AMERICAN SOCIETY OF EQUITY 1 13 



areas of considerable discontent could be found at any time. Moreover, 

 for farmers who faced the fact that such prosperity as they enjoyed 

 stemmed far too much from rising land values and far too little from 

 the sale of produce, there were also ample grounds for worry at any time. 

 Some farmers were learning, too, as the cooperative movement abun- 

 dantly attests, that they could accomplish much more when many stood 

 together than when each man stood alone. 3 



One of the earliest of the twentieth century farm orders to achieve some 

 degree of prominence was the American Society of Equity, which was 

 founded in Indianapolis on December 24, 1902. The man who claimed 

 full credit for the founding of Equity, and for the plan of action hy which 

 the order hoped to better the lot of the farmer, was James A. Everitt, pub- 

 lisher of an Indianapolis journal known as Up-to-Date Farming and 

 Gardening. Everitt also owned a feed and seed business by means of 

 which he augmented his income from printing and publishing and in- 

 creased his contacts with the farmers. He claimed, however, to spend 

 much time in thought; indeed, his every waking moment, he said, was 

 given over to "originating ideas and revolving plans in my brain." In time 

 an anti-Everitt faction arose in Equity which asserted that Everitt was no 

 more the founder of the order than he was the author of the Bible. This 

 faction pinned its faith to W. L. Hearron of Carlinville, Illinois, from 

 whom it claimed Everitt had filched all his best ideas, but the fact remains 

 that Everitt's newspaper, together with a highly emotional volume entitled 

 The Third Power, which he published in 1903, were principally respon- 

 sible for launching the organization. 4 



Everitt thought of himself as a strictly practical man, and, as he saw it, 

 the object of his order was primarily to contribute to the farmers' profits. 



3. Gerald Goldstein, "The Economic Basis of Agrarian Unrest in the Progressive 

 Period" (unpublished master's thesis, University of California, 1948). 



4. James A. Everitt, The Third Power (Indianapolis, 1903), pp. 246-47; R. H. 

 Bahmer, "The American Society of Equity," Agricultural History, XIV (January, 

 1940), pp. 33-35; J. L. Nash, "Building a Farmers' Monopoly," World Today, XIII 

 (July, 1907), p. 717; Wisconsin Equity News (Madison), June i, 1908, p. 13; ibid., 

 June 10, 1912, pp. 1-2; Robert Lee Hunt, A History of Farmer Movements in the 

 Southwest, 1873-10,25 (College Station, Texas, 1935), pp. 104-8; American Society 

 of Equity, The Plan of the American Society of Equity (Indianapolis, n.d.), p. i 

 [pamphlet]. 



