-88 THE GROUNDSWELL. 



munity at large. They have subsidized railroads with 

 money obtained by the mortgage of their farms, which rail 

 roads, being completed, have been absorbed by the great 

 trunk lines, controlled and manipulated by a handful of 

 money-grabbing adventurers in the great cities of the East. 

 The American farmers case, in a nut- shell, is about as 

 follows : He was a hard worker, and the lawyer legislated 

 away his substance. Needing help and health and 

 strength, the doctor purged and bled him; whereupon the 

 undertaker, believing him nearly ready for the last rites, be 

 gan preparing the shroud and coffin for his burial. By the 

 lawyer we mean the politician; by the doctor, the railroad 

 and other moneyed corporations; and by the undertaker, 

 the consolidation of power, through monopoly, which, in its 

 arrogance, has undertaken to say what the farmer shall re 

 ceive as the price of his sweat and toil. 



THE AGRICULTURAL PRESS A TRUSTY COUN 

 SELOR. 



Happily, during all this time, the farmer has had the 

 stimulating counsel of the Agricultural press, which has 

 maintained a stubborn front, and has been the means of set 

 ting on foot the organizations out of which deliverance is 

 to come. The power of that press for good, however, has 

 been limited, compared with the influence of the organs of 

 other professions, first, from the fact that farmers are scat 

 tered over wide areas, while other professions are concentra 

 ted in villages and cities ; and, second, because farmers, as a 

 class, are not a reading people. In proportion to their num 

 bers, they read less of general news and the current litera 

 ture devoted to their profession than any other class, not 

 even excepting the day laborers of the cities. They have 



