his competitor in the East.

In the fall of 1873 came the greatest panic in the history of the
nation, and a period of financial depression began which lasted
throughout the decade, restricting industry, commerce, and even
immigration. On the farmers the blow fell with special severity.
At the very time when they found it most difficult to realize
profit on their sales of produce, creditors who had hitherto
carried their debts from year to year became insistent for
payment. When mortgages fell due, it was well-nigh impossible to
renew them; and many a farmer saw years of labor go for nothing
in a heart-breaking foreclosure sale. It was difficult to get
even short-term loans, running from seed-time to harvest. This
important function of lending money to pay for labor and thus
secure a larger crop, which has only recently been assumed by the
Government in its establishment of farm loan banks, had been
performed by private capitalists who asked usurious rates of
interest. The farmers' protests against these rates had been
loud; and now, when they found themselves unable to get loans at
any rate whatever, their complaints naturally increased.
Looking around for one cause to which to attribute all their
misfortunes, they pitched upon the corporations or monopolies, as
they chose to call them, and especially upon the railroads.

At first the farmers had looked upon the coming of the railroads
as an unmixed blessing. The railroad had meant the opening up of
new territory, the establishment of channels of transportation by
which they could send their crops to market. Without the
railroad, the farmer who did not live near a navigable stream
must remain a backwoodsman; he must make his own farm or his