appointed on organization. Under its direction, State after State is
being organized, and the prophecy is freely made that, before the snow
flies again, an efficient branch of the central body will have been
established in nearly every hamlet in the nation.

The surprising advance already made by the Independents would not need
to concern us, were it not that the national conditions which made it
possible, in the first instance, still exist to sustain and accelerate
it. If asked to explain this advance, most partisans would say, at
once, poor crops, extreme poverty and demagogism; or, as South Dakota
campaign speakers were known to say, hot winds and Mr. Loucks. But
these are mistaken ideas. Poverty of the people made many listeners
and voters who, under other circumstances, would not have deemed it
worth their while to leave the plow. An examination, however, of the
vote in the counties of one State, from which a United States senator
has been elected, shows that the heaviest majorities for the new party
were cast in counties where farming is most diversified, and where the
people have been blessed with a succession of good crops. In the
counties where the people were poorest, they were more effectually
under the thumb of money loaners and bankers, who held chattel
mortgages over their heads. In such counties a corruption fund had a
powerful influence toward keeping voters in line. Extreme poverty is
always a menace to the purity of the ballot. In the well to do
counties, or rather the counties where good crops had prevailed, and
in which the people were reputed well-to-do, and where the heaviest
vote was cast for the party, the writer has made a careful study of
conditions and finds none that do not exist in most agricultural
districts of the United States. The herds of cattle and bursting
granaries, years ago, would have been sure indications of competence
and contentment.

A little inquiry now, however, reveals discontent and a hand to hand
struggle with adversity and against odds. Market values leave no
margin for profit. Abundance at harvest time, disappointment on market
day. Men can understand the connection between short crops and lean
pocket-books, and are easily reconciled to such conditions. They may
grumble but they are sensible enough to understand that they must sow
again and wait for the heavens to smile. But when great heaps of corn
lie in their fields awaiting sale at twelve cents a bushel, when a
mi