136 THE THIRD POWER 



work of the farmers or of the friends of the farmer. 

 They were devised by men who understood per- 

 fectly that the agricultural class is docile, patient, 

 and most easily fleeced. The farmer is not inter- 

 ested in paying taxes for the benefit of people who 

 never seek to benefit him, in narrowing the market 

 for farm products, or in provoking retaliation from 

 foreign governments. What he wants is freedom, 

 equity, fair play to all, markets as wide as the world, 

 low taxes — and not one of these things is his at the 

 present time. With all these, and with the American 

 Society of Equity at work in his behalf, he probably 

 would need little else from the government. But 

 whatever he needed, he would get. For the politi- 

 cians, who now so quickly forget the farmer, would 

 realize that it was dangerous to do so, if they found 

 that they were dealing with a great organization 

 acting as a unit — an organization that refused to 

 accept promises as legal tender, but that insisted on 

 a redemption of those promises in honesty and good 

 faith. Thus may the farmers make their influence 

 felt in the condition of affairs which is rightfully 

 theirs. The Third Power can easily defeat the first, 

 second or third house. The farmers will be ignored 

 as long as it is safe to ignore them, and no longer. 

 The thing to do is to make it unsafe. The American 

 Society of Equity is the means to bring that result 

 to pass. 



