“The Western States nervous under the beginning change.Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico,Arizona, California. A single family moved from the land.Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wantsthe land. The land company--that's the bank when it has land--wants tractors, not families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Isthe power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractorwere ours it would be good--not mine, but ours. If our tractorturned the long furrows of our land, it would be good.Not my land, but ours. We could love that tractor then aswe have loved this land when it was ours. But the tractordoes two things--it turns the land and turns us off the land.There is little difference between this tractor and a tank.The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must thinkabout this.One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty carcreaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, asingle tractor took my land. I am alone and bewildered.And in the night one family camps in a ditch and anotherfamily pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squaton their hams and the women and children listen. Here is thenode, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep thesetwo squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect eachother. Here is the anlarge of the thing you fear. This is thezygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is splitand from its splitting grows the thing you hate--"We lost ourland." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely andperplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a stillmore dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I havenone." If from this problem the sum is "We have a littlefood," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction.Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor areours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women;behind, the children listening with their souls to words theirminds do not understand. The night draws down. The babyhas a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother'sblanket--take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb.This is the beginning--from "I" to "we."If you who own the things people must have could understandthis, you might preserve yourself. If you could separatecauses from results, if you could know Paine, Marx,Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive.But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezesyou forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."The Western States are nervous under the beginingchange. Need is the stimulus to concept, concept to action.A half-million people moving over the country; a millionmore restive, ready to move; ten million more feeling thefirst nervousness.And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land.”

“This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we". ”

“If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you into 'I,' and cuts you off forever from the 'we.”

“The man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself, then the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land.”

“But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again. The bitterness we sold to the junk man - he got it all right, but we have it still. And when the owner men told us to go, that's us; and when the tractor hit the house, that's us until we're dead. To California or any place - every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day - the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they'll all walk together, and there'll be a dead terror from it.”

“The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects … Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses.That man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat … The driver could not control it – straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the ‘cat, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow gotten into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor.He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor – its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades – not plowing but surgery … The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.”

“Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank - or the Company - needs - wants - insists - must have - as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.”