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facturers, the merchants and middlemen are taking the 

 lion's share of the accumulation of labor, leaving to the 

 farmer only enough to supply his most pressing wants and 

 to pay taxes. That the government, both state and 

 national, legislate mainly in the interests of large capital- 

 ists, that the interests of the farmer are almost entirely 

 ignored, save that now and then a few crumbs are thrown 

 to them to save or ivin votes. If all this and much more 

 that is preached were true and I believed it, I would quit 

 farming and engage in some other occupation, for I should 

 carry about with me a feeling of degradation, a want of 

 self respect, were I engaged in a business that was not in 

 every way the most honorable and ennobling in the world. 

 No man can do his best in any business in which he thinks 

 the odds are against him. But much of this croaking is 

 not true. I admit that in the past there have been laws 

 enacted favoring other classes at the expense of the far- 

 mer. Whose fault was it? No one's but the farmers 

 themselves. As long as farmers belonged to the political 

 parties and were driven by the party whip, other classes 

 took advantage of the situation and profited by it. When 

 the farmer entered politics as an independent factor, he 

 got his right?, as the two past years will show, and here 

 let me add that the farmer is in politics to stay. This 

 means that in the future he will get what rightfully be- 

 longs to him. Again as we all know there are too many 

 middlemen. These fellows always make me think of leeches 

 they produce nothing, and in nine cases out often are un- 

 necessary. 



But to return to the subject. Go where you will 

 throughout the state and you will find hundreds and 

 thousands of men the owners and cultivators of improved 

 farms, equipped with all the modern appliances of im- 

 proved farming. Stocked with good cattle housed in 

 comfortable barns, the farmers themselves living in pleas- 

 ant houses furnished with good furniture and good books, 

 with music to charm the ear and paintings to please the 



