THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 351 



or has he not ? That is the question. If he has not, 

 then we have been wronged of just so much money. 

 For everything beyond a fair and reasonable equivalent 

 for the service rendered is just as much stolen from us 

 as if he held a pistol at your head and said, 'Your 

 money or your life ; ' taking it because you had no 

 pistol and he was the stronger. 



" It is useless to try to dodge this proposition, for it 

 can't be done. When a man who has earned nothing 

 by productive industry, but who has simply handled 

 the products of labor, has accumulated that amount in 

 a number of years, it is a proof that something is wrong. 

 The whole wrong lies in this, that we are getting too 

 little for our products, and those who handle them are 

 getting too much. 



" Colonel Coleman has shown you what it costs to 

 get a bushel of corn or wheat to market from where he 

 lives in Missouri, and we all know what it costs here, 

 and that we pay three-fourths of the product of our 

 labor to get the other fourth to market. If this is so, 

 who fixes the price upon your labor? What have you 

 to say in regard to its price any more than did the slave 

 of the South in the days of his worst estate ? We are 

 in fact in a condition of slavery unless we can control 

 the price of our own labor. If you fix the price of my 

 labor you circumscribe my actions and fix me to one 

 plan for my lifetime, without opportunity for rest or 

 recreation. How do the monopolists get these prices ? 

 Take the plowmen of this State ; all have their annual 

 conventions. They come together and agree that they 

 will have just so much for plows during that year, no 

 matter what we may get for our products; and for the 

 last two years they have asked one hundred per cent. 



