3 2 4 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



headquarters on what had been taking shape. By the time the Sixty- 

 seventh Congress was to assemble, the condition of agriculture had grown 

 progressively worse. The Farm Bureau, Silver, and others, fully aware of 

 the need for a positive program of action, called together a group of men 

 who assembled in the Washington office of the federation. This was on 

 May 9, 1921. Most prominent of those present were Senators William S. 

 Kenyon of Iowa, an able floor leader but no organizer, Arthur Capper of 

 Kansas, an able organizer but a weak floor leader, and Ellison D. Smith 

 of South Carolina. Later, a meeting of this group took place in the Chi- 

 cago offices of the federation. 10 



The number of senators belonging to the bloc varied. Some thirty-odd 

 members belonged to it at one time or another, but the chances are that 

 the effective number at any one time probably was not more than twenty- 

 six or twenty-seven. In the House the membership was even more fluid. 

 Ninety-five or ninety-six congressmen, under the leadership of L. J. 

 Dickinson of Iowa, were recognized as being strongly agrarian in their 

 sentiments, while some twenty others were regarded as sympathetic. 11 

 Even though southerners figured prominently in farm-bloc activities, the 

 fact seems to be that the program largely originated in the western Middle 

 West, having grown out of the special desires of the senators and rep- 

 resentatives from this area. In this the grain growers of the Middle 

 West had the strategic position, and they created an alliance with leaders 

 from the Far West and the lower South based upon the common economic 

 need for agricultural relief. 12 



The tactics employed by these two groups varied. The members of the 

 Senate bloc held regular meetings to which cabinet members and experts 

 were invited to speak. In the House the bloc functioned through key men 

 in the state delegations and on important committees. 



The program of the bloc appears to have been shaped largely by the 

 Senate group acting with Silver. A few joint meetings were held with 

 the House members, but the real leadership was furnished by Kenyon 

 while he was a member of the Senate and later by Capper and Smith. 



10. John K. Barnes, "The Man Who Runs the Farm Bloc," World's World, XLV 

 {November, 1922), pp. 51-59. 



11. Bradley, in Journal of Social Forces, III (May, 1925), pp. 715-16. 



12. E. Pendleton Herring, "Farm Bloc," Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (15 

 ., New York, 1937), VI, 103. 



