2 THE GREEN RISING 



President of the United States to call a national 

 agricultural conference; it proposed a program of 

 cooperative marketing as a solution of the farmer's 

 economic problems, and in four years twelve thou- 

 sand cooperative associations were organized with 

 a membership of two million farmers. The busi- 

 ness activities of this organization in 1923 were re- 

 ported to have exceeded $2,200,000,000. This merely 

 illustrates one of the significant aspects of the move- 

 ment, that is not only nation-wide, but world-wide. 

 Nothing like this has ever happened before in the 

 world's history. No other group of any nation's 

 population has ever influenced so profoundly the 

 economic and political life of the people in so many 

 ways, in the same period of time, as this farm 

 movement. 



It is not an exaggeration to designate such a 

 movement as this as an agrarian revolution. The 

 Oxford dictionary defines agrarianism as "a political 

 agitation or civil dissension arising from dissatis- 

 faction with the existing tenure of land." Expressed 

 in other words, agrarianism signifies an organized 

 effort on the part of the farm population, or a soci- 

 ally conscious group of farmers, to secure a redistri- 

 bution of land or the establishment by law of con- 

 ditions more favorable to the use and occupation of 

 land. An agrarian revolution is concerted action on 

 the part of farmers to bring about economic or social 

 changes that promise to improve farm life conditions. 



