178 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
class pronounce great evils under which we labor : A depreci¬ 
ated currency, extortionate rate of transportation, a high protect¬ 
ive tariff, an excess of middlemen and a scarcity of labor. There 
are other causes of complaint, but these especially affectlhe farm¬ 
ing class. A depreciated currency is not felt nearly so much by 
the manufacturer whose products are made and sold under the 
same currency. High rates of transportation do not particularly 
affect the commercial class. A protective tariff is a bounty to 
manufacturers; but for all of these the farmer must suffer. The 
reason is obvious enough—he has had no influence, and has even 
been forgotten, possibly intentionally plundered, in the legislation 
affecting currency, transportation and tariffs. The conspiracies of 
traders and manufacturers to keep prices up are necessarily 
against the men who compose half of the consumers of the coun¬ 
try. They are scantily represented in the halls of legislation, un¬ 
known and unheard in lobbies and committee rooms. What won¬ 
der that more glib and graceful men “fixed things up ” in the in¬ 
terest of banking, railway and manufacturing corporations, and 
the men who only grew the food were forgotten! It is the reac¬ 
tion from this state of things that gives power to the so-called far¬ 
mers movement. Large bodies move slowly, but when they do 
move the momentum is irresistible. Hence the efforts at organi¬ 
zation now making by the agricultural class throughout the coun¬ 
try, and which must result in checking and repealing the class 
legislation that has been permitted in the interests of capitalists. 
The venerable Josiah Quincy said at Washington the other day, 
that when a boy he asked old John Adams, when he came to the 
conclusion that we should shake off the authority of Great Brit¬ 
ain, was it when the tea was thrown overboard, or when you met 
delegations at Philadelphia? “Oh no,” was the reply, “it was 
long before that; it was when I kept school m Worcester and 
heard the farmers talk. I knew there was a ground swell rising 
that would topple King George from his throne.” My life 
is not a very long one, but I have heard the farmers talk once or 
twice myself. The farmers talked a good deal between 1856 and 
1860. They commenced talking again in 1873. I know how 
some of the men who read Tennyson regard their talk. 
