less being
paid where the fariuers were not in
formed of the price that was being
paid by our terminal stations with
the same freight rates to Tacoma or
Portland."
The fall of 1912 our Ex-State Presi
dent, Fred Krusow, made the old line
buyers come up 4c in one day in Sher
man County and bought 55,000 bush
els at 70c when the corporations were
pnying but Gtic. I could continue and
pile proof upon proo; but this is suffi
cient We have already accomplished
this and only partially organized. If
all the farmers within the sound of
my voice and those within the three
Northwestern states will join our
union, we will eliminate the price of
sacks entirely and we will raise the
price of wheat fifteen cents a bushel,
and not affect the price of flour. We
will take charge of the legislature and
reduce taxation, we will regulate
freight rates and control the corpora
tion. And what does the Union exact in
return for all this? Ihree dollars a
year in dues, attendance at our meet
ings, a loyalty to our order, no more.
We do not seek to control your actions
nor shape your creed. You do not
have to buy your sacks of us nor sell
your wheat to us. We try to make it
worth your while, that is all. The
price is not high but the returns are
inestimable.
But ever remember, you have one
of three roads to travel, slavery, revo
lution, or organization and if you
elect to travel either r the two former
you drag us with you to misery and
woe. But if you will take us by the
hand we will lead you to green pas
tures and pleasant meadows where
our sons and daughters will ersV
second paradise without the sel
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PALACE HOTEL