EDITOR'S PREFACE vii 



be a passing phase. Comparatively few fann- 

 ers care for or believe in a farmers ' party ; but 

 the farmers are determined to seek their rights. 

 ^Whether they become aggressive continuously, 

 whether they seek to maintain permanent politi- 

 cal groupings, depends largely upon how they 

 are treated. As Senator Capper says, a farm 

 group should not be necessary. The American 

 people should have such an understanding of 

 the farmer's position and problems and such 

 sympathy with his point of view, as to make an 

 agrarian movement unnecessary. One cannot 

 avoid the reflection, however, that historically 

 the rural people have been either neglected or 

 exploited, or the further remark that, the world 

 over, there is at present more rural unrest than 

 in any recent period of history. It may also be 

 observed that in Europe particularly, the peas- 

 ants have more political power than they have 

 ever had before. 



Consequently this book, while it treats of a 

 particular phase of the agrarian movement in 

 the United States, is after all dealing with the 

 symptoms of something fundamental and wide- 

 spread. 



Kenyon L. Buttebfield. 



