THE FARMERS WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 325 



that seek to control them, and disregard the laws con- 

 cerning them. They do not mean to submit to control. 

 They have reaped a rich harvest from the farmers. 

 Railroad directors have fattened too long upon the 

 plunder of the farm to give it up without a struggle. 

 Thej mean to make it so terrible for the farmers to 

 fight the road that the latter will be forced to cease to 

 defend their rights, and submit to any exaction that 

 may be levied upon them. They mean that the world 

 shall continue to witness the unequal state of affairs 

 now existing, in which the farmer is growing poorer 

 and the railroad director richer. 



It certainly is a very unfortunate state of affairs 

 which makes the bread-producing interest of the country 

 the chief sufferer from the rapacity of railroads. Yet 

 there is no denying the fact that the cereals of the 

 agricultural States are taxed more heavily by the rail- 

 road corporations than any other products of the land. 



Mr. W. M. Grosvenor, from whom we have quoted in 

 a previous chapter, has recently published an article of 

 unusual ability in the November number of the Atlantic 

 Monthly (which we commend to the perusal of the 

 readers of this work), in which, though differing widely 

 from the views expressed in these pages, he sets forth 

 in a masterly manner the reasons why grain is the 

 principal sufferer from railroad extortion. Let us hear 

 him : 



" Three men meet in a room in New York. They 

 are not called kings, wear no crowns, and bear no scep- 

 tres. They merely represent trunk lines of railway 

 from the Mississippi to New York. Other points settled, 

 one says, 'As to the grain rate ; shall we make it fifty 

 from Chicago ? ' 



