42 THE THIRD POWER 



were resistance on the part of any class to the farm- 

 er's demand for fair price for his products, and if 

 the farmer should refuse to sell them for less, it is 

 evident that there would be panic and starvation. 

 The farmer can live on what he raises, and can 

 even, as he once did, make his own clothes. But 

 the men in the banks, the offices and the mills must 

 have bread, vegetables, fruit and meat. Suppose 

 they could not get them. Pushing the case to this 

 last extremity you can easily appreciate the extent 

 of the farmer's power, the absolute nature of his 

 independence. God rules in Heaven, and the farm- 

 ers own the earth. All others are suspended some- 

 where between and are absolutely dependent on the 

 farmers in this world, as on God in the next. The 

 farmer is, or may be, if he chooses, wholly self-sup- 

 porting. No other class of the community can be, 

 for all men rely, and must rely, on the farmer to 

 keep them alive. If he should decline to market, on 

 the ground that he was not being paid sufficiently 

 for his service, a crisis would be presented with 

 which the government would have to concern it- 

 self. Yet all the while the farmers would be doing- 

 nothing that the miners and manufacturers are not 

 doing every day. Indeed, they would be doing only 

 what other men are now doing with the farmer's 

 grain, meat and produce. The only difference is, 

 that the farmer's corner would be more complete 

 and his control of output and prices, being applied 

 to commodities that are absolute essentials, would 



