SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 121 



hand much complaint has been made of the high cost of living 

 and the desperate straits of the consumer. Many causes have 

 been advanced to account for this state of affairs, but probably 

 none more frequently than the somewhat vague accusation that 

 the middlemen take all the profits. 



It is asserted that the farmer must take what he is offered for 

 his products and pay what he is asked for his supplies and equip- 

 ment that he fixes the price neither of what he sells nor what 

 he buys. In a general way and considering farmers individ- 

 ually, this is undoubtedly true. When it is said that this is due 

 to the machinations of predatory middlemen the statement needs 

 some qualifications. 



In the main, the system of middlemen has arisen and developed 

 with the growth of farming for the market. As soon as farmers 

 began to give up producing solely for themselves and to raise 

 crops to sell, the question of means of disposal of crops became 

 very important. One of the first middlemen was the local 

 buyer, often the storekeeper, who took the farmer's produce, 

 sold him dry goods, groceries and supplies, and in his turn 

 passed the corn and eggs, feathers and honey, on to the user or 

 manufacturer. 



But division of occupations and industries resulting in the 

 growth of cities and the concentration of population on the one 

 hand and the call for more raw materials of agriculture on the 

 other, gradually separated the countryman from the urban 

 dweller geographically, commercially and socially. Commer- 

 cially the division meant that the farmer must devote himself 

 to growing crops and producing raw materials of food and 

 clothing, that the manufacturer and artisan give themselves up 

 to their vocations; hence of necessity there grew up a lot of 

 marketmen, transporters, storage men, purveyors and the like, 

 who made a business of getting goods from the farmer to the 

 consumer and from the manufacturer to the farmer. 



This body of men holds a strategic position which has been 

 strengthened by combination, capital investments, natural and 

 trade monopolies, and a beneficent Congress. It is not difficult 

 to understand that they are powerful because they have by 

 organization and superior bargaining ability come to dominate 



