Farmers And Lawyers

Among theother revolutions the farmers' movemeot is to accomplish in a short space of time is to break up the f etdchisnj which has given the profession of the law prestige in public business. The Alliance has in Kansas, where its advance has been most niarked, made congressmen, state legislators and eveD judges out of other material. It proposes to dispense with lawyers in the competition for the United States senatorship. Since the time when the professione contained all the education of nations the law has been regarded as the principal source of supply for public men. Young men went into the law as much because it was the stepping stone to political prefennent as anything else. The selection of congressmen from any othea class has been exceptional in this country. The bar and politics have been almost one and the same thing. If the Alliance continúes to wield political power and persists in its exclnsioE of lawyers it will either destroy a superstition or do some terribly bad governing. Which will it be? Education has extended. The fannei and merchant know more of the inside of public questiona now than the lawyers and preachers did when the constitution was adopted - not more of technical forms, but more of the essential reasons for this or that legislativo or execvt' vo action. The trend of civilizatior ..:■., .ys away from barren technical r ital and toward simplified coinmon seuse. As people learn more they require less and endure less of the elabórate ritual of technique. Perhaps we can get along with few lawyers amone public