ii4 THE THIRD POWER 



from an original value of J2 cents. It is thus seen 

 that the farmer's wheat has doubled in price by the 

 time it reaches the consumer. By the route of the 

 bakery 50 to 100 per cent, more will be added. It is 

 the same way with the farmer's meat, butter, eggs, 

 fruit, vegetables, cotton, etc. The farmers are not 

 responsible for the price consumers pay. They are 

 not now and never were responsible for the high cost 

 of living. And the consumers should rejoice at the 

 thought that the farmers soon will be in a position, 

 through the help of the American Society of Equity, 

 to cut out the mountains of profit that have been 

 raised between the producers and the consumers. 



In the meantime it is important that the American 

 people should know that both the price that the 

 farmer gets and the price the consumer pays are 

 made by organized speculators, trusts, middlemen 

 and manufacturers. They say that prices are made 

 by the law of supply and demand — which is the mer- 

 est subterfuge. That law, under present conditions, 

 is a myth and a fraud. It may be better called a ma- 

 chine erected by the boards of trade to work in an or- 

 ganized market, and directed against an unorganized 

 source of supply. This machine is equipped with nu- 

 merous levers, wheels and spigots. As you pull a 

 lever of frosts, floods or drought, you reduce the 

 supply, and prices go up. Turn a wheel of increased 

 visible supply or open a spigot of favorable weather 

 in the Argentine or elsewhere, and prices go down. 

 And there are men who put in all their days and 



