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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



automatic— that the farmer mu^t be 

 kept where he belongs. 



In fact, however, agriculture is yet 

 very little organized commercially or 

 politically. Former attempts have 

 failed. We are watching the two move- 

 ments now before us with new inter- 

 est; it is yet too early to measure their 

 accomplishments. It is now charged 

 that farmers are withholding the som'- 

 ing of wheat in order to hold up the 

 prices. In the first place, there is no 

 organization of farmers that can con- 

 trol the wheat situation; and if any 

 number of individuals reduced their 

 own production they would be playing 

 into the hands of the heavier producers 

 or of handlers. It is impossible for farm- 

 ers to control their production as manu- 

 facturers control their output. Whether 

 a wvAW sows more or fewer acres of 

 wheat, he does not know what his crop 

 will be: the unpredictable conditions 

 tliat make the wheat crop are too many. 



Organization for commercial offense, 

 or even for defense, is indeed a dan- 

 gerous weapon. It is dangerous in it- 

 self; it is dangerous because it forces 

 government into compromises, and also 

 because it relieves government of its 

 plain obligations; it is dangerous be- 

 cause it sets one part of society against 

 another. In agriculture it is especially 

 dangerous: it has here all the danger 

 that it has in any other realm, and, 

 besides, it cannot change a single natu- 

 ral condition. I have hoped that the 

 correctives of such commercial inequal- 

 ities as may exist in rural affairs would 

 arise in the action of society as a whole, 

 that legislatures and statesmen on their 

 own motion would apply the remedies, 

 without pressure and therefore without 

 compromise. I have iK^en willing to 

 wait, remembering that we are here try- 

 ing to develop a democracy and hoping 

 that we may eliminate the antagonisms 

 of differing interests. I have preferred 

 even that the rural interests should un- 

 dergo disadvantages rather than that 

 we should throw affriculture into the 



maelstrom. So far as I know, I have 

 been alone in advising that we withhold 

 the commercial and political organ- 

 izing of agriculture. The movement of 

 the time is against me and will be in- 

 creasingly against me so long as society 

 is founded on commercial enmities ; yet 

 I tliink that I must still hold. If such 

 organization is necessary in order to 

 perform the office that government neg- 

 lects to perform, I hope that it will 

 not become a permanent movement to 

 control affairs in the separate interest 

 of the farmer; yet one must express 

 sympathy for the objects for which cer- 

 tain ])owerful organized movements are 

 now contending. 



Agriculture may not have had the 

 support which it should have had, but 

 it has not had organized opposition. As 

 soon as it begins to nmke collective de- 

 nuiiids, so soon will all other interests 

 begin to oppose it. The results on our 

 democracy may be dangerous and far- 

 reaching. 



The incompetency of organization to 

 accomplish in agriculture what it has 

 been able to accomplish elsewhere may 

 be illustrated in the field of labor. 

 Farm labor cannot be organized on the 

 basis of other labor, nor can the same 

 ideas dominate it : on the farm there is 

 a natural day; the plants and animals 

 are governed by this day; at any time 

 the weather may change the whole situ- 

 ation; moreover, most of the farm labor 

 is also capitalistic, for the owner and 

 his family are the operative organiza- 

 tion. Hired labor is relatively a minor 

 part of all the labor ; it is, or should be, 

 resident labor except such excess as may 

 be needed in certain kinds of harvest. 

 Much of the hired labor is in the 

 process of acquiring ownership. The 

 mass movements of organized labor 

 cannot apply to the rural situation; or 

 if they are forced into the rural dis- 

 tricts, the farmer will simply hire less 

 labor and set his business more com- 

 pletely into nature-farming 



The measure of agriculture any- 



