RESULTS OF AGRARIANISM 259 



party alignments of farmers will keep many of them 

 in the old parties. In the third place, the farmer 

 seems unable to determine whether he is a capitalist 

 or a laborer. His pleas for support from other 

 groups, therefore, are not very persuasive or con- 

 vincing. 



The Third Party movement led by La Follette 

 and Wheeler undertook to effect a combination be- 

 tween agriculture and industrial labor. The hopes 

 of the campaign were based upon the prospects of 

 winning the farmer vote in the West and the in- 

 dustrial labor vote in the East. These expectations 

 were not realized in either direction. The fact is, 

 that the combination of industrial labor and agri- 

 culture is illogical. As Herbert E. Gaston says, 

 "There is an essential, fundamental, and basic con- 

 flict of interests. The farmer is a capitalist and his 

 interests are with capitalists, not with the wage- 

 workers. Moreover, high industrial wages mean 

 high prices for shoes, clothing, agricultural imple- 

 ments, flivvers, canned vegetables, and other things 

 on and with which the farmer subsists and carries 

 on his activity. Conversely, the worker wants his 

 bread and meat cheap and he can't have it so 

 if the farmer gets what he wants politically and 

 economically/' 7 



When we turn to the farm capitalist's viewpoint, 

 we also encounter difficulties in finding a common 

 ground on which agricultural and capitalistic enter- 



7 See The New Republic for September 3, 1924, p. 10. 



