16 The State and the Farmer 



but I never heard a debate on the plow, which 

 is really mightier than either. 



Many great economic and social changes 

 have directed the attention of all the people 

 cityward. Canals, railroads, telegraphs, postal 

 routes have drained the country into the city. 

 Wealth has been piled up at the terminals, 

 which are the trading places, until society has 

 become ganglionic in its organization. Bank- 

 ing systems take the money from the hands 

 of those who earn it, and put it into the 

 hands of those who trade with it. The earn- 

 ings tend to leave the place of their origin to 

 build up remote or aggregated interests. The 

 organizations that control farmers by control- 

 ling their products are in the cities. The 

 tariff-for-protection system has fostered this 

 general aggregational movement. It has tended 

 to the concentration of wealth. If it has aided 

 the farmer, it is because it has aided some 

 one else first and more. 



We have been living in an epoch of city 

 development, with no adequate means of re- 

 distributing or returning the energy to the 



