54 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



pass countless other measures designed to better the lot of the farmers. 

 It was they who were most instrumental in laying down a barrage of 

 charges against the industrial order in which agriculture found itself. 

 They argued, and with much effect, that many, if not most, of the difficul- 

 ties from which the farmers suffered arose from the subjugation of agri- 

 culture to the hegemony of the industrial state. Indignantly they warned 

 the policy makers, and our industrial, financial and commercial leaders, 

 that our entire social economy would suffer from maladjustments unless 

 a better balance was established between agriculture, industry, and labor. 



The role assumed by the agrarians poses a double-barreled question. 

 First, why is it that this farm agitation reached the peak that it did in 

 the western Middle West instead of in the South, which certainly was far 

 more distressed, or in the New England and Middle Atlantic states, or 

 for that matter on the Pacific Coast? Second, why is it that so much of 

 the farm leadership came from these states? 



Perhaps one reason why the New England and the Middle Atlantic 

 states failed to furnish leadership in the fashion that led the western 

 Middle West is that farming had been declining there for some years. 

 Besides, several of the causes which made for this endless unrest were 

 absent in these states. These farmers were close to the large centers of 

 population, hence to the biggest consuming centers in the country. These 

 conditions fostered an intensive as opposed to an extensive type of farm- 

 ing, such as dairying and vegetable and fruit growing, which contributed 

 to keep the price of land and farm values low and in turn protected the 

 farmers from the evil effects of inflation and tenancy. 2 The nearness of 

 the market also meant lower freight costs for them ; the lower land values 

 meant lighter tax burdens, while the intensive methods of farming 

 encouraged by these conditions yielded crops of greater intrinsic value. 

 Such a state of affairs was neither conducive to an agitative spirit nor 

 productive of an aggressive type of farm leadership. Perhaps the more 

 complacent spirit that prevailed in these states helps account for the fact 

 that the Grange the conservative, ritualistic, rural Masonic order made 

 the progress that it did in these parts. 



2. E. A. Goldenweiser and Leon E. Truesdell, Farm Tenancy in the United States, 

 Bureau of the Census (Washington, 1924), pp. 23, 48, 50-51; Report of the Presi- 

 dent's Committee, Farm Tenancy, National Resources Committee (Washington, 

 i937)> P- 9k 



