PRINTERS' INK
The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong
must be your own.--_Channing_.
As the farmers saw it, there was no reason in the world why the bank
should do what it did. The Company had closed its first year with net
profits sufficient to declare a seven per cent. cash dividend and the
profits would have been augmented greatly had it not been for the heavy
interest payments which accrued on the unusual overdrafts imposed by
special conditions. In spite of their extremely limited resources and
the handicaps forced upon them, the volume of business transacted had
exceeded $1,700,000 during the first ten months that the farmers had
been in business; their paid-up capital had been approximately eleven
thousand dollars of which over seven thousand had been required for
organization outlay. The number of shareholders had nearly doubled
during the ten months and everything was pointing to rapid advancement.
The Company had been a good customer of the bank, which had received
about $10,000 in interest. The security offered for their line of
credit was unquestioned.
Yet the new directors had scarcely settled into place for the
approaching busy season before, without warning, the bank notified them
that they wished to close out the account.
When men set themselves up in business they expect to have to compete
for their share of trade. The farmers did not expect to find their
path lined with other grain dealers cheering them forward and waving
their hats. They expected competition of the keenest. What they could
not anticipate, however, was the lengths to which the fight might go or
the methods that might be adopted to put their Agency out of business
altogether.
Hitherto the grain grower had been in the background when it came to
marketing and handling grain. He was away out in the country
somewhere--busy plowing, busy seeding, busy harvesting, busy
something-or-other. He was a Farm Hand who so "tuckered himself out"
during daylight that he was glad to pry off his wrinkled boots and lie
down when it got dark in order to yank them on again, when the rooster
crowed at dawn, for the purpose of "tuckering himself out" all over
again. It was true that without him there would have been no grain to
handle; equally true that without the grain dealers the farmer would
have been in difficulty if he tried to hunt up individual consumers to
buy his wheat. The farmer interfering in the established grain trade
was something new and it was not to be supposed that when the surprise
of it wore off things were not liable to happen.
The farmer was quick to infer that the action of the bank in cutting
off the trading company's credit without apparent cause was another
move of the opposing forces. It was so palpably a vital spot at which
to strike.
This time, however, the threatening cloud evaporated almost as soon as
it appeared. The manager, W. H. Machaffie, resigned and assumed the
management of another bank. He was a far-sighted financier, Mr.
Machaffie, and almost the first account he sought for the Home Bank was
that of the Grain Growers' Grain Company. The Home Bank was new in the
West and in the East it had been an old loan company without big
capitalistic interests, its funds being derived mostly from small
depositors; but while at that time it was not among the wealthiest
banking institutions of the country, it was quite able to supply full
credit facilities.
The opportunity for the farmers' company and the young bank to get
together to mutual advantage was too good to be overlooked. Under the
banking laws of Canada valuable special privileges are granted in view
of the important part which the banks play in the country's
development. Government returns indicate that the greater part of the
business done by banks is carried on upon their deposits. If the
working people and the farmers, as is generally accepted, form the
majority of these depositors of money in banks, then were not many
loans which went to monopolistic interests being used against the very
people who furnished the money? If the farmers could acquire stock in
a bank of their own, would they not be in a position to finance their
own requirements rather than those of corporations which might be
obtaining unreasonable profits from the people at large? Such an
investment would be safe and productive at the same time that it
strengthened the farmers' hands in their effort to do their own trading.
With all this in view the directors of the Grain Growers' Grain Company
made a heavy investment in Home Bank stock and were appointed sole
brokers to sell a large block of the bank's stock to Western farmers,
working men and merchants. On the sale of this they were to receive a
commission which would, they expected, be enough to cover the expense
of placing the stock. As the business expanded the Company would be
assured of an extended line of credit as it was needed.
And the business certainly was expanding. Although the prospects for
the new crop were not as bright as they had been the year before, a
substantial increase in the amount of grain they would handle--owing to
the increase in the number of shareholders--was anticipated by the
management. They were not prepared, however, for the heavy volume that
poured in upon them when the crop began to move; it was double that of
their first season and the office staff was hard pressed to keep pace
with the rising work. There now seemed no reason to believe that the
success of the farmers' venture was any longer in doubt so far as the
commercial side of it was concerned.
