INTERNATIONAL CONSOLIDATION 207 



Therefore, when he comes to the owners of railroads, tele- 

 graphs, elevators, stock-yards, cold storage warehouses, etc., 

 they charge him for their inevitable and indispensable serv- 

 ices as much as ''traffic will bear." Railway charges and ele- 

 vator tolls, combined with farm and machine mortgages, 

 swallow up almost all the value of his produce. 



Where, however, the modern specialist farmer of the United 

 States is at the very tremendous and simply fatal disadvan- 

 tage, this is in the final disposal of his crops. When, after all, 

 he reaches the market, too often he finds there financial panics 

 and fluctuations of prices, which sweep away practically all 

 his possessions. Moreover, in the unhealthy structure of mod- 

 ern industry, founded on the wrong adjustment of production 

 and abnormal distribution of produce, a new species of pests 

 were bred, immeasurably more injurious to the welfare of the 

 American farmer than any pest known heretofore to his 

 forefathers. A special class of men came into existence in 

 this great competitive world market, who made it their busi- 

 ness to defy the natural basic principle of social economy 

 known as the law of demand and supply, and by misrepre- 

 sentations, misinformations and frauds of all kinds to filch 

 away from the farmer his produce. Speculators, grain deal- 

 ers, grain buyers, grain gamblers, grain brokers, tobacco buy- 

 ers, commission merchants, commission men, cotton factors, 

 cotton brokers and many, many others, whose name is legion, 

 stand between the agricultural producer of this free country 

 and the consumer of his products. The farmers are so nu- 

 merous, and the competition among them in disposal of their 

 products is so fierce, that they are inevitably at the mercy of 

 this numerous army of so-called middlemen immeasurably 

 more than any other class of producers, being practically com- 

 pelled to accept whatever price is offered. Moreover, the 

 middlemen buy from the farmers practically upon commis- 

 sion, and in this many not only make the latter sustain losses 

 by their false reports as to the prices received, by dishonesty 

 of their patrons and bad debts incident thereto, and by many 

 other causes, but practically compel helpless agricultural pro- 

 ducers of the country to supply the capital for their fraudulent 

 operations. Being isolated and often lacking capital as well as 



