The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1912-10-18

your boys and puts your boys on the
battleships and sends the battleships
+ into the foreign markets to shoot this
wealth, robbed from you, down the
i heathens' throats. And that part of it
that he can't dispose of he reinvests in
new industries and you are required next
year to yield greater profit for your
/ capitalist master in order to pay divid-
ends to this increased capital than you
did last year. Do you get that? Just
like a mighty SNOWFALL, increasing with
every revolution of the industrial wheel,
and do you know that the machinery of
production is now practically perfect
The Farm Factory.
IF all the wheels of industry in the
United States were operated to their full
capacity we would produce in one year
as much wealth as the nation could con-
sumo in three, and 80 the capitalist,
wise man that he is, who produces only
as much as the market will consume, is
looking for new places of investment and
so he is coming out here to the prairies
of the west and to your rich and fertile
valleys and he is buying land from the
pioneer farmer. The farm factory will
succeed the little independent factory
just so surely as the shoe factory took
the place of the cobbler and the wagon
factory took the place of the wagon
maker who used to perform such an i'm
portant part in the good old days of
the past. Mr.. Barber, and every time
you strike a match you contribute to
his wealth. am speaking of Mr.. Bar
ber the millionaire match manufacturer
and he is buying land-and in news
paper interview recently he said his pur
pose was to demonstrate to his capitalist
brothers that they could make as much
money out of the farm factory as they
could in any other form of industry.
The little farmer, wherever you go,
feels the pinch. Perhaps I can say
nothing more encouraging to you than
to tell you that in Oklahoma the farm
ers there are marching under the same
red banner, to the same working class
tune that you men and women are
marching to here. And they say at
isn't reforms that we want. We care
nothing for the reform programs, but
what we want is revolution in this
country; and it was the same story in
Kansas and South Dakota Wherever
you go you will find the farmer, the
tenant farmer, and he is in the major
ity, understands this game of exploita
tion. That is why Mr. Taft is putting
out his soft soap about loaning the
farmers money. 1t just happens that
the majority of farmers have no property
on which they can borrow money today.
The Tenant Farmer.
Let me tell you of the farmers in the
richest agricultural section of the United
States aside from these irrigated dis
tricts out here. In southeast Missouri
you will find that the tenant farmer
has reached the lowest round in the
social ladder and this is his condition;
The farmers in those southeast Missouri
counties, where they raise the finest
cotton in this country, are required by
the landlord to pay ten dollars an acre
rent for the land and the landlord takes
no chances; he requires the farmer to
put up a bankable note and if the crop
doesn't pay it he takes his horse and his
wagons and his family, perhaps. Then
on the other side is the merchant and
the merchant has served notice on those
farmers down there that any farmer who
agrees to pay more than six dollars an
acre rent will be denied credit at the
company store. If you want to know
what denial of credit means to the
tenant farmer I viii illustrate it by say
ing that if some man should put "a rope
around your neck and slowly choke off
your wind You would be in the same po-
,ition az that farmer. And So there
stands the farmer between the landlord
on the one side and the merchant on
the other and what do you think the
farmers did2 They organized q union.
And then do you know what the capital
istie politicians did They went 20 their
district attorney and county Judge and
bad uiultr-segeu of these farm srs mr..
rested for conspiracy We'll it iu-t hap
rened that we heard about chat partie.
Oar cases perhaps some of Eau remember