THE STORY OF THE NOXP ARTISAN LEAGUE 



the larger part was the burden of the pro- 

 ducer and meant to him many thmgs. It 

 meant the reason for the overthrow of the 

 manifest purposes of Providence; it meant 

 why the fertiUty of the soil was made a worth- 

 less asset, why he must toil so long and hard 

 and see other men that never toiled take the 

 fruits of his dense labor, why some such pros- 

 pect of toil and always toil to small result was 

 all he could see for himseK and his children. 

 The outside world never understood his 

 grievance and is yet unaware of it; but fair- 

 minded men that will take the trouble to 

 weigh his complaint will find it founded on 

 at least one hard, undeniable physical fact, 

 as bad for society at large as for the farmer. 

 God made the soil fertile, the farmer's hard 

 work made it bring forth what the world 

 wanted, and then other hands and many of 

 them, having nothing to do with production, 

 came in and seized the fatness of the tilth. 



These hands had in the course of time 

 perverted and bedeviled what was in itself 

 one of the simplest of processes. From the 

 farm to the mill, from the mill to the con- 

 sumer, nothing else was involved; for the 

 purpose of raising wheat was not to give spec- 

 ulation something to play ducks and drakes 

 with, but to supply mankind with the bread 

 by which they lived. But the system that 

 had grown up lined the plain straight road 



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