But the President and directors had in mind a much broader objective.
It was not enough that the farmer should receive a few more cents per
bushel for his grain.
"We must bear clearly in mind," warned T. A. Crerar, "that there are
still those interests who would delight in nothing more than in our
failure and destruction. A great many improvements require yet to be
made in our system of handling grain. The struggle for the bringing
about of those reforms is not by any means accomplished. As a great
class of farmers, composing the most important factor in the progress
and development of our country, we must learn the lesson that we must
organize and work together to secure those legislative and economic
reforms necessary to well-being. In the day of our prosperity we must
not forget that there are yet many wrongs to be righted and that true
happiness and success in life cannot be measured by the wealth we
acquire. In the mad, debasing struggle for material riches and
pleasure, which is so characteristic of our age, we often neglect and
let go to decay the finer and higher side of our nature and lose
thereby that power of sympathy with our fellows which finds expression
in lending them a helping hand and in helping in every good work which
tends to increase human happiness and lessen human misery. In keeping
this in view we keep in mind that high ideal which will make our
organization not alone a material success but also a factor in changing
those conditions which now tend to stifle the best that is in humanity."
An important step towards the upholding of these ideals was now taken
by the directors. The President and the Vice-President happened to be
in a little printshop one day, looking over the proof of a pamphlet
which the Company was about to issue, when the former picked up a
little school journal which was just off the press for the Teachers'
Association.
"Why can't we get out a little journal like that?" he wondered. "It
would be a great help to our whole movement."
About this time the Company was approached by a Winnipeg farm paper
which devoted a page to the doings of the grain growers.
"If you'll help us to get subscriptions amongst the farmers," said the
publisher, "we'll devote more space still to the doings of the grain
growers."
"But why should we build up another man's paper for him?" argued the
President. "Why can't we get out a journal for ourselves?"
The idea grew more insistent the longer it was entertained, and
although at first E. A. Partridge, who was on the directorate, was
opposed to such a venture, he finally agreed that it would be of untold
assistance to the farmers if they had a paper of their own to voice
their ideals. The logical editor for the new undertaking was E. A.
Partridge, of course, and accordingly he began to gather material for
the first issue of a paper, to be called the _Grain Growers' Guide_.
Partridge had a few ideas of his own that had lived with him for a long
time. On occasion he had introduced some of them to his friends with
characteristic eloquence and the eloquence of E. A. Partridge on a
favorite theme was something worth listening to; also, he gave his
auditors much to think about and sometimes got completely beyond their
depth. It was then that some of them were forced to shake their heads
at theories which appeared to them to be so idealistic that their
practical consummation belonged to a future generation.
In connection with this new paper it was Partridge's idea to issue it
as a weekly and as the official organ of the grain growers' trading
company instead of the grain growers' movement as a whole. He thought,
too, that it would be advisable to join hands with _The Voice_, which
was the organ of the Labor unions. The President and the other
officers could not agree that any of these was wise at the start; it
would be better, they thought, to creep before trying to walk, to issue
the paper as a monthly at first and to have it the official organ of
the Grain Growers' Associations rather than the trading company alone.
This failure of his associates to see the wisdom of his plan to
amalgamate with the organ of the Labor unions was a great
disappointment to Partridge; for he had been working towards this
consummation for some time, devoutly wished it and considered the time
opportune for such a move. He believed it to be of vital importance to
"the Cause" and its future. In October he had met with an unfortunate
accident, having fallen from his binder and so injured his foot in the
machinery that amputation was necessary; he was in no condition to
undertake new and arduous duties in organizing a publishing proposition
as he was still suffering greatly from his injury. On the verge of a
nervous breakdown, it required only the upsetting of the plans he had
cherished to make him give up altogether and he resigned the editorship
of the new magazine after getting out the first number.
"I'm too irritable to get along with anybody in an office," he
declared. "I know I'm impatient and all that, boys. You'd better send
for McKenzie to come in from Brandon and edit the paper."
