TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 409 



over and we sent a man into Illinois to find out what was the 

 matter with the coal question, and we found out that there was 

 a coal trust, a combination that no man, our local dealers in 

 Iowa, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, or no other individual 

 enterprise could buy a ton of coal at the mines — absolutely 

 oarred. \Yt could buy it of a speculator along the line after they 

 had put on as many profits for the non-producing obstacles 

 that were standing there as the public would stand. We have 

 now the same proposition, ladies and gentlemen, in the money 

 question. The life insurance companies, most of them, in the 

 United States, who have got your money and mine — they have 

 not got money of mine because my policies expired and I haven't 

 money enough to renew them ; but those life insurance com- 

 panies are loaning money through their brokerage propositions, 

 and every time a broker or straw man intercedes in that proposi- 

 tion he pops up the rate of interest. What we need in the 

 United States today is the active operation of the Federal Farm 

 Loan Act. (Applause) I believe that we are going to have 

 something of that kind. I don't know what the Supreme Court 

 is thinking about ; I don't know why they are holding this thing 

 up — in fact, they are supposed to be — it is not immune, un- 

 approachable ; I am not condemning the supreme court, they 

 may have very good reason, but I have laid awake nights think- 

 irfg about that problem, and have not been able to see why they 

 should still hesitate in giving a decision on that case. I am not 

 condemning them, because I don't know, but I do know this, that 

 if it doesn't come pretty soon there is going to be a stir among 

 the Farm Bureau members of the United States and we are going 

 to demand some competition that will break up this money trust 

 that we now have in the United States. (Applause) 



I said we had plenty of land, plenty of food, plenty of men. 

 plenty of money. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if we can get into 

 a position, into a state of mind, where we can work together as a 

 whole people and not against each other as classes and interests, 

 then we shall see the standard of living raised to new levels. The 

 prices of farm products today to the farmer are too low ; they 

 are not justified. Some of the eastern interests tell us that the 

 pri^ e of other products have gone down as much as the farmers' 

 products. I deny that statement. They have gone down some, 

 but there is still that awful inequality. Here are your shoes way 

 up here in th^ air; your clothes, whether they are shoddy, 

 cotton or all-wool, are up in the air yet; your bacon that you buy 



