116 FARMERS' UNION AND FEDERATION 



Farmers Not Proportionally Represented in Congress. 



In the United States Census for 1910 the total population 

 is given at 91,972,26642,623,383 classed as urban, and 

 49,348,883 as rural. The latter includes 8,118,825 living in 

 villages of less than 2,500, leaving 41,230,058 as strictly the 

 population engaged in some class of farming, or food pro- 

 duction. Most cities from 2,500 to 25,000 draw most of 

 their prosperity from the income to surrounding farmers, 

 thus having financial and political interests identical with 

 them, and adding 16,079,567 more to their number. This 

 would give them over seventy per cent of the population 

 with identical community interests, and would entitle them 

 to 67 of the 96 Senators, and 304 of the 435 Representatives 

 in the Sixty-third Congress. But instead of that, they had 

 only six in the Senate two farmers, two planters, one 

 stockraiser and one cotton planter ; and only twenty-two in 

 the House of Representatives eighteen farmers and one 

 stockraiser, planter, cattleman, horticulturist and agricul- 

 turist. No wonder farmers get no aid from Congress to in- 

 crease their wages as other classes do. 



To remedy this inequality, the producers of each farm 

 product should unionize and then federate, to enable them 

 to nominate and elect members of Congress from their own 

 unions. 



Here follows part of an address of an Iowa Congressman 

 to farmers, delivered before the convention of National 

 Board of Farm Organizations, held at Washington, D. C., 

 Tuesday, February 11, 1919 : 



ADDRESS OF HON. GILBERT N. HAUGEN, M. C., MEMBER OF COMMITTEE 



ON AGRICULTURE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

 "When asked by your secretary what subject I mieht prefer to dis- 

 cuss, I said : ' Though no comment on the organization seems neces- 

 sary, having come in contact with a number of the officers and members 

 of the association and knowing of their high type of character and 

 rectitude of purpose and ability to do things, I was naturally interested 

 in your organization and its success, and, if agreeable, I would prefer 

 to offer a word of encouragement.' 



