FARMERS TO THE FRONT 49 



government. The fear is, not that the farmers 

 would be unjust, but that they would insist on equal 

 and exact justice to all. And justice is the last 

 thing that the corporation trust magnates, graft 

 gatherers and the tariff-pampered manufacturers 

 want under the present system. Many men in this 

 country at the present time thrive on inequity, and 

 so they do not want the present arrangement dis- 

 turbed. 



The man who both buys and sells grain or other 

 produce at prices made, not by the owners but by 

 himself, knows well enough that he would have no 

 just cause for complaint if the farmer made the 

 prices on the farm. But he does not want this, be- 

 cause he thinks it would interfere with his own 

 game, and would curtail or destroy his profits. But 

 he may be mistaken, as a certain profit would be 

 better than an uncertain one. So the protected 

 manufacturer, who buys in a free trade market and 

 sells in a protected one, thinks he does not care to 

 have the farmer share in that advantage. To his 

 mind there is nothing wrong in compelling the 

 farmer to pay tariff-raised prices on all that he uses, 

 and to sell his products at free trade prices, and in 

 competition with the whole world. The banker 

 favors cooperation between himself and the farmer 

 which shall enable the banker to fix the rate of in- 

 terest which the farmer shall pay, but he thinks he 

 would not like to have the farmers cooperate with 

 one another so that they might become their own 

 4 



