256 THE GREEN RISING 



his economic rights and to dare maintain them in 

 political action, or he will forever go on carrying 

 water for his more realistic countrymen. 



"For all the progress already made, complete polit- 

 ical farmer-mindedness is still a long way ahead. 

 The farmer as a whole is not yet a class. He is only 

 a crowd. In politics he retains a marvelous appetite 

 for stones in lieu of bread. He is prone to accept 

 as his political leaders attorneys for the interests 

 by which he is exploited. He votes for tariffs which 

 rob him. He supports an immigration policy which 

 refuses him the consumer at home that our trade 

 policy denies him abroad. His mind is plied by a 

 periodical literature whose main support is the in- 

 terests from whose grip he needs to escape. The 

 farmer suffers by the fact that there is almost no 

 farmer-supported press to speak for him." 4 



From another viewpoint William C. Lankford 

 analyzes the farmer's difficulties in a speech in Con- 

 gress as follows: "The great trouble, Mr. Speaker, 

 is that three-fourths of the time of the Congress is 

 taken up with passing legislation that hurts the 

 farmer and puts on his already bended back addi- 

 tional burdens, and the other one-fourth of the time 

 of Congress is taken up shouting for the farmers and 

 for those that toil in an effort to fool them into 

 believing that something is really about to be done 

 for them." 5 



4 See The New Republic for April 16, 1924, p. 200. 



6 See Congressional Record for March 16, 1925, p. 5840. 



