Destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

The line is a vivid agrarian warning: if a nation undermines its farmers—through policy, neglect, or economic exploitation—the entire economy and civic life will wither. “Grass in the streets” evokes depopulation, commercial collapse, and urban decay, suggesting that cities ultimately depend on the productivity and purchasing power of the countryside. Attributed to Bryan, a leading voice of late-19th/early-20th-century populism, the sentiment fits his broader defense of producers against financial and industrial concentration. The quote frames agriculture not as a backward sector but as foundational infrastructure: destroy it, and the apparent prosperity of urban centers proves fragile and temporary.