524 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



And the chasm between the producer and consumer is widening day 

 by day. This organized power fixes the price of everything it sells and 

 arbitrarily fixes the price of everything it buys; and like the elder Napo- 

 leon, whose ambition was to control the whole world, this organized 

 power already controls this far-famed country of ours and is in a fair 

 way to control the whole world in meats. 



FARMERS IX)SE ON BEEF. 



And I venture to say that one half of the consumers of our pork and 

 beef are entirely ignorant of the fact that the high priced meat they 

 consume is prepared by the farmers at an actual loss at the present price 

 of live stock. 



Then, Mr. President, the price of every implement which we have 

 to buy to use on the farm from the garden hoe to the self-binder is fixed 

 by organized power. The wages we pay is fixed indirectly by organized 

 labor, so everything we sell and everything we buy is ruled by a com- 

 bined price which is tightening its grip day by day. 



And the farmers are like the rudderless ship on the troubled sea, 

 not knowing where we shall drift. 



And still I have no war to wage against these organizations: it means 

 better wages, shorter hours, more comfort, more schooling for the chil- 

 dren, which will or ought to lead to better citizenship for the laboring 

 man. 



And with organized capital it means larger dividends, greater econ- 

 omy in management, and last, but not least, a better system of meeting 

 any unjust demands of other combinations. 



And both organized capital and labor have come, to stay. It is the 

 natural evolution of things. Politicians may cry out against organized 

 capital. Political parties in their declaration of principles may denounce 

 trusts and combines and declare in favor of laws to control them. Laws 

 may be passed aiming in that direction, and notwithstanding all this, 

 combination in both capital and labor has come to stay. One without 

 the other would become its own worst enemy, and would end in decay 

 and disruption, and while these forces are cutting a wide swath in the 

 industrial and commercial world the greatest force and power is still 

 undeveloped in so far as organization is concerned. The milions and mil- 

 lions €f farm homes in this free land is an index of that power. The 

 farmer has looked upon this industrial upheaval complacently, believing 

 it was only a question of time when everything would be back to its old 

 channels again and that supply and demand would rule both commerce 

 and labor, but that thing has been exploded and in order to meet these 

 new conditions we have but one course to follow, and that is the course 

 the capitalist and the laboring man has pursued — ix)wer by organization. 

 If any man fifty years ago had ventured the assertion that before the 

 close of the nineteenth century the voice of organized labor would de- 

 mand and be granted shorter hours and higher wages, society would 

 have cast him out as a lunatic. And the same is true of organized capi- 

 tal. Think for a moment of the possibilities of the farmers from a finan- 



