PRACTICAL PAPERS. 
287 
der to bring agriculture into its just relation with the other oc¬ 
cupations, a larger and more general union of effort is necessary. 
The conviction is gaining ground that the time has come for a 
general uniting of the agricultural interest of the country to se¬ 
cure cheaper and more uniform rates of transportation ; to secure 
such modification of the revenue laws as shall prevent the nurs¬ 
ing of protected monopolies mainly at the farmers’ expense ; and 
to so regulate our monetary system as to render impossible those 
gigantic conspiracies by which a forced depression of the market 
can be caused at the time when the agricultural product of the 
country is ready to be moved, and by co-operating with masses of 
consumers to simplify on a large scale the methods of effecting 
exchanges. Were the agricultural interest fully organized and 
united for the accomplishment of these objects, it would present 
a power before which corporations would be but pigmies ; a power 
to which- politicians would hasten to yield something besides the 
windy compliments of the stump speech. At a time when rings 
are formed in the interest of particular branches of industry, and 
large funds raised with a view of controlling legislation and to 
hinder the fair operations of the laws of trade; at a time when 
the money of great corporations has raised the stench of corrup¬ 
tion in our legislative halls; at a time when organized capital em¬ 
ploys the ablest talent of the country to further its schemes ; at a 
time when the press, flaunting the banner of independence, sells 
its voice or its silence to the monopoly that bids the highest; at a 
time when the other industrial occupations are rapidly organizing 
to insist upon larger returns for their labor, it seems to me not 
only not improper, but necessary, that the landed interest of the 
country should organize to assert its dignity, and demandits rights 
as one of the estates of the realm. 
And a body of men possessing such power, and drawn together 
by such identity of interest, and having such urgent grounds for 
organization, need not resort, in my judgment, to the doubtful ex¬ 
pedient of forming secret societies in order to exert their just 
influence or claim their own. 
Let the farmers of the country stand for their own interests, 
shoulder to shoulder, manfully in open day, and they can have 
their will. 
