eat,
and you cannot purchase it without paying tribute to a band of
speculators, there must be in operation a damnable system of oppression
to bring about this condition, for it is not natural.

"The Wheat Trust determines what price I shall receive for my wheat; it
sets the price at which you shall buy it in the form of bread.

"Whether there is a bounteous crop or a short one, the Trust still
controls the wheat and flour and arbitrarily fixes their price.

"When the newspapers assert that the farmers enjoy the advance of the
price of a season's crop, they state an absolute falsehood.

"By the system that prevails in this country to-day, as a result of the
Wheat Trust, crops are sold a year in advance. There are never two years
of exceptionally large crops; so the benefit of the advance of one year
does not go over to the next.

"The farmers of this country are compelled, by the present system, to
pledge their next year's crop to the local wheat factors who control the
elevators. The purchase price is determined by the factor. The farmer
receives a certain number of bushels of 'seed' wheat from the factor,
agreeing to repay him with two or two and a half bushels of the coming
crop; a large percentage of the remainder of the crop is pledged to the
local store-keeper for the goods that the farmer must have to do his
work and to live upon.

"Wheat is the medium of exchange. The Trust's price is the measure of
value. Why? Because the farmer cannot sell to any one except to an agent
of the Trusts, as the Trust has arranged traffic rates with every
railroad; and the wheat, if bought by any one outside of the Trust,
could not be transported to a market and sold at a profit. This
statement is indisputable.

"The Wheat King, David Leach, depresses the market when the crop is to
be sold, and so gives a semblance of reason for the inadequate price he
allows the farmer.

"It is the farmer who does the planting; he has to run the risk of the
loss of the crop by drought, or excessive rain; he has to do the
harvesting. Yet he does not share in the just profits of the sale of his
product.

"And the consumer is made to pay exorbitantly for the bread that keeps
life in his body.

"If there were no Wheat Trust, no speculation in wheat and no
discriminating traffic rates, bread could be sold at a fair profit for
three cents a loaf, and the farmer would still be able to get a higher
price than he averages now.

"I have toile