grain is sold, but the farmer selling his grain through any agency is entitled to a true report of the sale. The grain is his and the exchange in charging and taking commission is simply acting as the farmers' agent in selling the grain, and as such should render a true account of its dealings. Every firm that wants the farmers' business ought to be willing to deal in the open and not try to hide its dealings from the ones who have a right to know. Study these lists carefully and if you find any cars you have shipped, send us the number of the car and evidence that you are the one entitled to the information and we will have the cars traced for you. You are entitled to know. It will not cost you any more than the stamps needed to write us.

The New Prague Roller Mill Co. of New Prague, Minn., operating a flour mill at that point, is a member of the chamber of commerce, and has purchased quite a number of cars from the Equity Cooperative Exchange. They furnish a list of cars purchased by them during the past few months, and state that "All the cars were bought at a basis of full commission off."

This is another illustration of the fact that where grain is purchased by members of the chamber of commerce, operating country mills outside of Minneapolis, the full commission is deducted in making the purchase, so that the country shipper really pays at least two commissions if the Equity Exchange charges a commission for making the sale:

GENTLEMEN: I see in your December issue of the Grain Grower that you want names of stockholders of the Equity Exchange. As I am a holder of above stock I would like to get my money out of it. In July last J. M. Anderson promised me when I met him at a meeting at N. Dak., that he would see to it that I should get my money by August 1, 1913, but up to date I have not heard from him in regard to this. Now I am in need of that money and as it is not earning me a cent there I would like to get it from those men, J. M. Anderson and Geo. S. Loftus.

Please let me hear from you at once as to what you think you can do for me. I remain, Yours, very truly,

(Signed.)

F. S.

INCONSISTENCY OF DIRECTORS.

The inconsistency of the South Dakota directors, who passed the resolution last summer indorsing the Equity Cooperative Exchange, is shown by the fact that Secretary Belk's company of Henry has shipped that institution but two cars since that time. E. H. Day's company at Clark, has not shipped a single car. W. H. Meis, Geddes, not a single car. O. D. Anderson, the president's company at Corsica, not a single car. Mr. Creighton's company at Wessington Springs, two cars. John E. Kelley's company, Coleman, only one car. Wm. Seipp, Grover, one or two cars. The largest number of cars shipped by any of the directors since that resolution, has been shipped by Director Solem's company, Baltic, which totals about 15 cars. Those who talked with Mr. Solem, after the convention was over, gained the impres sion that he now sees things in a new light. It will be of interest to know if, in the future, a single car from his company is sent to the Equity Exchange.

Those who talked intimately with the directors who signed the resolution last June, said the directors confessed that they thought they were signing the resolution personally, as a try-out, and had no idea the fact would be recorded as an act of the association.

About one company in four is a member of the State association; 64 of the 80-odd members were present.

WILL THE FARMER NEVER SEE THE TRUE CONDITION OF THINGS?

As an illustration of the fact that the Equity Cooperative Exchange continues to sell grain to the commission merchants, members of the chamber of commerce, on which purchases the members of the chamber of commerce make from one to several commissions, attention is called to the following sales made by the Equity Cooperative Exchange to R. J. Johnstone, a member of the chamber of commerce and a licensed commission merchant, showing the prices paid to the Equity Cooperative Exchange and the prices for which Mr. Johnstone promptly sold these cars. Mr. Johnstone's profit in more than one case shows 24 commissions.

The Equity Exchange claims to sell grain to country mills outside of Minneapolis at the full chamber of commerce values. Mr. C. C. Ladd, president of the Osceola Mill & Elevator Co., Osceola, Wis., member of the chamber of commerce, who has purchased a very large number of cars from the Equity Cooperative Exchange, furnishes the following list of cars purchased during the past few months, and states that it is his belief that all the cars were bought at a full cent under chamber of commerce market price. He further states that they had averaged more than this, and states that some cars were purchased at a discount of about 5 cents below the chamber of commerce values:

The McCaull-Dinsmore Co., members of the chamber of commerce and licensed commission merchants, report purchase of the following cars from the Equity Cooperative Exchange, and state that "these cars were all purchased at 1 cent or more under what we could sell the wheat for."

