RESULTS OF AGRARIANISM 255 



to grasp the legislative helping hand? Is he ready 

 for bungling lawmakers to become arbiters of his 

 destiny?" 



The answer to this editorial query is undoubtedly 

 an affirmation. The farmer has seen subsidies 

 granted to others. He has come to believe that his 

 only chance for equal opportunities is "to grasp the 

 legislative helping hand." Sound public policy 

 might suggest that it would be better to reverse the 

 practices of a century and deny to all classes special 

 privileges and immunities. But the farmer knows 

 that such a radical reversal of governmental policy 

 is not to be expected. Tradition and precedent are 

 predominant factors in our political life. The 

 influence of industrial enterprise is too great and 

 special privileges have been enjoyed too long for 

 the policy of protection and special privileges to 

 be denied. The farmer, therefore, has only one 

 choice to seek to equalize his opportunities by 

 securing legislation as favorable to him as it has 

 been, and is, to other classes of our citizenship. 



Walter Locke, in a well considered review of this 

 general attitude of the farmer today, says: "Which- 

 ever course the farmers follow, and they are pretty 

 sure to have their try at both, their success de- 

 pends upon the development and maintenance of 

 an effective measure of political solidarity. Experi- 

 ence proves this necessary even though it is not 

 special privilege the farmers go after, but merely an 

 economic equality. The farmer has got to know 



