LABOR'S WRONGS. 37 



"The working people, if goaded to desperation, have 

 the strength of a Sampson. The extremely rich, and the 

 extremely poor, are opposing forces the dangerous classes 

 in society, and on the increase. Again I call the Chicago 

 News statistican to the witness stand. Under the heading, 

 " cause of decline," meaning farming, he uses the following 

 language: l ln the condition of the farming population 

 of Illinois, the richest agricultural State in the Union, 

 there is food for serious thought. Why, with the general 

 increase in wealth, the increase in purchasing power of the 

 wages now paid the trades and professions, the enormous 

 expansion in traffic and business why do we find the 

 condition of the farmer unimproved, or worse even than 

 ten, twenty or thirty years ago; discontented and restless, 

 piling up mortgages, drifting towards peasantry and 

 serfdom?' l Agriculture, more than all else, lies at the 

 basis of our prosperity, and there must be something 

 abnormal in our fundamental conditions when the creative 

 half of the population enjoys less of the fruits of its labors 

 than the dependent industries, trades and professions; 

 when a stupendously increasing aggregation of wealth and 

 population in the cities is attended by a diminution in 

 numbers and a steadily growing impoverishment of the 

 agricultural classes.' 



"If a farmer had said so much as this he would be 

 called a grumbler. But be that as it may, I ask, who gets 

 all the profits on farming? It goes mainly to the tax- 

 gatherer, money-loaner and transportation companies. For 

 want of time I will discuss the profits on only one of these 

 transportation companies and see if they be one of 

 the robbers. Here again I submit facts stronger than any 

 words of mine. Here I stop to remark that we are all 

 proud of our railroad system and its management. In it 

 we have a State pride; as a system surpassing that of any 

 other State in the Union, Their management is in the 