Additional list of cars purchased from the Equity Cooperative Exchange by members of the chamber of commerce, with the deduction of the full commission, below chamber of commerce values.

The Concrete Elevator Co., members of the chamber of commerce, report the following list of cars purchased from the Equity Cooperative Exchange, and state that these cars were purchased with the full commission taken off:

The Cereal Grading Co. report the purchase of the following cars of rye from the Equity Cooperative Exchange, through Mr. Enge, their salesman, and stated: "This rye was all bought at what we considered its value on the Minneapolis market less 1 cent per bushel commission.'

As we are going to press we receive a copy of a new paper called the Cooperators' Herald. In his editorial announcement Editor Nelson strikes for the cause of the farmers and farmers' interests. He announces his purpose to be to work for the advancement of whatever will promote farmers' interest and better his conditions. This is, indeed, a worthy purpose, and we wish to welcome him among our number. We are glad to have men take up the work for the betterment of rural conditions and help to insure to the farmer a just return for his work. The farmer is the foundation of our economic life, and whatever advances the interests of the farmer, the producer, will also advance the interests of all. Too many do not see the value of cooperation. They dig for themselves and never give a thought for the welfare of others. They see only the little immediate field about themselves and do not lift up their eyes to how their help will come as the wings of the morning if they will work for others as well as for themselves. We hope, therefore, that Editor Nelson will continue to stand for the best interests of the farmers and each week do more and more for the advancement of the common good.

But we were a little surprised to see in the same number also an announcement by the Equity Cooperative Exchange, in which we find the following interesting state

ment:

"The National Grain Grower and Equity Farm News is no longer the official publication for the equity movement." Following this comes an explanation even more interesting and wonderful than the first. Among other things we are told: "Not a single word has been published to date on all the recent developments in the movements which has been prepared for publication by the officers. We have been informed that this policy will be continued, and that henceforth no more Equity matter would be published in the Grain Grower. For this reason we have withdrawn our support." This is rich stuff. What officers to they refer to? We have published, and will continue to publish, all articles and reports on the Equity movement that have been sent us by parties willing to sign their name and writing for real advancement of the Equity movement. We have refused some unsigned articles sent by parties connected with the Equity Cooperative Exchange, consisting for the most part of irresponsible ravings, unfounded accusations, laudatory comments on themselves, matter which has been rehashed time and time again the last year. We will continue to do so in the future. We are working for the cause of the farmer.

The record of the Equity Cooperative Exchange does not show it to be very helpful for the farmer. A great many farmers have sunk money in it. Perhaps the officers of the exchange could tell where the money went to. We can't. And we have spoken

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with farmers who can't and who could get no reply to their letters asking for information. The exchange has been a commission house, like all the others; it was incorporated as such. And no objection can be had against it. But it does not work well to sail under false colors. The Equity Exchange is so only in name. There can be no exchange where there are only sellers and no buyers. A commission house that has to peddle its grain to other commission houses to sell on the floor of the chamber of commerce can hardly with justice lay claim to be a grain exchange. And peddling grain to interior mills, who are not subject to the rules of the State inspection board as to grade and weight, does not offer any great safeguard to the farmer who ships his grain to them. And a number of farmers have found it out to their sorrow. Therefore the exchange will not be permitted to dominate the editorial as well as the advertising department of this paper, as they did before we found out about their dealings. We will control the editorial policy ourselves, and the columns of the Grain Grower will be open for a full and fair discussion of all topics relating to farmers' interests, producing, marketing, farmers' elevators and their problems, grain exchanges, what they are and how best adapted to the farmers' interest, uniform accounting, uniform inspection, and the many other subjects of vital interest to farmers. But we do not propose to aid in destroying a movement for the aid of the American farmer simply to fill a little money in the coffers of a private grain commission firm. We do not like to see the American Society of Equity made the scapegoat and shield for those who are working only for selfish ends and whose motives are only personal preferment and gain.

Very likely it is true the exchange is going to support this new paper. But if the matter published there is to be on par with what they wanted us to publish, we hope, for Editor Nelson's sake, that he will be very busy and write the articles himself. It is far safer. If the Herald has to depend on misrepresentations and falsehoods for its support from its very first issue, we venture to predict that it will have a hard row to hoe. On the other hand, if Editor Nelson wishes to serve the farmers, he has a wide field for work and honest endeavor which will not be unrewarded.

