AMERICAN SOCIETY OF EQUITY 127 



upper Mississippi Valley, where agricultural discontent was an old story. 36 

 Here the Scandinavian element was strong, and blood ties tended to sup- 

 plement the economic unity which stemmed from the common problems 

 experienced by grain growers. Many farmers in this area had strong 

 reminiscences of the Granger and Populist campaigns, particularly those 

 waged by the great Minnesota orator, Ignatius Donnelly. Their minds 

 were thus well prepared for the propaganda put out by Equity organizers 

 and La Follette supporters alike. Both groups were antimonopolistic in 

 philosophy. To La Follette and his followers, monopoly and graft were 

 the principal corrupting influences in government; to the Equity leaders, 

 these same forces in the form of middlemen, boards of trade, bankers, 

 and railroad interests were responsible for the depressed agricultural 

 prices. Both were fighting on a common ground but were utilizing dif- 

 ferent methods of attack. 37 



Another contribution to the growth of the organization came from the 

 Wisconsin tobacco farmers, who suffered no less than the farmers of 

 Kentucky and Tennessee from an "antiquated" and "unscientific" system 

 of marketing. Because of its interest in these difficulties, Equity had pene- 

 trated into the tobacco areas of the state to such an extent that, according 

 to the Milwaukee Journal, it had won complete control of the tobacco 

 production in the important Edgerton area by 1907 and could threaten 

 to eliminate the entire crop the following year. Within a year the tobacco 

 farmers had built or leased a substantial number of tobacco warehouses 

 in the southern and southwestern part of the state, but their attempt to 

 duplicate the feat of the tobacco farmers of Kentucky and Tennessee by 

 eliminating the crop and "letting the demand catch up with the supply" 

 ended in failure. 38 



36. Equity News (Madison, Wis.), December i, 1915, p. 234. 



37. Robert M. La Follette, La Follette's Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of 

 Political Experience (Madison, Wis., 1913), pp. 18-19; A. P. Wilder, "Governor 

 La Follette and What He Stands For," Outloof^, LXX (March 8, 1902), p. 631; 

 Henrietta M. Larson, The Wheat Market and the Farmer in Minnesota, 1858-1900 

 (New York, 1926), pp. 249-50; Andre Siegfried, America Comes of Age (New 

 York, 1927), pp. 287-88. 



38. "Cooperative Tobacco Marketing in Wisconsin," Wisconsin State Depart- 

 ment of Markets, Bulletin, Vol. IV, No. 4, pp. 8-9; Milwaukee Journal, October 26, 

 1907; Wisconsin Equity News, May i, 1908, p. 6. 



