The Grange advance., 1873-12-31
For the Grange Advance.
The Future Price Of Wheat.

Farmers are in debt, their farms are
mortgaged, their overdue notes are out
standing, they owe on open account. They
hate to take letter from the post Office
lest it be an insulting dun; they dislike to
60 to the city for fear Of being buttonholed
by crusty creditor or a merciless collec-
tor. A friendly bankrupt law may relieve
the unfortunate trader, but the farmer must
pay every cent he owes, with interest.
From this incubus of debt the farmer must
be relieved. Providence has given the
farmer, the past season, an abundant crop
OF wheat, and there is manifest desire on
his part to get such price for it as will
enable him to pay his debts. He argues
that his wheat is needed and that if he re-
fuse to sell at present he will obtain, here
after, much higher price. So he draws
his wheat into the city, takes warehouse
receipt for the same, and waits for the
"rise.' The warehouse men smile.
Spring comes, the wheat must 60 forward
to make room for more in the warehouses.
1t is shipped from the towns on the Missis-
sippi to the elevators on the lakes-thence
it is shipped to Buffalo, to Montreal, to
New York, thence to Europe, into the hands
of the millers and the mouths of the people,
while the farmer holds the receipt in his
pocket waiting for the ( rise" Under the
present system the wheat dealer dictates
the price. The remedy for this is let the
farmer keep his wheat in his granary, or
what is better. let him keep it IN the stuct-
in we'll built, we'll thatched stack.
Through the Grange organizations this
course can be rendered a general one-let
it be done. Self preservation is the first
law of nature. Desperate diseases require
desperate remedies. Farmers cannot live
eternally burdened with debt, at the mercy
of greedy traders and combining wheat
dealers. Farmers, keep your soheot under
your own control untI you ,vant to sell AND
THE WHEAT MARKET WILL RISE.
In our next issue we shall have some
thing to say about other ways of advancing
the price Of wheat.
CHEAP TRANSPORTATION is q subject that
is beginning to attract attention at WASH
ington. The vote Of the West is beginning
to wake them up on the Potomac They
are getting to understand there are some
people out here who know their interests
and that most of them have votes. We
fancy they will learn after while there is
West.
''The agitation of this question has been
too lately sprung, and the stupendous mo-
nopolies controlling transportation are too
powerful and will fight any tampering with
their prerogatives too strongly to permit
their immediate results. The newspapers
have been burdened with all kinds of spe
cities for the evils complained of, and the
people, vainly looking to their leaders for
relief, grimly wait, thinking deeply of
their wrongs, and determining in their own
minds that they will, if defeated now, place
men in the halls OF legislation who will, in
time, grant their reasonable demands. It
required two score years or more to abolish
the crime Of negro slavery-lt may take as
long to free the people of this other and
equally obnoxious despotism Of monopoly.
But the agitation is commenced and it will
never cease until it, too, is abolished, and
its defenders and supporters brought to re-
alize the fact that in this land Of ours there
shall exist no slavery of any kind. In the
minds Of the people, therefore, let there be
no wavering, no failing of courage, no
weakening Of the back bone, no lessening
Of their demands. The fight has COM
menced, and retreat will be the signal for
a tightening of the chains and an increase
of the burdens 80 unjustly borne"