AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 475 



departments of labor share this universal depression in prices? No, Mr. 

 Chairman, it is not overproduction, but under-consumption. There can be 

 no overproduction in a land where the cry for bread is heard. 



"But we are told that we should be content and happy ; that 'a dollar 

 will buy more to-day than ever before.' Mr. Chairman, the American farmer 

 stands a faithful and sorrowing witness of the truth of that declaration. No 

 man living knows better than he the purchasing power of the dollar. He 

 knows that its power has been so augmented that it now demands double the 

 amount of his labor, and the surrender of his profits, to meet its unjust and 

 cruel exactions. Indeed, so arbitrary and domineering has its power become, 

 that it has forced upon the public mind the grave question, whether the 

 citizen or the dollar is to be the sovereign in this country. But with all its 

 power, will it pay for the farmer more interest? Will it pay more on his 

 mortgage? Will it pay more debt? Will it pay more taxes? Will it pay 

 more physicians 1 and lawyers 1 fees ? 



" From all sections of this magnificent country comes the universal wail 

 of hard times and distress. The farmer sows in faith, he toils in hope, but 

 reaps in disappointment and despair. He sees a 4 per cent United States 

 bond, due in 1907, selling at a premium of 28 per cent ; a bond that would be 

 valueless, but for the sturdy blows of his strong arm ; and yet he knows that 

 there are few farms in all this country that could be mortgaged for one-third 

 their value, at 7 per cent, for the same length of time, which mortgage would 

 sell for its face value. He sees centralized capital allied to irresponsible 

 corporate power, overriding individual rights, controlling conventions, corrupt- 

 ing the ballot-box, subsidizing the press, invading our temples of justice, 

 intimidating official authority, fostering official corruption, robbing the many 

 to enrich the few, destroying legitimate competition, dictating legislation, 

 defying the Constitution, and annulling the law of supply and demand. In 

 vain do the people plead for relief. In vain have they suffered and endured 

 patiently, submissively, uncomplainingly. Over one thousand years ago the 

 old Shiek Ilderim, of Medina, said to certain Romans : * Do you dream that, 

 because the prophet of Allah dwells now beyond the bridge of Al Sirat, there- 

 fore, he is deaf, and dumb, and blind? I tell you, by the splendor of God, that 

 a tempest is brooding on his brow ; there is lightning gathering in his soul 

 for you.' Do men dream that, because the sovereign, oppressed people have 

 thus suffered, thus endured, therefore they have become deaf, and dumb, and 

 blind? But we are told that these forms of oppression are not prohibited by 

 law. There are no people on earth who have greater reverence for law than 

 the farmers of these United States, but they know that no tyranny is so 

 degrading as legalized tyranny; that no injustice is so oppressive as that 

 which stands entrenched behind the forms of law ; and, worthy descendants 

 as they are of a grand old revolutionary ancestry, they may not forget that the 

 tyrannical mandates of George the Third were accompanied by the boastful 

 declaration that he, too, was the rightful occupant of the British throne, under 

 the forms of law. 



" Mr. Chairman, retrogression in American agriculture means national 



