14 THE THIRD POWER 



price that will stimulate over-production, but an 

 equitable price that will always secure the neces- 

 saries, comfort and some of the luxuries of life. A 

 good price for a large crop, as well as for a short 

 crop. A steadily maintained price, made by farm- 

 ers, on the farm, instead of the uncertain price made 

 by the speculators and gamblers on the boards of 

 trade in large cities. They may and do make 

 money — a few of them — out of an occasional corner, 

 but the artificially raised price stimulates holdings ; 

 the farmers do not sell until the gamblers have had 

 their innings, the price breaks, and the farmers rush 

 their produce to market, and more often than not 

 the sales are made on a falling market, and at prices 

 as much too low as the corner price was too high. 

 Speculators know how prone farmers are to hold on 

 a rising market, and this helps them to accomplish 

 their ends. In other words, the farmer does not 

 control the situation. He simply supplies the chips 

 with which the gamblers play the game, and even 

 when he wins he does so in violation of the princi- 

 ples of equity. There is no design on the part of 

 the gamblers that he should win. The grain pits are 

 a curse to everybody that they touch. They are 

 barnacles that have attached themselves on the pro- 

 duce of the earth. The speculators and gamblers in 

 farm products are sap-sucking, unholy, Godless 

 things that are holding up and gorging themselves 

 on labor's portion as it is created on the farms. 

 Boards of trade now run in the large cities are the 