This suggestion of his editorial successor seemed to the others to be a
good one; for Roderick McKenzie had been Secretary of the Manitoba
Grain Growers' Association from the first and had been a prime mover in
its activities as well as wielding considerable influence in the other
two prairie provinces where he was well known and appreciated. He was
well posted, McKenzie.
So the Vice-President wired him to come down to Winnipeg at once.
Yes, he was well posted in the farming business, Rod. McKenzie. He had
learned it in the timber country before he took to it in the land of
long grass. At eleven years of age he was plowing with a yoke of oxen
on the stump lands of Huron, helping his father to scratch a living out
of the bush farm for a family of nine and between whiles attending a
little log schoolhouse, going on cedar-gum expeditions, getting lost in
the bush and indulging in other pioneer pastimes.
Along in 1877, when people were talking a lot about Dakota as a farming
country, McKenzie took a notion to go West; but he preferred to stay
under the British flag and Winnipeg was his objective. A friend of his
was running a flour-mill at Gladstone (then called Palestine),
Manitoba, and young McKenzie decided to take a little walk out that way
to visit him. It was a wade, rather than a walk! It was the year the
country was flooded and during the first thirty days after his arrival
he could count only three consecutive days without rain. In places the
water was up to his hips and when he reached the flour-mill there was
four feet of water inside of it.
Such conditions were abnormal, of course, and due to lack of settlement
and drainage. After helping to build the first railway through the
country Roderick McKenzie eventually located his farm near Brandon and
so far as the rich land and the climate were concerned he was entirely
satisfied.
Not so with the early marketing of his grain, though. He disposed of
two loads of wheat at one of the elevators in Brandon one day and was
given a grade and price which he considered fair enough. When he came
in with two more loads of the same kind of wheat next day, however, the
elevator man told him that he had sent a sample to Winnipeg and found
out that it was not grading the grade he had given him the day before.
"The train service wouldn't allow of such fast work, sir," said
Roderick McKenzie. "I suppose you sent it by wire!" He picked up the
reins. "That five cents a bushel you want me to give you looks just as
good in my pocket as in yours."
So he drove up town where the other buyers were and three of them
looked at the wheat but refused to give a price for it. One of them
was a son of the first elevator man to whom he had gone and, said he:
"The Old Man gave you a knockdown for it, didn't he?"
"Yes, but----"
"Well, we're not going to bid against him and if you want to sell it at
all, haul it back to him."
As there was nothing else he could do under the conditions that
prevailed, McKenzie was forced to pocket his loss without recourse.
With such experiences it is scarcely necessary to say that when the
grain growers' movement started in Manitoba Roderick McKenzie occupied
a front seat. He was singled out at once for a place on the platform
and was elected Secretary of the Brandon branch of the Association. At
the annual convention of the Manitoba locals he was made Secretary of
the Provincial Association, a position which he filled until 1916, when
he became Secretary of the Canadian Council of Agriculture.
His activities in the interests of the Association have made him a
well-known figure in many circles. From the first he had been very
much in favor of the farmers' trading company and only the restrictions
of his official position with the Association had prevented him from
taking a more prominent part in its affairs. As it was, the benefit of
his experience was frequently sought.
McKenzie was plowing in the field when the boy from the telegraph
office reached him with John Kennedy's message.
"They don't say what they want me for; but I guess I'm wanted or they
wouldn't send a telegram--Haw! Back you!" And like Cincinnatus at the
call of the State in the "brave days of old," McKenzie unhitched the
horses and leaving the plow where it stood, made for the house, packed
his grip and caught the next train for Winnipeg.
John Kennedy met him at the station.
"What's wrong?" demanded the Secretary of the Manitoba Grain Growers'
Association at once. "I came right along as soon as I got your wire,
Kennedy. What's up now?"
"The editor of the _Grain Growers' Guide_. Partridge wants you to take
his place."
"ME? Why, I never edited anything in my life!" cried McKenzie,
standing stock still on the platform.
"Pshaw! Come along," laughed Kennedy reassuringly. "You'll be
alright. It ain't hard to do."