22 THE THIRD POWER 



cultural state. Nothing could keep the farmer from 

 getting the lands of the Indian and the ranchman. 

 But the moment the farmer attempts to better his 

 condition then we have a howl from the men who 

 use every power they have, not simply to help them- 

 selves, but to persuade or force the government into 

 helping them. So we have this in the article in 

 Harper's Weekly : 



"The demagogue devotes a great deal of attention 

 to the farmers. Frequent schemes for uniting the 

 wheat-growers or for forcing up the price of corn 

 are evolved ; cooperative plans to make unnecessary 

 the 'middleman' are exploited — and usually with 

 provision for a salary or commission to some shrewd 

 city promoter who would not know a self-binder 

 from a corn-harvester. Every little while the tele- 

 graph tells of the probable formation of a mighty 

 union of farmers to reduce or limit the acreage of 

 some crop. It ends in smoke — it was the dream of 

 a schemer who hoped to profit by its success." 



The threatened combination of the farmers is 

 clearly not looked on with approval by the financial 

 interests. Nothing that would benefit the farmer 

 ever was looked on with approval by those interests. 

 So in this article, the farmer is warned against 

 "demagogues" seeking to make money out of their 

 schemes, as if the very men who sound the warning 

 had not all their lives made their living by "farm- 

 ing the farmers." There are many good texts in 

 this Harper's Weekly article. Here is another: 



