THE STORY OF THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE 



ornamental card and centered all with the 

 total of 84 cents as the farmer's share of a 

 restaurant bill of $11.95. Then in mock 

 heroics they repeated the eloquence where- 

 with they had been baptized a few nights 

 before: "You represent the most important 

 element in human society! You are the sin- 

 ews of the nation's prosperity! You perform 

 the indispensable service!" singsonging it, 

 and, I grieve to say, mocking the solemn 

 statesmen. "At the rate of 84 cents in about 

 every twelve dollars," added the chorus. 



I have no idea that in the succeeding pages 

 I can remove the fixed belief of the dwellers 

 in cities that the farmer of America is becom- 

 ing clog-footed with wealth, but it has oc- 

 curred to me that a plain record of the tragic 

 struggles of a large body of American farmers 

 for bare justice and a chance to live, struggles 

 extending over a generation, made against 

 discouraging odds, and still going on, might 

 have some interest as a human as well as a 

 social and political document of facts. And 

 having seen and had some part in most of 

 these activities, I have set down in the fol- 

 lowing pages my own observations of what 

 was really a characteristic American drama. 



For a generation after 1880 two human 

 tides moved in the highways between the 

 Middle Northwest and the older world to the 



