munity at large. They have subsidized railroads with money obtained by the mortgage of their farms, which railroads, being completed, have been absorbed by the great trunk lines, controlled and manipulated by a handful of money-grabbing adventurers in the great cities of the East.

The American farmers' case, in a nut shell, is about as follows: He was a hard worker, and the lawyer legislated away his substance. Needing help and health and strength, the doctor purged and bled him; whereupon the undertaker, believing him nearly ready for the last rites, began preparing the shroud and coffin for his burial. By the lawyer we mean the politician; by the doctor, the railroad and other moneyed corporations; and by the undertaker, the consolidation of power, through monopoly, which, in its arrogance, has undertaken to say what the farmer shall receive as the price of his sweat and toil.

THE AGRICULTURAL PRESS A TRUSTY COUN

SELOR.

Happily, during all this time, the farmer has had the stimulating counsel of the Agricultural press, which has maintained a stubborn front, and has been the means of setting on foot the organizations out of which deliverance is to come. The power of that press for good, however, has been limited, compared with the influence of the organs of other professions, first, from the fact that farmers are scattered over wide areas, while other professions are concentrated in villages and cities; and, second, because farmers, as a class, are not a reading people. In proportion to their numbers, they read less of general news and the current literature devoted to their profession than any other class, not even excepting the day laborers of the cities. They have

THE POWER OF THE MONEYED CLASSES.

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had all along an overweening faith in the honesty of human nature, forgetting that faith without good works is of but little avail, and that among good works lies the faithful improvement of the privilege which Providence has given each class to use for its own good every legitimate means that is placed in its power.

The most available of these means are the journals devoted to the interests of agriculture, and good books. Next, are his organizations, at the meetings of which he may consult and debate. In short, he must first read, study, and reflect, and then he may intelligently resolve, wisely remedy, and thoroughly regenerate.

One of the great means for carrying forward the good work which is the immediate end and aim of the Farmers' Movement, is aggregation by co-operation—the bringing together of homogeneous bodies, and causing them to work unitedly to a particular end. The varied industries of which Agriculture consists are homogeneous. Husbandry, Stockbreeding and feeding, Dairying, Horticulture (including, as it does, Pomology, Arboriculture, Floriculture, Vegetable Gardening, and rural adornment)—these several professions make up over three-fourths in number of the population of civilized communities, and ought actually to represent a controlling power in the nation. Two reasons why they do not have been stated. Another might be mentioned, the result of their unavoidable segregation, namely, the lack of cohesion among the various parts which constitute the whole.

THE POWER OF THE MONEYED CLASSES CONSOLIDATED.

The commercial and manufacturing interests concentrate their power by aggregation, as at New York and Pittsburg,

for instance; the agricultural, must always necessarily remain scattered broad-cast over the continent. The power of a corporation is represented by its money; that of the merchant by his goods and wares; that of the manufacturer by his fabrics; that of the farmer by his lands and their products. His monetary power lies in his crops. A single farmer's crop is of but little value to the commerce of the world, or of that of a nation. Aggregated, the agriculturists represent a power which all others may not equal.

Yet, in spite of this, as matters now are, the financier and gambler in stocks and bonds hold not only the farmer, but the entire industries of a nation as in the hollow of their hands. Should the farmers of a country withhold for a single season the produce of their labors, manufactures, trade, commerce, and every other industry would languish and lie prone in the dust. A wail would go up such as has not been heard since the seven lean seasons of Egypt.

year

The gold gamblers, the stock jobbers, the dealers in fictitious and watered stocks, however, have gone on from year to bulling" and " " and "bearing" stocks, absorbing every dollar of successive inflations of the currency, buying and burying every coined eagle of the mint; tempting, subsidizing, purchasing, our legislatures, statesmen, and even the executive officers of the government, until the nation itself stands appalled at the enormity of the iniquity. The excitement dies away and is forgotten, for, when so many are corrupt, each is willing to cover his neighbor as with a mantle.

HOW PANICS ARE GENERATED.

The financier hurls masses of money against the stock of some particular corporation as an objective point; values are inflated; stock gamblers become wild; they buy and sell,

HOW PANICS ARE GENERATED.

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until the wire-pullers, having gained their ends, unload at far higher prices than those at which they bought, leaving the struggling smaller fry to suffer their losses as best they may.

Again, a railroad is projected (a Pacific Railroad, for instance) through a region of swamps, mountains, and deserts. Congress is partly bribed and wholly duped to aid the scheme, and passes a law granting a territory equal in extent to Illinois and Indiana combined-a territory comprising land enough to found an empire. Financiers are posted off to Europe to negotiate the bonds. Banks are cajoled into lending the money, much of it deposited by customers, hoping to be reimbursed from the sale of lands before the bubble bursts. European capital has been bitten by this dog before, and is shy; it does not take the well-covered bait; there are rumors that all is not right; apprehension ensues. A great banking corporation, that has accumulated millions from the treasury of the nation, through the sale of its bonds, goes down. Consternation seizes the money kings, the brokers, and gamblers of Wall street, as bank after bank succumbs to the pressure. And now the banks can not pay, the merchant can not pay, the manufacturer can not pay, and—the laborer may starve. Business stagnates, the price of every commodity depreciates, and financial ruin engulfs thousands in quick succession.

By a series of twenty, fifty, or They retire to

Depreciated stocks and commodities are then quietly absorbed by those who set the ball in motion. such moves, these accumulate fortunes-ten, even seventy millions of dollars, perhaps. their fastnesses, but only to issue forth, like Ghouls, at the chosen time, to again and again rob the graves of buried hopes and reputations, and revel once more in those fearful charnel houses-horror and despair.

This is no overdrawn picture. What care these money lords, who are seeking to carry the nation to a point where consolidated capital will hold a centralized government at its beck and to crush out the last vestige of that liberty which was gained by the labor and the life-blood of the heroes of the Revolution?

COMBINE, CONSOLIDATE, CONCENTRATE.

Co-operation was inaugurated by the original framers of Farmers' Clubs and kindred societies. Its growth has been slow, extending now over a century and a half. It is still continuing to take shape; witness the increased interest manifested in practical education, and in Clubs, Granges, Farmers' Unions, and Agricultural Conventions. It may be consolidated by a movement to unite the farmer and the artisan, which is even now engaging the talent of some of the best minds of the country.

Let the farmers of the country take hold unitedly in this matter of co-operation, using the calm judgment for which, as a class, they have always been noted, and they can hurl from power those who have pandered to the monopolizing tendency of capital. For it is this monopolizing power of centralized capital that is sapping the foundation of the people's liberties, and, through the open and unblushing purchase and sale of public men, rendering the government a byword of contempt. The farmers of the United States can accomplish this of themselves, if thoroughly combined. United with the other industrial classes, their power will be not merely irresistible, but overwhelming.

When crime and false intent-whether in the Judiciary, in the Legislature, in Congress, or in the departments of State-shall have been made odious; when the penitentiary