The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1874-10-07
"FOES OF The FARMERS. +"
Something Everybody Should
Read (!
PROF, pTRRY'S ADDRESS AT THE
NEBRASKA STATE FAIR,
An Admirable Discussion OF
Pertinent Topics.
Such as Taxes. Tariffs, Finance, Etc
INFORMATION FROM AN IMPARTIAL
AND COMPETENT TEACHER.
Who Has Studied These Subjects for Many
Years.
\Concluded.1
THE SMTTEN CHEEKS.

THE SMrIEN CHEEhS.
Under protection the farmer suffers a
lOuble loss. He must submit to pay
great deal more for his supplies, whether
.hese be foreign goods protectively taxed,
or domestic goods raised in price by such
taxes; and on the other hand, he cannot
get nearly so much for what he has to sell.
H e is smitten on the one cheek, and then
told by bis masters in Pennsylvania and
New England to turn the other also. He |
sends out more than two-thirds of all the |
exportables of the country, to have them
shaved and whitfield down in price and val
ue by the artificial obstacles set up in our
ports to prevent the return of the things
which these exportables went forth to buy.
If everything else that | say tonight be
forgotten, | beg the farmers of the west to
remember that Protection cuts right into
the heart of the value of their exportable
commodities. Nay more it sometimes
prevents the export of these commodities
altogether. The harvest in Europe this
season has been unusually good; the Flu,
ropean demand for the bread stuffs and
other food products of our country is likely
in consequence to be rather slack already
the price of wheat in New York and Chi
cago has felt the influence of this in a de-
cline still, if we were allowed by the tariff
TO take into this country freely the things
which we want, of which foreigners have
a surplus to sell, they would take now free
ly of us our surplus bread stufis, and we
could afford to let them have them. In
one word, we could export more food pro
ducts at all times, with greater profit on
anob transaction t,rouiJo1 ,Ua nau1J 1at o,,r
return cargoes free of protective taxes
We could sell more when the price was
high, and longer after it became lower, than
we can possibly do now. A protective
tariff tends to stop the exports by making
the imports dearer and as the farmers
furnish the bulk of the exports, the princi
pal losses of the tariff fall upon them. AS
things now are il is true indeed that the
gold price OF produce in Liverpool deter
mines the point of profitable export from
New York but lower gold price in Liv-
erpool would still allow profitable export
from New York, provided the gold price
received here would buy more of all the
commodities wanted by the farmers. Thus
we see that Protection is double foe to
the farmers; it causes them to get less for
what they raise and to give more for what
they buy. Protection in its best estate is
short-sighted narrow minded prejudice :,
whenever it passes beyond that it becomes
a consciously deceitful scheme of plumber,
by which a few seek to enrich themselves
at the expense of the many. Those many
are mainly the farmers They are album
dainty able numerically and otherwise, if
they will only unite to do it, to put down
forever this monstrous injustice of legisla-
ton, hope, that their rising intelligence,
and the courage that is born of union will
seize this lying fraud by the throat, and
shake the life out of it, as a dog shakes
the breath out of a woodchuck
THE THIRD FOE.
Poor money and protective tariffs are
natural allies carry on their work of des-
truction in similar ways; each intensifies
the mischief of the other; and both com
blne their results in hostility to the agri-
cultural interests, since each compels the
farmer to give more for his supplies and
take less Tor his produce On the other |
hand, hard money and free trade are |
natural allies also, working in the
same harness, detrauding nobody, Just
to all because natural and free, and en-
aiding the masses of mankind to main
tam the advantageous places which the
heavenly Father designed them to hold.
10 be consistent with himself hard mon
ey man should be free trader also and a |
man who believes that legislators are wiser /
than natural laws should consistently be- |
heve both 10 commercial restriction and in
g-money, since both are artificial Great /
ures of the Legislature. AccordinoIv
there has been considerable tendency dur.
ing the last fifty years for men to range |
themselves 10 parties on the one side or /
the other OF these two combined questions
but unfortunately they have come IN thinL /
more OF the party name and ORGANIZATION
than OF the principles on which par,;es
profess to be originally founded. and
when the perYersion has thorougblv tale /
place, as 1t has in this country n this me-
ment. scarcely anything is a greater foe =, +
real progress than this hollow partv sr;r;,
What is it TO be Republican to-darS
What is it be Democrat today Y
man can possibly answer these questions
because there are no vital and generai
differences now involved in these names
PARTY SPIRIT IN RELATION TO FARMERS.
Party spirit has been particularly in
furious to the farmers Il this country, be-
cauSe.'ney nave -uged themselves pretty
evenly IN Dol :, Of the two political parties,
anu inc 20 parts have thus completely
neutr stzsd each other, The interests of
I'd . farmers have had no weight in either
Of the political parties, simply because the
farmers themselves stood over against
each other in two opposing camps. Thus
the farmers, as such, lost all weight and
influence in political affairs They are TO
be congratulated and sppiauded that the
mass of them have made up their minds
o act no longer with the old political par
les. or with any other parties in fact, for
4 -=..a.4 ~ than adhere 10 this de-