and the Democratic Party, there were only
two paths for his following to take. One was into the Socialist Party;
the other was into the Republican Party. Then it was that we socialists
reaped the fruit of Hearst's pseudo-socialistic preaching; for the great
Majority of his followers came over to us.

The expropriation of the farmers that took place at this time would also
have swelled our vote had it not been for the brief and futile rise of
the Grange Party. Ernest and the socialist leaders fought fiercely to
capture the farmers; but the destruction of the socialist press
and publishing houses constituted too great a handicap, while the
mouth-to-mouth propaganda had not yet been perfected. So it was that
politicians like Mr. Calvin, who were themselves farmers long since
expropriated, captured the farmers and threw their political strength
away in a vain campaign.

"The poor farmers," Ernest once laughed savagely; "the trusts have them
both coming and going."

And that was really the situation. The seven great trusts, working
together, had pooled their enormous surpluses and made a farm trust.
The railroads, controlling rates, and the bankers and stock exchange
gamesters, controlling prices, had long since bled the farmers into
indebtedness. The bankers, and all the trusts for that matter, had
likewise long since loaned colossal amounts of money to the farmers. The
farmers were in the net. All that remained to be done was the drawing in
of the net. This the farm trust proceeded to do.

The hard times of 1912 had already caused a frightful slump in the farm
markets. Prices were now deliberately pressed down to bankruptcy,
while the railroads, with extortionate rates, broke the back of the
farmer-camel. Thus the farmers were compelled to borrow more and more,
while they were prevented from paying back old loans. Then ensued the
great foreclosing of mortgages and enforced collection of notes. The
farmers simply surrendered the land to the farm trust. There was nothing
else for them to do. And having surrendered the land, the farmers next
went to work for the farm trust, becoming managers, superintendents,
foremen, and common laborers. They worked for wages. They became
villeins, in short--serfs bound to the soil by a living wage. They could
not leave their masters, for their masters composed the Plutocracy.
They could not go to the cities, for there, also, the Plutocracy was
in control. They had but one alternative,-