WHY THERE IS NOT MORE FOOD 97 



The farmer has always been ready and wiUing to 

 produce. And he has continued to produce even 

 under an embargo almost as tight as that against 

 a belligerent country. But gradually one line of 

 livehhood after another has been taken from him 

 by the railroads, terminals, refrigerator-car com- 

 panies, packers, cold-storage plants, or a combina- 

 tion of middlemen acting in concert with these 

 agencies. 



This is why farming in the Eastern States has 

 ceased to be profitable. This is why farmers have 

 abandoned their farms. They have been driven 

 from them by the distributing agencies who really 

 control their industry. And when these agencies 

 had destroyed local competition and built up pro- 

 duction in the South and West, when the local abat- 

 toir was closed and the local market-house had 

 fallen into disuse, when the farmer ceased to pro- 

 duce for the local market in material quantities, 

 then these same agencies turned on the big producers, 

 the cattlemen of Texas and the wheat-growers of 

 Dakota, the truckmen of the South, and repeated 

 the same process. They combined against the 

 cattleman and paid him less than the cattle cost. 

 They rigged the price of wheat in the grain-pit; 

 they glutted the local markets with fruits, vege- 

 tables, and perishables from a distance, and com- 

 pelled the shippers to accept ruinous prices. Often 

 they destroyed the shipments to keep up prices. 



