FARMERS TO THE FRONT 29 



these three powers, as things now stand, to the busi- 

 ness of government. When a man is elected to con- 

 gress he finds that the capitalist and the working 

 man are keenly alive to their own interests, and that 

 they are both capable of exerting, and as a matter 

 of fact, do exert, much influence in Washington and 

 in our various state capitals. Their representatives 

 throng the lobby and committee rooms, and press 

 in the most vigorous way on the lawmakers the 

 claims of labor and capital. If a tariff is to be made, 

 abundant opportunity is given to both capital and 

 labor — especially to the former — to be heard, and the 

 opportunity is improved to the uttermost. When a 

 question of subsidy comes up the rich men who 

 want the subsidy do not hesitate to urge the matter 

 on congress, and congress is exceedingly defer- 

 ential. The working-men have got their eight-hour 

 law, arbitration statutes, laws regulating the opera- 

 tion of factories and mines, anti-child labor laws, 

 weekly wages laws, etc. And all this is taken as a 

 matter of course. But back on the farm, far out on 

 the lonely prairie perhaps, is a man who works with 

 his wife, children and babes, harder than any other 

 class of people on earth. There is no law passed to 

 prevent child labor on the farm. No eight or even 

 ten hour day. They work from sun to sun and then 

 some more, and oftentimes when the year rolls 

 around receive a smaller waere than convicts who 

 are farmed out to corporations. Our new congress- 

 man hears little or nothing of him. He does not 



