THIRD-PARTY IDEOLOGIES 



Follette turned sour on them as effective protective agents for the farm- 

 ers. 72 



For more than a year, beginning in 1921, Washington was crowded with 

 lobbyists, busily engaged in writing into the tariff law exhorbitant rates and 

 special privileges for steel, cotton, wool, sugar and the thousand and one other 

 industries which they represented. They were not required to produce their 

 books and show their costs, nor was any attempt made to ascertain scientifically 

 what tariff duties were necessary to promote the general welfare of the nation. 

 The party majorities of the Ways and Means and Finance committees, sitting 

 behind closed doors, simply asked them what they wanted and then gave them 

 that, and sometimes a little bit more . . . 73 



La Follette did not take too positive a stand on the fixing of farm 

 prices but said that he was not horrified by it as an invasion of natural 

 economic laws, especially when he saw similar invasions committed daily 

 by private groups and without protest from the conservatives: 



We have built up in this country an artificial business structure which throttles 

 the natural law of supply and demand. The price of steel is fixed by private 

 interests. The price of cloth is fixed by private interests. In virtually every line 

 of manufactured commodities a few interests fix the prices. The conservatives, 

 so-called, have nothing to say about that. They support it. But when it is pro- 

 posed that the government fix prices to save from destruction the great agricul- 

 tural industry, upon which the country is absolutely dependent, these conserva- 

 tives throw up their hands in terror. 



He justified his voting for the Norris Grain Corporation bill in Congress 

 because he felt that it was the best measure before that body for the relief 

 of the farmers. He admitted a reluctance to vote for price-fixing measures, 

 instead of relying on natural economic laws and movements, because of 

 the difficulty of making them work, but at times such actions were held 

 to be the lesser of two evils. 74 



As election day approached La Follette came out with his farm pro- 

 gram, which was nothing more than an attempt to harness the prevailing 



72. St. Paul Dispatch, October 5, 1924. 



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

 Evening Post, CXCV (March 10, 1923), p. 165. 



74. Baltimore Sun, July 28, 1923. 



