The Producers News

Foreclosures on the Beaverhead
By Rodney Salisbury

President Holiday Association of Montana

(Special to Producers News)

Dillon, Montana

August 8th, 1936

Many of us farmers have been led to believe that the drought is the cause of our financial troubles. But history shows that as far as production is concerned, the farmer always gets more for less and less for more. When he gets a big crop he gets nothing for it and when he gets a small crop he has nothing to sell. A farmer cannot anticipate what the weather is going to do next. Also he is forced to gamble with gophers, cinch bugs, hail, crickets, grasshoppers, cut worms, as well as drought one rains sometimes when it should not and does not rain when it should. And on top of everything else it sometimes frosts in the middle of the growing season. If the policy of cutting down production were best for him, then all of these above mentioned pests would help him do it, and naturally he would welcome them, but being a practical man he would prefer raising consumption to meet production instead of lowering production to equal consumption.

NO CROP FAILURE IN BEAVERHEAD

Around Dillon there has never been a crop failure. Sometimes water or a hail storm, but crop there may be a scarcity of failures, they have never had them.

If there is money in farming anywhere there should be in such a locality. But the difference between farmers at Dillon and other parts of the state where they have not had a crop in seven years is this: where a farmer on a section of dry land owes $5,000, on a section of land in Beaverhead county, he owes $15,000, all of which he is trying to pay taxes and interest on. When he goes to a bank in Dillon and is able to borrow money, he is given a check book and put on a budget. When he buys groceries he fills in a place prepared for that purpose, "groceries"; if for labor, he fills in the place, "labor," and so on. He is being rapidly reduced to serfdom and it will not be long until the ranchers of this great producing valley will be herding the banker's sheep, feeding the banker's cattle, and farming the banker's land. The banks here are all chain and of course take their orders from the big bosses. So while the ranchers herd sheep for them, they herd the ranchers for those who crack the lash above their heads. It is nothing uncommon here to talk with farmers who have paid more interest than their original loans amount to, and now still owe more than when they made the loans, and after paying taxes on the other fellows' mortgage for a number of years, are foreclosed on, and other farmers who still have a couple of thousand dollars to invest take their places only to meet the same fate as their brother farmers before them.

FEDERAL LAND BANK RUTHLESS GRABBER

Of all the unscrupulous land grabbers, the Federal Land Bank of Spokane is the most ruthless. Of course if one is going to be foreclosed on, it doesn't make much difference whether it is by a big bank or a small one. And if one were going to be eaten by a wolf, the size or breed of the wolf would not make so much difference. In order to distract attention from the large number of foreclosures and forced sales, farmers are picked here and there, dispossessed and sent down the road homeless, only to swell the ranks of the unemployed. It's your neighbor that's picked today, and then you, tomorrow. And you fellow farmers, who are fortunate enough to not be foreclosed, cannot long remain free while your neighbors are mortgaged.

HOLIDAY ASSOCIATION HAS REMEDY

The Holiday Association of Montana has the remedy. First we farmers organize for the purpose of declaring a moratorium on all debts until the conditions are so that we can pay them. This does not mean that we shall not pay small bills, but keeps anyone from forcing us to meet obligations that means our destruction.
ONE BIG MEETING
You say that it can't be done.

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Foreclosures on the Beaverhead

Well it already has been done in (Continued from Page 1) several states including North Dakota which bounds us on the east,

GET TOGETHER

We are going to all get together at one big meeting and declare a moratorium, a copy of which we will send to the governor. If he refuses to make it legal, we will again turn out at the first foreclosure hereafter, and at this meeting we will use both economic and voting power to defeat any politician having anything to do with such criminal action. This will include governors, lawyers, bankers, judges, sheriffs and any others involved.

We have done this other places without much trouble, and I believe the ranchers of Beaverhead county have the courage to do it here.

A couple years ago the great life insurance companies declared a moratorium on their policies and refused to loan a single cent, and in some cases even to pay policies when due. They didn't wait for it to become a law; they just made a declaration and the government got busy and gave the companies a couple of billions.

SIXTY-TWO FORECLOSURES; THE MINIE CASE

There are sixty-two mortgages up for foreclosure in this county and many others on their way. Most outstanding of these is the Minie Livestock Association, composed of Charley Minie and his two sons, Henry and Carl, who bought a ranch 6 years ago for $23,000 paying $8,000 down. They put on $1,000 worth of improvements repairing ditches, seeding it down, so that it is now producing about three times as much as it was when they bought it mostly alfalfa The on this ranch and feed it to their cattle. Cattle was low in price, which was the reason not being able to ther payments, altho they always kept to make fur- for their the taxes paid up.

The First National Bank of Dillon, that held this $15,000 mortgage Frank Hazelbaker transferred to thru Mrs. Kenney and guaranteed the paper.

Mrs. Kenney, acting as a shock absorber for the bank started foreclosure and asked for immediate possession. The Minies offered her $5,000 payment, but no, she must have all her money. The result was that the court gave Mrs. Kenney immediate possession and evicted the Minies from the premises.

At the sheriff's sale, Mrs. Kenney bought the place for $12,000, leaving a deficiency of $8,000. So the place now stands the Minie Livestock Association at $12,000. plus the deficiency of $8,000, plus the $8,000 first payment, plus $1,500 improvemnets, plus $250 payment, plus $1,200 for the six years' taxes, the sum of $30,950. And Mrs. Kenney got the place for $15,000. Only the mortgage was considered property in the eyes of the court.