or other consumers, but all sales to be made to dealers at a price fixed by the syndicate; fourth, all dealers to sell to farmers at a price fixed by the syndicate; fifth, all factories outside to the “trust” to be prosecuted in the courts for infringement of patents and closed.”
The “trust” proceeded to advance the price of fence wire to farmers from seven to eight cents a pound to ten cents for painted wire and eleven cents for galvanized wire. The farmers of Iowa held a State Convention at Des Moines on the 2d of April, 1881, and proceeded to form a “Protective Association” for the purpose of resisting, by all legal means in their power, this extortion. The methods proposed were first, to establish a free barbed wire factory at Des Moines, carried on independently of and in defiance of the “trust”; second, to sell the product of the factory to all members of the Association at as low a price as could be afforded. W. L. Carpenter and John Given, who owned a factory, were employed to manufacture the fencing wire and fill orders from members of the Association. Wright and Cummins were employed as attorneys to defend the Association in any legal proceedings instituted against it by the Washburn syndicate.
Attempts were made repeatedly by the syndicate and its attorneys to arrange terms of compromise with the Farmers’ Protective Association under which this factory would be closed and the farmers purchase wire of the syndicate; but all propositions which contemplated the closing of the factory and leaving the field clear to the “trust”, however plausible the promises, were rejected by the Association. It had been organized to fight the powerful combination, to furnish wire fencing to the farmers at a reasonable price and to test in the courts the validity of the broad claim of Washburn & Company of the exclusive right to manufacture barbed wire. When plausible promises, followed by attempts at intimidation failed, suits were instituted against the Association for infringement of patents and to secure a mandate of some
