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Show THE CITIZEN 4 of the Kiwanis public affairs committee, Jess Richards, William B. Blackburn, Charles Barton, George Glen, Dr. H. M. Rowe, all representing the Chamber of Commerce, all personally appear and request that the low bid, for Portland cement concrete be awarded, and they are ignored, it looks like there is a nigger in the woodpile somewhere. Contrary to the wishes of the taxpayers, however, and for best reasons known to themselves, two of the county commissioners autocratically denied the requests and awarded the contract for a type of construction of inferior worth and design for this particular grade and at a price $5,000 greater than that which was petitioned for. Can you beat it? The Journal has always believed and will continue to believe, until it can be proven otherwise, that a lack of comparability in as to durability and cost of construction, and finally, to refuse to award contracts to the lowest bidder, will encourage conspiracy, fraud, secret profits rebates, discrimination and political corruption, and tends also to prevent clean, honorable and wholesome competition and encourages and invites the creation of paving rings, no matter what type of construction, and in many other ways militates against the best moral and financial interests of the people as a whole. Box Elder Journal. ns NEEDED LEGISLATION The legislature will go into session immediately after the first of the year. There is much needed legislation and correction of some of our present laws. Automobiles driven by drunkards must be curbed. The best way to do it will be a strict law governing the same. Elimination of this evil could be had if the following were incorporated into a law: Any person under the influence of liquor and who is driving an automobile, who meets with an accident and is arrested shall be subject to all damages incurred and inflicted upon the other party, to, gether with: . A $500 fine. One year in the penitentiary. Confiscation of the drunkards automobile. The drunkard to be prohibited from driving any vehicle upon our public highways for at least five years. Our present law encourages drunkenness. A stringent law incorporating all of the above penalties would soon eliminate more than half of our accidents many of which are due to liquor. Who but a criminal can have any objection to a strict law which will provide for the safety of our citizens? Our law governing murder should be amended so as to read that in all cases where willful murder has been committed and the criminal has been caught and there is no doubt as to his guilt that the death penalty be imposed within thirty days after the criminal has been caught and arrested, and, that the death penalty be invoked upon all accomplices to the crime. Crime has been allowed such a free hand the past few years, and sad to say, has been encouraged by the apathy, indulgence and sympathy of the pardons board, that criminals rather relish a term in the penitentiary, which today is a place more of amusement than punishment. If there are any who for a moment believe that crime can be curtailed and lessened by such methods, they reckon without their host. The penalty should fit the crime. The day of reprimand has been here but it must be shelved. The law should not make a distinction in class. What is good for the poor man is good for the rich and the punishment for crime should be sure and penalizing. There is no reason for crime. Lets do away with it, but we must change our present system. MARKETING. Dearborn Independent has been conducting an investigation on marketing, especially upon the Sapiro plan, which it is said up to today has been a losing proposition everywhere it has been attempted, and as a consequence the farmers have lost millions The co-operati- ve of dollars through membership of these new associations. Robert Morgan says that the plan is more destructive than the boll weevil, and that the Sapiro plan has caused a loss of $10,000,000 in the cotton crop during the past three years. He says that there are several of these organizations in the great cotton belt. There are other cotton associations, not based on the Sapiro plan, whicfiT have had a reasonable amount of success. Not one of the associations organized on the Sapiro plan has been successful; not one today is not in the throes of internal strife, with its members trying to escape from the costly contracts they signed when the bodies were formed; and not one can show that, in any year, it sold its cotton to such advantage, or paid its members so well for thei crops as other growers outside these associations were paid. Mogan goes on to say that a clear-cu- t example of this condi? tion is the Staple Cotton association, with headquarters e at Greenwood, Mississippi. It operates largely among the cotton producers of the Yazoo river delta. For the past three yeare it has handled an average of between 135,000 and 140,000 bales vi cotton. Its scheme the same as that of all the other Sapiro plan coco-operati- ve co-operati- ve Co-operati- ve long-stapl- has failed so operatives of orderly marketing and price-fixin- g completely that the members of this association, about 1,600 in number, have received for their crops of 1921, 1922 and 1923, more than $10,000,000 less than the independent growers of the same amount of cotton of the same grade received for their cotton. That is to say, the cotton growers inside the association actually lost this huge sum, because, if it had not been for their membership in the association, and the contracts which they were compelled to keep, they would have sold to independent buyers at a price, for the three-year- s crops, totalling more than ten million dollars above what they received through the association. Losses actually sustained ranged from $20 a bale to $60 a bale. A bale of cotton weighs 500 pounds, and this loss indicates a range of prices at which cotton was sold by this association of from four to twelve cents a pound less than the independents were paid. More growers lost $20 a bale than lost $60; more lost $20 than lost $40; about the same number lost $30 than $25. This loss probably was in reality closer to $30, but the men who lost this money through the association, and with a number of whom Mr. Morgan talked, are willing to accept $25 a bale as the average. Giving the association the benefit of the lowest figures, and saying that it handled 135,000 bales a year for three years though it claims to have handled 140,000 bales makes a total of 405,000 bales for the year. The average loss on this cotton was $25 a bale, and the total loss was $10,125,000. This is a minimum figure, and there are a number of cotton planters in the Yazoo river delta who estimate it at more than $12,000,000 for the three years. The reasons for this loss are the same fundamental economic faults which have appeared in all the Sapiro plan marketing associations: First Extravagance and waste in operating costs. Second Impossibility of price-fixinThird Complete failure of the orderly marketing scheme. Fourth Incompetent management. During the past few years the farmers have been profusebc. bled by the middle men and oragnizers. Some crafty orator appear? in a farming community and it does not take long to make each and every farmer believe that in less than five years he will become wealthy. At the end of the time, and in many cases long before, the organizers have the money and the farmers have the experience. co-operati- ve co-operati- ve g. ROAD MONEY. Notwithstanding the large amount ot money secured for roads through direct taxation of the automobile, yet the slate does not lealize one dollar from the amount collected for road construction at the present time. Over one million dollars will be collected frmj automobiles this year, but not one cent for roads. This appears to be a ridiculous situation but the methods used in our first construction has proved a big handicap and now the taxpayers are footing the bills. We have a $7,000,000 bond issue fbr roads which must be taken care of and before this amount is paid off, |