AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



independent movement." His earlier actions supported this. His attitude 

 was that the independent movement needed him more than he needed 

 it. 67 



Obviously, the position of La Follette toward agriculture was of prime 

 importance to the farmers of the western Middle West. Traditionally, 

 he was strong among the farmers of the upper Mississippi Valley. His 

 attachment to their way of thinking was so strong that he could hardly 

 shake himself loose from the agrarian arguments of the seventies. La 

 Follette spoke of the importance of agriculture to the nation, of the re- 

 lationship of the railroads to the farmers, of how the grain elevators were 

 tied up with the railroad interests, and of how it was becoming impossible 

 for the farmers to subsist on what they got for their products. 68 If any- 

 thing, La Follette was more the inheritor of the Granger and Populist 

 traditions than he was a natural ally of the Socialists. 69 



His position on the Esch-Cummins Act was one of unequivocal op- 

 position. According to La Follette, it was "written for the railroads and 

 the railroads, . . . and conferred upon the carriers special privileges as to 

 rate making, freedom from state control, permission to combine and con- 

 solidate, such as no American corporation had ever before enjoyed or 

 even dreamed of asking." 70 This surely was talking the language of the 

 Grangers. In 1923 current gossip in Wisconsin had it that he was going to 

 turn his political broadsides against the act in the campaign of 1924 and 

 ask for its outright repeal. This, he felt, was a great political potential. 

 He attributed his re-election in 1922 to many causes, but the significant 

 thing was that he placed his stand against the act at the top of the list. 71 



His position on the tariff also was more in line with the arguments of 

 the Grangers and the Farmers' Alliance than it was with the arguments of 

 the McNary-Haugenites, but he was not consistent on this point. He 

 voted for increases on agricultural products in the Fordney-McCumber 

 Act of 1922, but no sooner were these tariff schedules passed than La 



67. St. Paul Dispatch, July 21, 1924. 



68. Louis F. Budenz, "Badgerdom; The Home of La Follette and the Socialists," 

 Labor Age, XII (October, 1923), pp. 1-3. 



69. New Yor% Times, July 13, 1924. 



70. Quoted in "The Progressives What They Stand For and Want," Saturday 

 Evening Post, CXCV (March 10, 1924), p. 165. 



71. Pioneer Press, May 21, 1923. 



