Address To The Farmers

Performed by Woodrow Wilson
Recorded September 24, 1912

I remember reading of a great day in the year 1775, when certain farmers took their guns in their hands and gathered into groups along the roads that led from Lexington in Massachusetts to Boston, and there quietly lay in order to intercept British troops who had come up on an errand aimed at the liberties of the colonies. And I have often heard, since that day, men speak of the embattled farmers at Lexington. Well, there are going to be embattled farmers again in the history of this country. Not with guns in their hands, but with ballots in their hands, who are going to come back and claim the sovereignty which they share with the rest of the people of the United States. I do not wish anything I say to be understood as embattling the farmers against any other great legitimate interest in this country, because our task at the present moment is the task of understanding one another so thoroughly that there will be only one cause, only one purpose, and men acting together can lift all the levels of our political life. The farmers of this country, however, are in a very interesting position. I have seen the interests of a great many classes specially regarded in legislation, but I must frankly say that I have never seen the interests of the farmer very often regarded in legislation, and one of the greatest impositions upon the farmers in this country that has ever been devised is the present tariff legislation of the United States. I have never heard anybody but orators on the stump say that the tariff was intended for the benefit of the farmer. When the United States was the granary of the world the farmers were not looking for protection, and while they were not looking, everything else had duties put upon it, and the cost of everything that they had to use was raised upon them until now it is almost impossible for them to make a legitimate profit. While you were feeding the world, Congress was feeding the trusts. I wish again to disavow all intentions of suggesting to the farmer that he go in and do somebody up. All that I am suggesting to you is that you break into your own house and live there, and I want you to examine very critically the character of the tenants who have been occupying it. The rent has been demanded of you and not of them. You have paid the money which enabled them to live in your own house and dominate your own premises. The tariff intimately concerns the farmer of this country. It makes a great deal of difference to you that Mr. Taft vetoed the Steel Bill. It makes a difference to you in the cost of practically every tool that you use upon the farm, and it is very significant that a Democratic House of Representatives passed the Steel Tariff Reduction Bill over the President’s veto. The farmer pays just as big a proportion of the tariff duties as anybody else. What happened in the Congress which has just recently adjourned? The House of Representatives with the acquiescence of a Senate, which is not Democratic, passed the Farmers Free List Bill. It put agriculture implements – lumber, shingles, salt, bagging and ties on the free list. Then what happened to the bill? It was vetoed by the President because, consciously or unconsciously, he represents not the people of the United States, but those who have held the peoples power and trust for their own purposes.