ANNUAL REPORT. 
27 
earnest, honest, practical, clear-headed, thorough-going farmers to 
hold fallacies up to the light and send sunshine into the dark ways 
of selfish legislation.” 
Nearly one-half of the entire property of the country is invested 
in farms and stock and the machinery and tools used in successfully 
operating this land, and yet this vast property is almost wholly rep¬ 
resented in the nation by those engaged in the professions, those 
who, from their early education and habits of life, do not compre¬ 
hend the wants, wishes and needs of this producing population, and 
who cannot be in active sympathy with this wealth-producing peo¬ 
ple they are elected to legislate for, and who are enacting laws for 
the protection of class interests, and in direct conflict with the 
highest good of the producers. Representation in the state and 
nation should be in proportion to the property and interests to be 
represented; then all wdll be fairly represented and protected, and 
prosperity and the best good of all the people be attained. Intelli¬ 
gent, independent voters can accomplish this result. All other 
remedies will be futile. 
Labor and Capital. — These are the elements which furnish 
food, clothing and shelter to every human being, and add to the 
private individual’s, and hence to the nation’s, wealth. The great 
question for political economists, legislators and statesmen to solve 
is, how these important elements shall be harmonized and brought 
upon a greater equality than now exists. Labor can never be as 
powerful as capital, for the reason that its necessities for food and 
other requirements must be met at once, while capital can wait for 
profitable results in the future without fear of starvation, want of 
clothing or shelter. It cannt)t truthfully be denied that the legis¬ 
lation of our country, both state and national, has tended to protect 
and strengthen capital, and hence weaken and prostrate labor. 
The reverse of this should be the rule, for from the nature of these 
elements, labor is the weaker, and should therefore have the foster¬ 
ing, protecting care of the government. 
These elements cannot be separated, for in this age of telegraphs, 
railways and vast concentrated capital in all the varied enterprises 
of the w’orld, either is practically powerless without the other. 
One hundred years ago, these great wealth-producing factors were 
