THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 353 



another forty cents, and another lot came along. I 

 admit that there are some rich farmers in our coun- 

 try, but the rich ones are the exception, and the 

 poor ones the rule. That is the difference. But did 

 your rich men, who do not owe a dollar in the world 

 and who have their farms stocked and paid, stop to 

 think who fixed the price on your pork ? Why, the 

 men who owned the first notes for reapers and sold the 

 first lot of hogs fixed the price of yours ! The price of 

 your products, be it what it may, is determined by the 

 figure at which those who must sell dispose of theirs. 

 Those who must sell fix the price for those who need 

 not. Is it not then worth while to have a union of all 

 interests, to come together and be brothers in fact as in 

 name ? We can protect each other, and while we pro- 

 tect our poor neighbor and assist him over a tight place, 

 we are protecting ourselves, because if he must sell at 

 twenty cents, that fixes the price upon our corn. Com- 

 bination will beat combination. It is to your interest 

 to come together in these farmers' clubs, granges, 

 organizations, and combinations, for a common purpose, 

 which is the mutual self-protection of the whole people. 

 Did you ever stop to think, my friend, that not a single 

 locomotive nor car can be run over these prairies of ours 

 without the oil manufactured from the hog, and with 

 which they grease their wheels ? Shut down on your 

 pork for one season, and you dry up every locomotive 

 in the State. They cannot run a day without you, nor 

 can people do without pork as an article of food, without 

 lard, or your other products. The wheels of the world 

 will not go unless you grease them with the products 

 of your toil. When you come together and enter into 

 a combination of this sort by your State, county, town- 



