Nationally we have a complex on the subject of disunion. Fortunate perhaps is the country which is subject to the pressure of a foreign enemy on its border, as France is, for example, to that of Germany. If you have a convenient foe to be afraid of you do not have to be afraid of yourselves. It seems to be the rule that nations like individuals must have fears and the American phobia is that this country will proceed amoeba-wise by scission, into several countries. When we feel a weakening at the center we feel a horror in the peripheries. We fought one great war to prevent a breaking up of the Union and whenever we hear the word "section," we become apprehensive. And just as "section" fills our minds with fear of cleavage upon geographical lines, so "class" arouses anxiety over cleavage upon social lines. "Class" calls up the spectre of socialism. "Bloc" moreover is a word of unhappy associations. It brings into the imagination Europe with all its turmoil and its final catastrophe. The Civil War left us with one complex. The European War left us with another. The agricultural bloc touches both, suggesting division and upon European lines. Being agricultural it is vaguely sectional; being the projection of a single interest into national politics so as to cut across parties, it follows European precedents. It moreover derives its name from abroad. Call it log-rolling by the farmers, however, and it relates to the habitual method of American legislation. It conforms to our best traditions. We never spoke of the groups which filled pork barrels of the past as blocs, but every river and harbor bill was the work of minorities uniting to raid the treasury. The two recent amendments to the Constitution, granting the suffrage to women and prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, were also achieved minorities. The organized minorities of the past dissolved when their end was obtained. They had a specific rather than a general purpose. Usually it was a moral purpose, the prohibition of alcoholic drinks, or political justice for woman. Never until recently did a minority raise the economic interests of one section of society against those of the rest of society and promise to keep on raising them. The farm bloc is the first permanent economic minority to organize itself effectively for political action. The phenomenon is not that the bloc impairs our political system; it does not; majority rule is always tempered by minority rule or it becomes either a tyranny or a dead thing. It is that it threatens our pocketbooks. It obtains low railroad rates on farm products. It shifts taxes from farmers to the rest of us. It secures for farmers special aid in the form of government credits.