can only be remedied by a removal of the immediate cause. It is not possible or desirable to rid the people entirely of the spirit of discontent, but it can be so minimized that it will be no longer a menace to national life but an incentive to progress. It is necessary to understand thoroughly the conditions under which the work already described has been done. We have discussed the general social and financial condition of the farmer. How about his intellectual standing? We hear a great deal about the stupid, foolish farmer, easily led by demagogues. It is well to remember in this connection that those States where the Independent party has had greatest influence are the States where the smallest per cent. of illiteracy exists and, by parity of reasoning, the highest per cent. of intelligence. The fact is that the farmer of the West is not the clodhopper, at whose expense the funny man of the modern journal likes to crack jokes. He reads more widely and thinks more deeply than tradesmen or city people do, as a class. Tradesmen wear better clothes, are more urbane, and obtain a certain polish and self-possession which comes only from close contact with one's fellows in the business and social world; all of which is very useful to them in improving the "main chance" in a competitive struggle, and might be labelled finish and sharpness. They live an intense life, within a limited circle, and have little time and less inclination to weigh questions from the larger world. To this fact may be attributed the slight interest such people take in municipal government and the dominance of slum and saloon influences. It is not so with the farmer. He reads much and widely, and the solitary plow-furrow and the quiet country road conduce to thought. A certain sturdy intelligence follows, which again and again has proven the salt of the world, the re-inforcing element of society, and is to-day the hope of our nation. While the tradesman dwells much on commercial law, trade customs, and the means of attracting trade, the farmer thinks more naturally of the general law of the land, under which he is protected or robbed, prospered or ruined. His sales are made at wholesale prices. His eyes, therefore, seek out not so much the local factors in the make up of prices as the world-wide influences which are supposed to determine them. It is a large world in which he lives, and his vision, from necessity, sweeps the whole of it.