161 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
me as Mr. Smith was reading his paper,* and he stated the man¬ 
ufacturing, the agricultural, and other industrial classes had very 
little representation in the halls of Congress. I think the fault 
lies right with us as farmers, producers, and manufacturers. I do 
not blame any professional man, banker, lawyer, doctor, or minister, 
or any other profession for getting into Congress and taking up all 
of those fat positions if they can. It is a privilege they have; and 
if the farmers, producers, manufacturers, and those engaged in the 
world’s industries will not give their votes for men that they know 
will represent their interests, they are certainly the ones who are to 
blame. 
Another point. He speaks of the middlemen, the commission 
men, of that class of men who take from the producer the profits 
between himself and the consumer. Now, I agree partially with 
my friend Smith in this matter. I think there are mari 3 r large pro¬ 
ducers who can afford to post themselves fully and thoroughly as to 
the markets, and to be their own middlemen. But take the small 
producer—the man who raises half a dozen hogs to sell, a few cat¬ 
tle, and products of the farm—he cannot afford it; he can do this: 
He and his neighbors can combine and take their produce to 
market on the same day, and take a car-load. For instance, if I 
have five hogs, another ten, another six, enough to make up a car¬ 
load, we can take them to market on the same day, and if we can¬ 
not get the price we consider just, we can put them in a car and 
ship them, and send one man along with them. The last farm¬ 
ing I did, when I had the personal supervision of my farm, 
I would take 1113 " hogs to market, and if the buyer would not 
give me what I thought was a fair price, I would ship myself. I 
never shipped in m 3 r life, still I have loaded them into the car 
many a time, and got them ready for market, and the buyer would 
say, “Field, you don’t want to go to market; I will take them,” 
and I suppose he paid me as much, possibly more, for those hogs 
than I would have realized, for the reason he understood the routine 
of the business. As a rule I do not cry down middlemen. I be¬ 
lieve they may post themselves fully in certain branches of busi¬ 
ness and are absolutely as much producers as the grower or man¬ 
ufacturer, if they can stand between the actual raiser of the pro¬ 
duct and the consumer, and pay as much for the product as the 
consumer can get himself, and 3 T et make a profit. 
