96 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



wisely choosing to sell at such prices as they can get. Our farmers 

 are thus feeding Europe at a very low price. This cheap food will be 

 the chief factor in the rebuilding of Europe. The difficulty of selling 

 to them at a remunerative price is increased by the fact that Europe has 

 no money with which to buy our surplus and must pay in goods. Tariff 

 legislation hinders her paying in goods. Thus our government is de- 

 liberately reducing the power of European countries to buy our sur- 

 plus, and thereby forcing our farmers to take still lower prices for 

 their surplus than they would otherwise have to take. 



When Europe again resumes normal production there will be a 

 pre-war demand for American farm products. The American farmer 

 will then come into his own and will no longer need collective bar- 

 gaining as a means of defense. If he uses it at all, he will be using it 

 as our trusts formerly did and as some of our labor unions are be- 

 ginning to use it, as a means of extortion. 



Consider this in connection with another fact ; namely, that our 

 farmers are already a minority. That being the case, they cannot 

 prevent hostile legislation. When the majority who are not farmers 

 discover that the minority who are, are using collective bargaining as 

 a means of extortion, our farmers must look out for hostile instead of 

 friendly legislation. 



It is interesting to notice at this point a fundamental contrast 

 between bargaining power and voting power. In the case of any 

 economic class the more numerous it is the greater its voting power, 

 but the lower its bargaining power, and vice versa, the fewer its num- 

 bers the greater its bargaining power and the less its voting power. 

 During the decades of the over-rapid settlement of our western lands, 

 the farming population was numerous relatively to the rest of the 

 population and had great voting power, but its bargaining power was 

 low and all agricultural products had to sell at a low price. The 

 tendency at the present time is for our farming population to become 

 relatively less numerous, that is, to increase less than other classes. 

 This is materially increasing its bargaining power, as evidenced by 

 the higher prices at which farm products sell ; but it is correspond- 

 ingly reducing its voting power, and it will never again be able to 

 exercise even the moderate amount of control over the policies of 

 the Nation that it has exercised in the past. This weakness, however, 

 if it be a weakness, is much more than compensated by the higher 

 bargaining power that is coming to the agricultural classes. 



Collective bargaining, however, may have two very distinct 

 meanings. So long as it is confined to cooperation, in order to get 



