We may forgive you for your last tricks, but it will be only upon the condition that we get a good rural credit law.

Mr. Politician: You don't understand. You accuse us unjustly. These things can't be rushed through. It takes time, and investigation. There is a Banking and Currency Committee in which the bill must be framed. I can introduce you to some of the members. Your committee can probably arrange with its chairman so your committee may get a hearing.

Mr. Citizen: You, Mr. Politician, are one of the leaders here. Whenever you take hold the other leaders do, too. It did not take Wall Street Speculators fifty hours to get an emergency currency into their banks and to be using it, and that time included the time it took to pass a law through this very Congress. When we ask aid, it takes a committee to go to Europe, and two or three years to get a report. There it usually ends. When they ask aid they get it in less than fifty hours. They profited billions of dollars by your swift response to their call, and people lost the same billions by your failure, for a whole generation, to pass a proper credit law. You say, we must work through the Banking and Currency Committee. Is that where the wealth grabbers began? You know it is not. They laid their plans with you "political topnotchers." When you pressed the button, the Banking and Currency Committee brought out the bill, and your other special privilege utility committee, which you call "The Rules Committee," arranged for bringing it up for consideration by the House. Our committee is not going to the Banking and Currency Committee this time, because we know that it would be a waste of our time as things are now run. Unless you "top notchers," who connect all the way to

the top-the head "mogul" will act in our interest, know that our appearance before the Banking and Currency Committee would be merely a show, and might deceive the public by making it believe that everybody gets a fair hearing. We admit that it is possible to get a hearing here in Washington for any committee that comes with backing, but what does a hearing amount to unless we get action based upon merits. This we cannot do where it affects special privilege unfavorably. You know that many millions of dollars have been spent on hearings and publications that amount to nothing. Now, I will add this, and then relieve you of my presence. There are several of us here in Washington, and all have been as busy as I have been, and some more, each in his own way to learn what could be done for a proper rural credit bill. We have discovered that the whole thing is already planned, and that the main points of the bill have been agreed upon, to suit the banks, and that our work now would be of no influence. You won't ask us to go home, this time, because you know what happened the last time. But I wish to tell you myself what will happen this time about rural credits. We are going home without a hearing with the Banking and Currency Committee. Some other committees that have come here have had a hearing. This is what will happen about the rural credits: The banking interest, that is the big city banks through their representatives have outlined what they will accept as a rural credit bill without opposition. It is proposed to give a pretense of Government aid. That will be the "joker." We have learned that since we came. The Government will take some stock, but it will crawl out as fast as the farmers can be forced to take the stock off the hands of the Government, and

then it will be left without Government aid. The Government will issue no money for the rural credit system, like it does for the banks. But the Government will run a steering game to sell bonds for the rural credit system, and of course the money to buy these bonds will have to come from the banks mostly, and they can force the interest because they control the money. Interest will be reduced somewhat, but not enough to give the farmers loans at the rates of interest that they should have. The banks get money from the Government for almost nothing. We farmers should have interest at 3 per cent to begin with, and gradually be reduced from that to actual cost, the Government issuing the money to us in the same way it does to the banks. We would furnish the best security in the world. Better still, however, we would be satisfied if you would pass a law to place every body on the same footing. We farmers do not ask special privileges except when you give them to others. Later on, when the farmers learn that they will not get what belongs to them by the rural credit bill which will be passed, less than half a loaf in fact, we will be back to see you, to ask for support for a currency law in favor of all the people. So, for the present, good-bye, Mr. Politician.

A Couple of Years Later

Mr. Citizen: Mr. Politician, I am here to see you once more. Practically the same committee with which I came here before are here now. We have not come for any special bill or help this time, but merely to size up the situation to see about how long it is likely to take for the people of this country to draw the curtain aside and get a good look at the political work in the Capitol of our country. This game of politics is the smoothest thing possible, but we have gotten

pretty good organization among the farmers, and the wage and salary workers seem to be even better organized, so we are looking things up to see when will be the best time for all the people to join to make Congress do its duty to all the people.

You know, Mr. Politician, that we have learned a thing or two in these most strenuous times. We used to get up a campaign for some good purpose, to give us some much needed law for governing something that concerned us-concerned the public in general. We never came in with a bill all framed up, and then asked you to enact it into law. We just told you in a general way what we wanted. To our surprise, we found that the "speculators" always anticipated us, and as soon as they saw that we would present something to a legislature, or to Congress, they had a bill, the main features of one ready that would defeat the very purposes of our campaign, and their bills would be passed, and advertised as if they were our bills. We never presented any bills. We always left them to you legislators to draft. We are here now in advance looking things up, and in the near future we expect to have some meetings, we farmers, and join with the organizations that the wage and salary workers have, so we can agree upon some bills in the interest of all the people. We will prepare the bills just as we want to have them passed. You won't need the blind committee meetings that you hold under your present practice. I am not here to ask you for a thing, but merely to pay you my respects, and to let you know that my eyes have been partially opened since the time you sent me home to wait for aid to the farmers.

I suppose, Mr. Politician, that you saw that some rural credit bonds were sold and that the banks and insurance companies bought them. I suppose, too, that you noticed how slow they were in even doing that.

I suppose you have noticed the difference between what they sold for and what Government bonds sold for is very large. That difference represents the rake off for special privilege collected out of the farmers and consumers. I suppose also that you have sufficient intelligence to know that even the Government bonds would not be necessary if it were not because special privilege has put its system into force even upon the Government itself. What the Government pays for interest is also a rake-off for special privilege. Yes you have helped the banks to Government aid, which means the speculators; you helped England, Russia, France and Italy to government aid; you helped various other enterprises to government aid, and while I am making no criticism now upon any or either of these, I am calling attention to the fact that the plain toilers everywhere go without government aid. They are the ones upon whom all the assessments ultimately fall to supply all the government aids whether it may sometimes in the future be to themselves, or as it is now to the specially privileged.

Good-bye, Mr. Politician, our committee did not come to be talked to, but merely to appear one by one, as if a vision, to the "top notchers" in this political game, to give the signal that the people are going to rule. There will be no revolution-don't for a minute fear that, for fundamentally we have a good government and all that is necessary is for us to act in our own behalf under the Constitution, instead of as we have done heretofore, by permitted special committees or standing committees, to run the Government in secret. We expect to elect our own representatives hereafter, and not to select representatives for special privilege. Good-bye, Mr. Politician, good-bye forever. The next time we come, you will be a "statesman" or you will not be here.