8 FARMERS' 'UNION AND FEDERA TION 



eliminate the competition* 'of foreign goods by a high tariff; 

 that would enable them to more than double the price of 

 their goods to the farmers, while leaving the farmers' prod- 

 ucts mostly free to compete with the pauper-produced 

 crops of Europe and Asia, and, being unorganized, were un- 

 able to get the benefit of what tariff was given them. Big 

 grain dealers and packers formed unions among themselves 

 and manipulated the prices for grain and stock in such a 

 way as to get it from the farmers at pauper-labor prices. All 

 that was because the farmers were not unionized to enable 

 them to set a fair price on their products and to secure it 

 through a strike, as union labor does, by concerted non- 

 delivery, and to elect members of their own class to protect 

 their interests in Congress and State Legislatures. Now, 

 this unionizing of the wheat growers is to enable them to 

 remedy that condition by putting them on an equal footing 

 with unionized labor and unionized capital in their commer- 

 cial and political relations. 



"Oh, rats! Farmers should tend to their own business of 

 farming and keep out of politics." 



There, there, Reuben, don't blow off like that again. 

 Just have patience to hear me through, and then you may 

 see it in a new light if your name is against you. This is to 

 be a presentation of one hundred reasons, with sustaining ar- 

 guments, why wheat growers should unionize. But as the 

 producers of all other farm products should organize into 

 separate unions, this array of reasons will fit their case also, 

 and they can name their product in place of wheat. Then 

 a federation of these separate unions should be organized, 

 with an executive head to represent and defend their com- 

 mon interest as Mr. Gompers does the American Federa- 

 tion of Labor. 



"Well, well! What a delusion! The farmers have had 

 scores of unions and organizations, and they never did stick 

 together and never will. There are too many of them for 

 that." 



