372 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



" Mr. Smith admitted that the amount of the crop 

 greatly affected the price of grain, but said that there 

 was another reason why the farmers got so little for 

 their crops they are so constantly in need of money 

 that they are obliged to sell for what they can get, 

 instead of fixing their own price. ' Suppose,' he said, 

 'that each of our grocers in town should load up a 

 wagon every morning and send it into the country with 

 instructions to the driver to sell it out for whatever it 

 would fetch, and bring back corn ; don't you suppose 

 groceries would be cheap and corn high ? Reverse the 

 picture, and you have the state of affairs actually ex- 

 isting. The farmer must have tea and coffee and sugar. 

 He loads up his wagon with corn and takes it to town. 

 The grocer says : " This tea cost me a dollar a pound ; 

 I will sell it to you for a dollar and fifteen cents ; the 

 coffee cost me forty cents ; I will sell it to you for fifty." 

 The farmer is obliged to take them at these prices or 

 not at all. He has no money and must sell his corn in 

 order to purchase them. But he is not allowed to say 

 to the grocer : " This corn cost me twenty-five cents a 

 bushel ; I shall have to ask you thirty." The grocer, 

 on the other hand, says to him : " I'll pay you twenty 

 cents." Now, this will continue just as long as the 

 farmers are no more prosperous than they are now. I 

 hold that there never has been an over-production ; that 

 there is a demand for all that is raised, if it could only 

 be got cheaply to market. What is needed is for the 

 farmers to be able to hold on to their grain when the 

 price is low and sell when the market is favorable.' 



" Mr. Smith, like many other farmers whom I have 

 met, complained of the enormous profits made by mid- 

 dle-men on almost every manufactured article the 



