THE LEAVEN OF RADICALISM 197 



energies principally to promoting the social and 

 intellectual welfare of the farmer and to business 

 cooperation, sometimes on a large scale. But, as 

 soon as an organization has drawn into its ranks a 

 considerable proportion of the farmers of a State, 

 especially in the West, the temptation to use its 

 power in the field of politics is almost irresistible. 

 At first, political activity is usually confined to 

 declarations in favor of measures believed to be in 

 the interests of the farmers as a class; but from 

 this it is only a short step to the support of candi- 

 dates for office who are expected to work for those 

 measures ; and thence the gra dation is easy to actual 

 nominations by the order or by a farmers' conven- 

 tion which it has called into being. With direct 

 primaries in operation in most of the Western 

 States, these movements no longer culminate in the 

 formation of the third party but in ambitious efforts 

 to capture the dominant party in the State. Thus 

 in Wisconsin the president of the state union of the 

 American Society of Equity, a farmers' organiza- 

 tion which has heretofore been mainly interested in 

 cooperative buying and selling, was recently put 

 forward by a "Farmers and Laborers Conference" 

 as candidate for the nomination for governor on 

 the Republican ticket and had the active support 



