RESULTS OF AGRARIANISM 253 



directly upon the farmer but also tended to build 

 up industrial and trading monopolies to exploit him 

 further. 



"The farmer of today still opposes monetary de- 

 flation, detests the trusts, and regards the railways 

 as instruments of oppression. But he no longer 

 believes that tinkering with the money standard, 

 prosecuting the trusts, and curbing the railways will 

 bring him substantial relief. As an individual he is 

 helpless in the contest with business and industry 

 which combine spontaneously, law or no law. The 

 great advance in prices resulting from the war of- 

 fered the farmer conclusive proof of his relative 

 weakness. His products promptly slipped back to 

 the pre-war price level, while industrial prices main- 

 tained themselves at fifty per cent above that level. 

 The only help for his case appeared to lie in the 

 adoption of the weapon of his enemies, combination. 

 And so we have had recently under the name of 

 cooperation an epidemic of agrarian combinations: 

 tobacco growers, grain growers, cotton growers, as 

 well as a multiplicity of combinations among pro- 

 ducers of minor and localized crops." 



Attitude of Farmers toward Class Legislation 



The farmer seems to have assumed also that the 

 state and national governments are thoroughly com- 

 mitted to a policy of class legislation and that his 

 only hope is to share in the special privileges secured 

 by governmental action. This point of view was 



