Norwich bulletin., 1922-11-17
WHERE THE FARM GROUP DIFFERS FROM THE OTHERS

money can't control a state eleetion. t can and frequently has controlled nemi- mating conventions. Interests whose profits were in large degree dependent upon legislation have, not once but many times, so manipulated eo1yen- tions as to secure the nomination of candidates subservient to them. In fact, there are said to have been cases where these interests controlled the conventions of both parties and really named both the ostensibly opposing candidates.
 This hasn't alwaya been saeempAehed by bribery. There are other forms of political pull" than that of the eaeeF- book. But, by whatever means attain ed, it is 8 notorious fact that for years and years there have been senators and congressmen sent as such to represent, not their constituents, but the sugar in- terests or the4 railroad interests or the trades union interests or the oil inter ests or some other like group of money sraDbeFS who had rnanoeuvred- them in- to office and held them to service in rs- turn.
 Of course this has seldom been proved by strict rules of evidence as laid down by courts. It is. indeed. hardly sus- ceptible of proof under such rules. Brib- cry is rarely attempted in the presence of witnesses. Intimidation doesn't sS- quire a club and a set of brass knuckles. A meaningful hint or a whispered threat are often quite as effective as a revoi- yer at the forehead.
 Nevertheless, outside of the tudge- made rules of court procedure. practi- cally everybody has known what has been going on. You can't see |, the wind; you can't catch it in a box and exhibit it on the witness stand; put you know when it blows your hat off or your barn down, :
 Now. as a simple matter of fact, there isn't single one of the big tn- terests. with their attorneys in the loD- by and their servants on the floor of congress. which is of anything like as much importance to the country as the agricultural interest. That goes with out saying. To live men must eat. To eat they must have meat and grain and vegetables-all three the products of agriculture, No one has thus far suc- ceeded in living very long on a diet Of air and water alone.
 If any interest in the country needed representatives in congress it was this of agriculture. So, when defatien was knocking the prices of farm products down below the cost line, but skillfully avoiding any noticeable pressure or other prices, l. for one don't wonder that some of the congressman fren1 farming states who were close eye witnesses of the damage being done see if they couldn't help theirA censtitd7 ents.
 We may, as matter of abstract eth ffc rii-1 &t,nF, aTT the devil with fire But it's the only way in which practical politicians fight or, know how to aght. These sen ators from the agricultural states found the senate full of "bloes" of one sort and another. As Senator Cappe, says, there were oil blocs and sugar l blocs and steel blocs and railroad bloes and several other bloes, all representine interests. financially. powerful but al ways minorities Moreover, these blocs l were all funetiening smoothly and, II the main. successfully. Tbey worked iT the dark, underhanded and double faced. But they often succeeded il getting through, by triekery or skilfu 1ockeying' measures in the interests o their masters. They also often stopped or diverted legislation which really va. for the general good, but antagonistit to the minority interests
 l When the senators from the farm 1 states undertook a more active ad vecacy of their" farmer constituents welfare, they followed the fashion a 1 they found it, and organized a bloc O their own. As Senator eapper says the only difference in methods between them and these other blocs was tha they proposed to operate in the epel and by daylight, instead of underhana edly and in the dark.
 Note, please, that this was dtHer ence in methods. Tou'H certainly agre ! with me that, thus far, at least. it wa
 an Improvement on the methods em
 pleyed by the other blecs. Yet, as yeu'i