RURAL CREDITS 773 



induce them to build railroads. In the past this government has 

 subsidized shipping lines to carry mail; guaranteed the contract of 

 the bankers in order to enable them to realize on their paper; we 

 have agents in every part of the world developing business for our 

 merchants and manufacturers, but we have left our farmers to the 

 tender mercies of great mortgage and loan companies, who charge 

 ruinous interest rates. We have disregarded the fact that the cost 

 of production necessarily must enter into the cost of the product to the 

 consumer, and therefore have contended that any aid extended to 

 the farmer was class legislation. Yet we must realize with emphasis 

 that everything that is eaten and worn must be the product of his 

 toil, and its cost to the consumer necessarily influenced by the cost 

 of production. This being granted, direct federal aid to the farmer 

 will be as helpful to all other classes as to him, because to the consumer 

 the cost of living would be cheapened and all classes would benefit 

 by the legislation equally, and there would be, therefore, no class 

 legislation. However, the sharp line of division between those who 

 really want to enact helpful legislation that is really helpful to cor- 

 porations and groups of men of great wealth and hurtful to the farmer 

 divide upon this one question of government aid. With it the farmer 

 will be emancipated. Without it he will have to begin over again 

 his fight for justice. 



If legislation is enacted at this Congress, as proposed by some > 

 without any aid being extended by the government, the farmer will 

 reject it. He will realize it was not intended to help him, but merely 

 to silence him; that instead of lifting his burdens, it will grant a 

 respite to those who are oppressing him. It will postpone the day 

 of justice, because, when he complains, he will be answered that "we 

 have legislated in your behalf, and you have not as yet had time to 

 determine whether it will be helpful or not and you must wait." 



It is strange that the idea is advanced always that the govern- 

 ment must not come to the relief of one class when the farmer is 

 being considered, yet all other classes are embraced in legislation 

 directly intended to benefit that class. No one objected to govern- 

 ment aid as applied to commerce and manufacturing enterprises. 

 No one protested when appropriations were made to search out mar- 

 kets. No one now seriously questions the wisdom of purchasing 

 ships to transport commercial commodities to markets where they 

 may be profitably disposed of. No one seriously objects when millions 

 of dollars are expended to deepen harbors as places of refuge that 



