68 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



years later, they owned sixty-three per cent. In 1920, we find less 

 than five per cent of our population listed as paying any income tax 

 whatever. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that the wealth of this 

 country is concentrated in the hands of some part of that five per 

 cent of our population. This affords much food for thought, if we 

 will only stop and think. How, in this fair land of ours, rich in every 

 resource, under a government of, by, and for the people, could such a 

 state of things come to pass? Interwoven throughout the warp and 

 woof of the political and industrial history of the states and the nation 

 since the reconstruction period following the Civil War, on down to 

 the present day, may be found most of the reasons for this condition. 

 They are already matters of record and too voluminous to relate here. 

 But most of them will be found to be in contravention of some of the 

 fundamental ideals of our Government. We farmers, however, are 

 not without blame in the matter ; our ears have been deaf to the warn- 

 ing long since uttered by one of our leading statesmen, "The price of 

 liberty is eternal vigilance." We have followed the pied pipers of 

 party politics, not knowing or recking where they led, and too often 

 have cast our ballots for measures adverse to our interests. We have 

 for the most part ignored every phase of our own business, save but 

 one, and that one circumscribed by the farm fence ; namely, produc- 

 tion. Produce, produce, produce, has been the beginning and the end 

 of our thought and teachings, taking whatever was offered at the 

 market, paying whatever was asked for what we needed to buy ; and 

 I assert that such a method has in it the germs of an economic slavery, 

 just as real and just as dangerous as the serfdom of Russia or the 

 Sepoy slavery of India. It is said that the Danish farmer, through 

 his marketing organizations, is able to retain eighty to ninety per cent 

 of the value of his produce, and that the American farmer, through 

 the lack of such effective associations, retains about ten to twenty 

 per cent of their value. A bushel of wheat sells for about one dollar, 

 while a bushel of puffed wheat sells for about thirty dollars. 



The time is at hand now when the other sides of this great enter- 

 prise of farming must have their just share of recognition at the 

 hands of the farmers, and we must relieve the business of the handi- 

 caps that have been put upon it. We must take a hand in shaping 

 and directing the course of our governments, both state and national, 

 in some measure more nearly commensurate with our support of them, 

 and see to it that agriculture has a fair chance. The questions of 

 transportation by road, rail, and water vitally concern farmers and 

 their business, as do also distribution, domestic and foreign markets 



