The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1872-1881, 1873-04-25
Address 10 the Farmers.

whole vague, WITHOUT form
at FIRST but nevertheless oil feel, II they
can not define. Some unnatural oppres-
sion, some intuitive Consciousness that
something Is wrong. This feeling Is
sometime engendered without concert of
action or reciprocity Of thought, and
often grand dramas sre improvised with
out a moments preparation, and whole
communities, as II by some strange,
mysterious common interest, find them
selves actors in that drama.
Farmers, that feeling is developing H.
self all over the agricultural portion Of
the United States, and especially in the
West, to q degree never seen or felt be
fore. The plsintive moan precedes the
tornado; the eddying, sgitated ripple
comes before the tidal wave. All now
begin in earnest 10 feel the necessity Of
concentrated action Of organization. Not
for the purpose Of warning on. or placing
ourselves in antagonist ~ any other le-
eitimate avocstion. but to protect our
own against the thousand and one illegit
innate, parricidsl interests and sssocia-
tons that have been thrown 10 the sur
face in the last ten or twelve years, and
hang like leaden incubuses or mighty
vampires upon the material interests Of
the farmer. sucking as it we're the life
blood of his hard toll.
Those parasites. those money-sucking
Ampirss, assume the form Of centraliua-
zion, powerful moaeyed monoPolies,
.ringr -ssfnen. middleren, railroad com.
binations. &C.. and BY the time you sup
port this mighty host Of selfimposed
benefciaries. and pay the Federal, State,
and county tax, you have nothing left
not even your board and clothing; for ]
an convinced that the majority Of the
Wet fall on the wrong side OF the ledger
annually to the amount of their clothing
bill, and with scanty food for board.
We present a few practical and self
evident facts. You buy pillow, manu-
factured, say in Peoria. Illinois. This
factory is often under the control of a
soulless corporation and monopoly. After
the mechanical part of the instrument is
finished comes the moral machinery in
the shape Of a middleman. whose head
quarters and distributing depot is in sumo
large city. He lives in brown-stone
front, and sports gold-headed cane.
Then comes the rank and file of middle
men; their name is legion. They sport
silver-headed canes and live in the best
frames in the village. That pillow cost at
the factory, made by steam, about IS.
Then comes the process Of buying gold
and silver-headed cane and building 6ne
houses all along the road between Peoria
and your corn-feld, and by the time you
have set the pillow down in your field the
thing has cost you SIG.
But the trouble don't end here. After
few days of wear and tear, you hnd
underlying heavy coat Of cheap paint,
shoddy. shoddier, shoddiest-brash green
wood. soft iron, tender, yielding bolts,
and all that is hard and durable about Il
Is associated with the faces and consciences
of those distant and unprincipled corpo-
rators who manufactured it. In three,
or Eve years at the fartaest, you must
duplicate it with new one. Think Of
i'll Twenty per cent. paid annually for
thrice-taxed shoddy machidery.
You pick up book to read, while
resting your weary limbs a moment.
That book has made ssme publisher in
Cincinnati, or somewhere else, a million
aire, at 81 rs per copy. but by the time
il has passed through that long line of
middlemen it cost you three dollars, and
by the time you have read it through,
like the fabled Dead sea fruits that turn
to ashes on the lips il dissolves in frag-
'ments on the floor. only mention two
items-spaee will not admit of more.
They are only A and B in the alphabet.
You can go on multiplying to infnity.
In order to get money TO pay for the
aforementioned items, you send one
hundred bushels Of wheat to st. Louis.
A few days afterwsrd you receive at the
post-office, written in bold hand, a re-
port of the sale of your wheat. The first
figures, with gross preceding, $3.50. bring
joy to the heart, but by the time the eye
reaches the bottom Of the page and falls
upon the little word net. SIS, light fades
from the eye and hope from the heart.
The farmer feels and knows that he has
spent a whole year in hard toll, in heat,
cold, rain, and mud, at the expense of
triple-tsxed shoddy machinery, to bring
that one hundred bushels Of wheat TO
market. He feels that s75 will not put
back into his pocket the money II has
taken out TO raise it, The reflection nat
urslly presents itself To bis mind that if
be has spent whole year sweating and
toiling. and only gets one-half of gross
proceeds. why is il that few sleek, well
fatted Intermediates should require the
other half for a few days of labori
Then. il he has spirit enough left in him
to trace up his lost s75, by the time he
reaches where Il was sold, he will find its
fragments scattered all along the line.
divided among railroad mOnOpolies, mid
m -