2 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



Looking around for one cause to which to attribute 

 all their misfortunes, they pitched upon the corpo- 

 rations or monopolies, as they chose to call them, 

 and especially upon the railroads. 



At first the farmers had looked upon the coming 

 of the railroads as an unmixed blessing. The rail- 

 road had meant the opening up of new territory, 

 the establishment of channels of transportation 

 by which they could send their crops to market. 

 Without the railroad, the farmer who did not live 

 near a navigable stream must remain a backwoods- 

 man; he must make his own farm or his immediate 

 community a self-sufficing unit; he must get from 

 his own land bread and meat and clothing for his 

 family; he must be stock-raiser, grain-grower, far- 

 rier, tinker, soap-maker, tanner, chandler Jack- 

 of-all-trades and master of none. With the rail- 

 road he gained access to markets and the opportu- 

 nity to specialize in one kind of farming; he could 

 now sell his produce and buy in exchange many of 

 the articles he had previously made for himself at 

 the expense of much time and labor. Many farm- 

 ers and farming communities bought railroad bonds 

 in the endeavor to increase transportation facili- 

 ties; all were heartily in sympathy with the policy 

 of the Government in granting to corporations land 



