FARMERS TO THE FRONT 53 



Success will bring unexpected allies, and will un- 

 cover and discomfit secret enemies. Would the 

 American colonists ever have won their freedom if 

 they had waited for France to begin the struggle? 

 Nay, rather did not France withhold her aid till she 

 was convinced that the colonists could win their 

 freedom even without her aid? The Cuban patriots 

 battled for a generation before our great republic, at 

 last convinced that there could be no peace till Spain 

 was driven from the island, intervened in behalf of 

 Cuban freedom and independence. English liber- 

 ties are the product of centuries of toil and fight, 

 and it was the French people that won liberty for 

 France and maintained it against combined Europe. 

 So the American farmer must not whine, and beg, 

 and supplicate, must not rely on politics and poli- 

 ticians, nor even on Divine Providence wholly, but 

 must, as others have done, fight his own battles. 

 The victory is sure. And when it is won, as won it 

 will be, it will be found that all will be benefited. 

 So it is true that no American freeman, able and 

 willing to support himself without bonuses or sub- 

 sidies from the government, and without the protec- 

 tion of unfair and unjust laws, loving justice and 

 fair play, and asking for nothing more than is 

 rightly his — an honest reward for honest toil — need 

 have the slightest apprehension about this move- 

 ment for the organization of the farmers. The beg- 

 gars, the preyers on other men's wealth, the par- 

 asites, the government pets, the grafters, the bood- 



