TRANSPORTATION QUESTION. 



having successfully combatted and dictated terms to over 

 reaching capital. 



THE BUGLE-CALL. 



In March, 1869, the Hon. Henry 0. Wheeler, a farmer 

 of Du Page County, Illinois, who had distinguished hynself 

 by his efforts to stir up his fellow-workers to a due sense of 

 their power, issued a call for a convention of farmers of the 

 North-west, to be held at Bloomington, Illinois, on the fol 

 lowing 20th of April. This document possesses great inter 

 est, as a forcible statement of the case of the producers 

 against their enemies, and, still more, as leading to the first 

 clearly-defined protest of an organization of farmers against 

 the extortions of the monopolists, who were eating out their 

 substance. Mr. Wheeler s manifesto was published in the 

 principal papers of the North-west, and was as follows : 



THE TKANSPOKTATION QUESTION. 



THE RELATION OF THE CARRYING TO THE PRODUCING INTER 

 EST OF THE COUNTRY CALL FOR A CONVENTION. 



To the Farmers of the North-west : Will you permit a working 

 farmer, whose entire interest is identified with yours, to address to 

 you a word of warning ? 



A crisis in our affairs is approaching, and dangers threaten. 



You are aware that the price of many of our leading staples is so 

 low that they can not be transported to the markets of Europe, or 

 even to our own seaboard, and leave a margin for profits, by reason 

 of the excessive rates of transportation. 



During the war but little attention was given to the great increase 

 in the price of freights, as the price of produce was proportionately 

 high; but we look in vain for any abatement, now that we are 

 obliged to accept less than half the former prices for much that we 



