HOW ONE FARMER WAS RUINED 



a born leader would have thought of or dared 

 to carry out. It was to fight money with 

 money; to raise a fund large enough to make 

 an effective campaign against the unlimited 

 resources of the other side, and to get this from 

 one of the poorest communities in the North. 

 He had the audacity to make the annual 

 dues six dollars at a time when nine-tenths 

 of those to whom he must appeal were poverty- 

 stricken strugglers against bankrupting money 

 rates and ruinous market conditions. To ask 

 the new members to give so much as one dollar 

 for a new and not very alluring excursion in 

 reform seemed a desperate chance. Townley 

 had the wit to perceive that he could hope to 

 get it only by offering something tangible as 

 well as the distant prospect of better condi- 

 tions. He therefore made the six-dollar fee 

 include a year's subscription to the last pro- 

 gressive magazine left in the East, and a year's 

 subscription to the organ of the Nonpartisan 

 League when that should be published. 



Even with these inducements the success 

 he met with seems phenomenal, and plainly 

 shows to what desperation the farmers had 

 been driven. They knew nothing about 

 Townley; for all they knew, he might be only 

 another variety of the swindler that had so 

 often tried to fleece them; another kind of 

 lightning-rod or driven-well or stock-food 



schemer. On all sides it is admitted that Mr. 



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