in saying that Populism has its stronghold in the West, or
silver-producing section, we simply mean that the farmers' organization
has been captured by the silver interest. They seem to think that their
own prosperity is linked with that of the silver producers, and that the
free coinage of silver means the salvation of both. With this political
manoeuvering, however, we have nothing to do. There are three political
parties in the field, each with the preponderating interest of some
section in charge, which it is bound to see through regardless of the
interests of the other two. The industrial rivalry that is going on
throughout the whole world has entered these United States, and each of
the three different sections are struggling to obtain legislation
favorable to itself, with the same indifference to the interests of the
others that is shown by France to England or by England to the United
States. Even the naked savage has found that it is a good thing to have
something to sell, and our agriculturists are brought into competition
with territory the New World over where a plow or harvester was unknown
ten years ago; instead of having a monopoly in the European markets, as
was the case a few years ago, where they could dispose of their surplus,
they are now compelled to feed it to their hogs, which, as a source of
profit, ranks even now with the thing they are fed on.

But we are not depending on foreign markets for enough to eat and wear.
Those things are here, not there. We may have lost the foreigner as a
customer, but what prevents us from eating that which he refuses to buy.
We look back a hundred or more years, and cry out in horror at the
inhumanity of those then in power, in allowing human beings to be burned
alive and living creatures to be torn to pieces on the rack. Those who
will look back to these times will be no less astounded at the
inhumanity and imbecility of those now in power in allowing starvation
while food is actually rotting for the want of consumers. The question,