It is no doubt apparent, gentlemen, that much of this matter I have been introducing in evidence is relevant not only for the purpose of showing the exact relationship of the grain growing interests of the Northwest to this resolution, but also to make the point that I want to make with reference to the investigation in the Minnesota Legislature, and to meet the suggestion which, to my mind, involves an entire lapse of memory, that any books were withheld that the committee making that investigation wanted access to, or that they were refused any information from any grain dealer in the Chamber of Commerce of Minneapolis during that investigation, and I will demonstrate conclusively that no such thing occurred.

First, in reference to the nature of this investigation, something has been said about that. The gentleman from Minnesota said that the Senate investigation was controlled by the interests and some reactionaries put on. Senator Works was chairman of the Senate investigation committee and is here and will speak to you. I want to just say in reference to the House investigation committee, that by some strange circumstance Mr. Loftus, the sales manager of the Equity Cooperative Exchange, in January, 1913-long before the appointment of this committee-announced in a speech in Fargo that the Legislature of the State of Minnesota was going to investigate the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, and the Duluth Board of Trade; that one Bendixen was chairman of that committee, that one Teigen, a member of the Equity, would be a member of that committee, and Mr. James Manahan would be counsel of that committee; and when the committee was appointed Mr. Teigen, whose name appears here as a representative of the Equity Cooperative Exchange, was on that committee with Bendixen, as chairman, and three others.

With the committee so appointed, we did hold an investigation in the year 1913, that winter, running practically through the entire

session-not one investigation, but two, because the Senate afterwards appointed a committee, and that in part accounts for the number of attorneys engaged, because we were often in attendance on two committees on opposite sides of the Capitol at one time. Right there I want to call attention to the fact of the peculiar faculty of the gentlemen who spoke on that subject to give a colored impression of what occurred. He refers to the eminent counsel engaged by the chamber, referred very flatteringly to me, and I thank him for it. He referred to the fact that my partners were in attendance. In fact, Judge Purdy, whose name he mentioned, never went near any of those hearings, and never had anything to do with them, and Judge Lancaster attended two, I think, although rather more as a spectator than as counsel. My firm was represented by myself. He failed to state, although he was giving a list of the attorneys, that John Lind, a name known to all of you, represented some of the commission merchants in that investigation, and was in almost continual attendance. It occurred to me at the time-although it is almost inconceivable that men would think that-that counsel did not want to suggest John Lind was on the side of the chamber lest it should carry weight with this committee. I simply refer to it to show the difficulty that you gentlemen are laboring under in getting a true picture of this situation.

I suppose Mr. Manahan will not object to the fact being stated into the record that after he was appointed as attorney for this committee there were objections made to the committee by the attorneys of the chamber of commerce, that as the resolution was drawn to include an investigation of all agencies handling grain, including therefor the Equity Cooperative Exchange, that the attorney of the Equity Cooperative Exchange should not be in charge of that investigation for the State; and that was a subject of serious and continual discussion, and I am inclined to think that these records contain many more pages taken up with speeches by the lawyers than by the evidence, although we did succeed in calm periods in getting into the record a great deal of valuable testimony in reference to conditions surrounding the grain trade.

Here is a statement from Mr. Manahan that is somewhat in line with his suggestion to-day, in which he states-and I will take it from the record, page 48 [reading]:

I am not the attorney in this matter of the Equity Cooperative Exchange. It has been suggested before. He says they have proof. They may have produced witnesses who claim it, but they haven't proved that I have ever been attorney for the Equity Cooperative Exchange.

Mr. MANAHAN. This case [indicating the papers in case the Equity Cooperative Exchange against Cooper Co.], you will notice, was after that hearing was entirely over, and in this I was its attorney only nominally and never was paid a fee for it.

Mr. SIMPSON. I so understand it, because that case-
Mr. MANAHAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SIMPSON (Continuing). Occurred this last summer.

Mr. MANAHAN. I recall it. I was home on vacation from Congress. Mr. SIMPSON. I have introduced evidence for the purpose of showing Mr. Manahan's connection with prior investigation, that the stationery used by the Equity during the investigation, and its own advertisements showed Mr. Manahan's connection with it; and