The Home Market Fight: Farmers Say Seattle Merchants Look Past Their Own Fields

Port Angeles, Jan. 15, 1898. To the Editor: Your article on “Much Money Wasted” in the weekly of January 30 is one that gives room for comment by the farmers of this state. You say: “The farmers owe a duty to the state which they should speedily fulfill.” And again: “It is not generally known, but reliable statistics show an alarming condition of affairs in our extravagant and improvident use, or rather neglect, of our agricultural resources and opportunities.” Ten million dollars sent out of the state for food products is an alarming statement, and the reason why it is true should be found out and remedied. The reason does not lie with the farmer, as you assert, but with the merchants and the people.

Why was it that for two years last past the farmers in the vicinity of Seattle were compelled to let their strawberries lie on the ground and go to waste? They had raised them, and expected to reap some profit from their labor, but the merchants of Seattle could get them cheaper from the Chinese and itinerant gardeners of California and Oregon, and what care they for the home producer? Why is it potatoes bring only $18 per ton in our home market? Simply because the merchant prefers to patronize the gardeners of the above-named class, and takes no interest in home production. Why do beef cattle and pork bring but 3 or 4 cents per pound to the farmers? Simply because Phil Armour, of Chicago, rules the prices, and your market men prefer to send away for cattle rather than encourage home industries.

The people are also to blame, for, being able to buy oleomargarine or factory butter so much more cheaply than butter from the farmers, they buy the cheap stuff. The result is that farmers cannot sell their butter. Also vegetables can be got from the Chinese a few cents cheaper per pound than from a white man who has a family to support and has some desire to live decently, and be able to clothe and educate his children; therefore they buy of the Chinese.

A farmer in Western Washington is obliged to spend a young fortune and much hard labor before his farm is sufficiently cultivated to produce grain and other feed products for animals and other purposes; hence, in order to get returns for labor and money expended in opening a farm, he must have a reasonable price for his products, otherwise farming does not pay. It does not pay to raise grain and have the care of fowls in Western Washington and sell your eggs at this season of the year at 15 cents per dozen. To this the farmer must submit, for the merchants send south and get eggs by the crate, and when the farmer brings his eggs to market tell him: “I am not buying eggs today.”

If the ten millions of money which you state has been sent out of the state had been paid out to the farmers in reasonable prices for their farm products, it would not only have benefited the farmers and encouraged them to greater effort, but the merchants themselves would have reaped profits, for it would have returned to them by greatly increased purchases by the farmers. The very fact that it is sent away impoverishes the farmer and makes it impossible for him to do anything. If we could sell our produce at good living cash prices, buy our groceries and other supplies where we please, we would be in a condition to pay up our subscriptions to the Post-Intelligencer and be happy. It seems to me there would be just as much sense in people sending to British Columbia for coal and lumber, because cheap labor makes it possible to get these commodities cheaper there than at home, as there is in sending away for food products and allowing the home producer to suffer.

As the press is the public school teacher, and the Post-Intelligencer has begun the agitation of this question, I hope that in course of time the people will come to know that “All for each, and each for all” is a better motto than each for himself and the devil take the hindmost. LAURA E. PETERS.