FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 551 



demand were not operating at the present time with reference to cotton. 

 Now if this law can cease operating for a time it has the power to cease for 

 all time, that is, go permanently out of business. 



We are not here today to take anyone's say so, but to think for our- 

 selves, so we will analyze this law of supply and demand and find out for 

 ourselves, if we can, what it does do and what it does not do. First we find 

 that the farmer and his farm is the source of supply of all farm products. 

 We next find that the farmer, and not his farm, represents the intelligence 

 on the part of the supply. Next we examine the demand, and we find that 

 it comes from and means the consuming public. We also find that the 

 demand for food comes from the stomach, that the feet demand shoes, the 

 body clothing, and so on. Next, that the demand of the stomach for food 

 and the feet for shoes does not indicate that the stomach and feet have any 

 more knowledge of value than the farmer's land has knowledge of values. 

 We find that the only intelligent factor on either side lies in the brain of the 

 farmer on the side of supply, and the brain of the consumer on the side of 

 demand; or that the only intelligent factor on either side lies in the mind of 

 the people. How do these two classes make one single effort to determine 

 the true and equitable value of exchange? Does the farmer say one word 

 about what he shall receive, or the consuming public about what it shall 

 pay? Is it not a fact that both sides leave this important matter wholly in 

 the hands of a few men who make a business of gambling in values on the 

 boards of trade; men with but one object in view, viz: that of personal 

 gain? Every human mind possesses the faculty of reasoning. This is not 

 a chance world; there is an adequate cause for every result. What society 

 needs first is a sufficient quantity of raw material; second, that this raw 

 material be made up into usable goods. Farmers furnish the bulk of this 

 raw product. With the improved machinery of today they are producing 

 enough to satisfy every need of man; and when they harvest these products 

 they carry them to their nearest market town and turn them over to society 

 without any apparent thought as to what relation the price they receive 

 bears to the price that they must pay to obtain back a portion of the same 

 products in a manufactured form. I want to ask, can you by any manner of 

 reasoning justify this practice? When this raw material passes through the 

 machinery of some factory it returns to the public market in the form of 

 made up goods, and it is then that we find that the manufacturers' and 

 farmers' methods of selling are not alike. The manufacturer first charges 

 up the cost of the raw product; to this he adds pay for every hour of labor, 

 whether performed by man, woman or child; he then adds a sum sufficient 

 to keep his plant equipped in an up-to-date working condition; then comes 

 taxes, insurance, interest on capital, and lastly profits. And the sum of 

 these several amounts forms the base from which the selling price is made. 

 Here we have two different methods of selling goods as practiced by the two 

 leading industries of the country in which four-fifths or more of all the peo- 

 ple are engaged. You can readily see how impossible it is for business to 

 run smoothly under these conditions. I think it would call for no imagina- 

 tion on your part to understand that the selling methods of both parties 

 should be tuned to the same key. Should not labor and capital engaged in 

 the production of raw goods charge and receive the same pay as we pay to 

 labor and capital engaged in manufacturing goods? We should realize that 



