St. Charles Republican intelligencer. (St. Charles [Charles City], Iowa) 1856-1857, 1857-06-18
High Prices.

High Prices.
We are the possessors and the cul-
tivators of a magnificent country,
whose productive capacities are seem
ingly without end and yet our labor
ing classes, and all classes Of limited
means, find it extremely difficult to
purchase the most common ncccssa-
rics of life. Our granaries are full !;
we have flour, meal, meats, and eve
rytling else in abundance and yet
we are Just living almost at famine
prices. 1t is as much as man can do
nowadays to merely grub along. II
he is able to sustain and keep togeth-
cr his family, he is satisfied and con-
tents himself with vainly hoping fol
better times to come, when they never
will come as long as we are thus over.
ridden by the selfish, grasping, avari
cious e, 81 unieeling shylocks who arc
bent on making fortunes out OF the
peoples s, necessities. N
The syseulai "a It fss bottom Of
the mischief NE whG caa =. Z
in their nands, as much so as the Rus
sias ever were in the power Of the
Autocrat. They tell us what is to be
plenty and what is to be scarce, a
whole season beforehand; and they
aflix to the articles we buy for our fam
lilies such prices as shall best suit them
selves. And the people submit, now
and then grumbling to themselves
little over it, yet deluded with empty
hopes of an Improvement in the future.
These bloodsuckcrs are in the field al
ready Their agents and emissaries
have spread themselves this way and
that all over the country. They hold
a regular correspondence with their
wealthy principals, advising them
from time to time of the advantage
they have taken of this farmer and
that farmer by their misrepresenta-
tions, their flattery, and their base and
inhuman falsehoods.
Open the papers to-day any day,
and there your eyes will fall on whin-
ing letters. or lying telegraphic des-
patches, complaining Of the poor pros
poets for the coming crops; the wheat
doesn't come forward in consequence
of the hard winter; the corn is going
to make but poor stand after all or
the fly has got into extensive fields Of
grain, and is ravaging whole districts
and even States or grass, though it
promised splendidly in the first Of the
season, doesn't hold out near as we'll
as was expected, and the consequence
is, butter and cheese will be kept up
still, and the prospects for beef next
fall and winter are exceedingly dole
full. These are the regular bulletins of
the employed emissaries of the rich
city spectators /; and this is the les
son they have learned. and were paid
to learn, before they started out on
their iniquitous errands. 1t is all a
part of the regular machinery Of the
system. You will find them telling
the distant farmers that there is to be
a glut of everything III the markets
the coming season, while the cry in the
cities is, that everything is going to
be so scarce!
The farmers have seen these yam-
pircs around among them this spring
already. They will make show of
an adcance payment to them, in order to
secure the pledge of the coming crop,
and then they have everything in their
own hands. They sneak into the kitch
en- doors, and engage all the butter
and eggs of our farmers wives, telling
them how plenty these things are GER
tain to be, and depositing a little some
thing with them by way Of clinching
the underhanded bargain for the sea-
son. In this way, too, they sweep of
all the veal, the lamb, the beef, and
the pork, fairly taking the food out Of
the mouths of the producers and the
people who would otherwise buy of
them, and compelling the masses, by
the all-powerful machinery Of their
monopoly, to purchase at just such
rates as they think fit to charge Them.