PREFACE. 



ness; and, in fact, on many points I have expressed myself far less 

 strongly than I have really felt. The breach between the Farmers 

 and the Railroads, though wide, by no means seems to me past all 

 healing. It has been perniciously widened by hot-headed enthusiasts 

 and designing demagogues upon both sides. Time and again, with 

 vituperation and invective without stint, it has been declared that the 

 railroad companies would never be satisfied until they had &quot;wrung 

 the last drop of blood from the people.&quot; Simultaneously, and with 

 equal lack both of judgment and truth, the railroad organs have de 

 nounced the farmers as having no just grounds of complaint ; and said 

 they merely seek a pretext for the repudiation of their bonds and the 

 confiscation of railroad property, and even (as a prominent railroad 

 official has lately asserted) that they are really casting about for a 

 method of establishing a sort of commune ! 



As long as this spirit prevails, a peaceful solution of the matters at 

 issue lies in the future. The railroads will yield nothing unless com 

 pelled, while believing, or at least professing to believe, that a con 

 cession would be but the occasion for further demands; and the 

 farmers will not abate one jot or tittle of their claims for redress, 

 while insulted by the transparent falsehood that they have no just 

 cause for complaint. Among a people who profess to be self-gov 

 erned, it ought to be possible to remedy all such grievances without 

 an appeal to regulatory legislation ; and the writer, for one, would 

 yet gladly see delegations appointed in behalf of the contending 

 parties, empowered to confer and arrange the basis for an amicable 

 compromise, reasonable, practicable, and just to all parties. 



Whatever may be the issue of the pending war between the pro 

 ducers and transporters, however, it is clear that from the Farmers 

 Movement, as a whole, great good must result. It has opened the 

 eyes of the masses to gigantic frauds in other directions. Even if 

 this were not the case, the increased interest which the members of 

 Farmers Clubs, Patrons of Husbandry, and like Associations, have 

 manifested in our social and public affairs must be productive of 

 great good to the masses, in the proper education of the present and 

 rising generations in their duties as individuals and citizens. It is 

 through this great quickening of the toiling masses, and their stimu 

 lation to higher endeavor, that either the renovation or overthrow of 

 the effete and corrupt political parties of the day is to be effected. 



J, P, 



CHICAGO, ILL., 19th January, 1S74 



