INTRODUCTION. 17 



alizing in its influence, inconsistent with free institutions 

 and dangerous to our liberties. To participate in a trust 

 should be a crime subject to severe punishment. Trust is 

 only another name for monopoly. Monopoly is wielding a 

 greater power in the government than the people. While 

 general discontent prevails, the masses of the people who 

 suffer all the evils of class legislation have been disunited, 

 and charging each other with being the cause of their ills. 

 But the light of a new era is dawning. The farmers have 

 begun to realize that a law that is good for one of them is 

 beneficial to all ; that their interests are identical, and that 

 the only hope of reform is to lay down all prejudice and 

 make a united effort. In the North, in the South, every- 

 where, the farmers are organizing. They are adopting 

 systems of trade and studying questions of political 

 economy as they never did before. Mistakes may occur, 

 as no doubt they will. Their track may be strewn with 

 wrecks of failures ; but they will move on ; they cannot do 

 otherwise ; self-preservation drives them to unity of action. 

 The walls of prejudice are being battered down. 

 The North and South will join hands against a common 

 foe. The New England farmer will grasp the hand of 

 his sun-tanned brother of the South and West. The cry 

 of universal brotherhood shall pierce the pine-clad hills of 

 Maine. Its reverberations will be heard among the mount- 

 ains of Vermont and New Hampshire. It shall float out 

 upon the soft sea breezes, until encircling the Atlantic and 

 Gulf coasts it reaches the maritime metropolis of the L,one 

 Star State. It will rebound over the rock-ribbed hills and 

 through the forests of Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, 

 Kentucky and Missouri. Its welcome sound will float 

 over the prairies of the rich and fertile states of the great 

 Northwest, and be wafted across the continent, where 

 ocean's proud wave kisses the shores of the Golden State. 

 The independent manhood of the country is rising up in 



