The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-10-16
The Farmers in Politics.

The great awakening among the Western
farmers which is the most remarkable thing IN
the politics of the present year, better deserves
the attention of statesmen and politicians than
anv other political manifestation in this coun-
try since the close of the negro cycle. In
earlier periods of our history a seperate move
ment by thefarmers would have been impossl-
ble because, for the first half century after the
adoption of the Constitution, we were nation
of agriculturists the farmers forming, a
majority Of our people so overwhelming that
no otherclass or other combination of interests
could be brought into competition with them
in contests for political power: Those were
the bright and halcyon days of the Democratic
party. 1t was the agricultural population
which gave the Democratic party its strength
during the long period of its ascendancy. Ihe
manufacturing interests were always opposed
to f but the good sense and political suprem-
acy Of the farmers from the year 1900 to the
wear 1860 gave them the control of the Govern
ment. The separate organization of the farmers
rs an anti-monopoly party is favorable to the
re-establishment of the Democratic order of
ideas as the controlling force in our politics.
The rise of separate farmers party is
transitional movement; and besides its great
significance in other respects, it marks political
ly stage in the development of the country
to to which the decennial census shows that we
have been steadily, and, for the last few
decades, rapidly tending. Our city and village
population has been enormously increasing IN
relative weight since the extensive use OF labor
saving machinery and especially since the era
of railroads, ard vast interests have grown UP
which bring immense accumulations OF capital
and prodigious numbers of people into distinct
separation from the agricultural tone OF feel
ing. The farmers movements of especial sig
nifcance as one of the symptoms of this
mighty change in the character and pursuits OF
our population. d. The farmers have felt COM
PEELED to organize for self-protection against
encroachments upon their rights by other great
and rising interests:
This movement has it's seat in the West
where agriculture is still, and will long con,
tinue; the predominant pursuit. 1t is located
in a section of the country WHICH, BY mere
growth Of population, is destined to control
the political destinies of the country whenever
its people are tolerabiy united The wide fer
tile region between the Great Lakes and the
Alleehanies on one side, and the Rocky Noun
tains on the other, will contain majority OF
our people long before the close of this century
and probably before the close Of this decade
This is true already of that part of the country
north of Mason and Dixons line and the Ohio
River. Under the apportiOnment OF the last
census, the New England and Middle States
send ninety Representatives to Congress, and
the Northwestern States this side of the Rocky
Mountains have ninety-seven Representatives
The new agricultural, anti-monoply politics
NAV therefore, even now, control the country,
if the farmers movement sufficiently skaters
and disorganizes the Republican party in the
West. The great similarity of interests be-
tween the West and the South-both being
mainly agricultural -insures the cooperation
of the South al soon as the West becomes fully
united against the extortions of the monopo-
lists.
Nothing could possibly be more opportunate
than this great movement which has taken
such strong hold on public feeling through
out the West 1t differs from minor local aglta-
tions in the fact that it spreads through the
most important and popllous geographical
division of the country; and as every great
division has an agricultural interest, itenllsts
wider iand prompter sympathy than any new
agitation which ever arose in our politics. It's
great promise and power lie in the clrcum,
stance that it has suddenly diverted political
feeling into fresh channel and detached 1t
completely from what poor Mr.. Greeley, IN let,
ter of acceptance, called "wreck and rubbish Of
cntworn contentious and bygone feuds." The
political feeling of the West can never again
find nutriment in any of the defunct questions
which grew out of the war and the abolition OF
slavery. 1t is often the case that sentiments
which have fallen dead in politics continue to
retain Influence as traditions. But the line OF
continuity has been abruptly broken by the
farmers movement in the West, and it is a
moral and political impossibility that the
emancipated Western people should ever 60
back and feed on the dry husks of the anti
slavery era. The issues on which the Repub-
lican party was founded have ceased to. have
any life or meaning in our politics; and the
keen interest in new live question which the
farmers movement has excited, has consigned
the old issues to "the tomb of all the Capulets" !"
It brings back our politics to the class of ante
war neutrality-suspicious. connected with the
business, finances, and industrial interests of
the country, d class of questions on which the
order of ideas advocated by the Democratic
oarty always won the favor and secured the in
dorsement of the people, so long as questions
of that kind were the dominant issues in our
politics.
The farmers who are thus breaking away
from the Republican party have profound
conviction that that party Is the chief obstacle
to their success The grasping monopolies
against which tney nave ueclarcu ma5 naSo
grown up under the fostering care of Rtepub,,
Iican administration, State and Federal, and
as thew can expect neither favor nor sympathy
from, Democrats, they will all be arrayed on
the Republican side. They can be eaectually
opposed only by opposing the Republican
party in which they take refuge. The Farmers
Oranges and the Democratic party have there
fore a similar tone of sentiment, common OBJ.
;oot, ond cubstontially the same missions. and
thew thew must ultimately be found fighting side by
side against the common enemy.-New York
World.
TO CURE TooTHACHE-A we'll known dem
tist. who has tried the remedy on some nervous
people who have old roots of broken teeth,
and are too timid to permit an attempt to re-
move them, makes the following public, for
the benefit of all whom it may concern To
persons having hollow tooth, allowing the ali
r oo,, Tho norve 7 would advise that thew