Missouri Country Life Conference. 135 



Judge Wallace told me last night as we came along on the 

 train that there is a certain class of producers in this State 

 who make their produce for one dollar and a half a barrel and sell 

 it for seven. Now, how many farmers make that much profit 

 on the things they raise? How many of you are able to fix the 

 price yourself on what you want to sell? 



fni One of the great opportunities for the farmers of this coun- 

 try is to so get together that a great administrative office handling 

 the rural productions of this country shall be under their own 

 control. Why, the brains at the head of the great concerns in 

 St. Louis and Kansas City, in Chicago, in New York and in 

 Philadelphia, and all over your country, have in their beginning 

 come off the farms, and therefore the farms have on them the 

 men that have the brains as well as the brawn to carry on great 

 enterprises, and they should not have to go off into the city in 

 order to find an opportunity to organize a great concern and a 

 great movement when there is such a tremendous need right 

 among the farmers themselves for organizing in order that they 

 may have something to say with reference to the prices that are 

 set on products that come from their fields. That to me is one 

 of the most splendid opportunities presented before the rising 

 generation of this time. We are having difficulty in getting 

 together. It seems that the people who live in the country are 

 more difficult to aggregate and solidify and bring into one; but 

 nevertheless, it must be done. It must be done so that you 

 won't have to look to somebody else and ask what he will give 

 you for wheat and what he will give you for sheep and what he will 

 give you for hogs. The control of the products requires at the head 

 a man who is able to handle a great organization, because this 

 must be widely distributed — a vast organization of strong people. 

 Therefore, there is an opportunity. We have our societies 

 scattered abroad (some of them meeting here), but we are not 

 getting together with reference to the one great concern — look- 

 ing after ourselves and our interests as the other great industries 

 look after themselves and their interests. 



Now that is why I am calling attention to the importance 

 of the farmer's brain. There is one more thing that I will insist 

 upon in this connection, and it is this: It is just the importance 

 which is to be attached to the farmer's heart. When many a 

 farmer wants his children to have the advantage of a better 

 school he moves into town, and it is pathetic what he goes 

 through in getting into town. I will tell you as an educator, it 



