The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1877-08-31

THE Working Mems P.rty of the United
States is the title assumed by a number of
artisans in the cities, who being in consider
able numbers at each Of these rallying points,
meet and discuss the whole question of labor
from their point of view, as if they were the
working men only Of this great country
That they are very important element of
the labor classes, no one will deny. We take
pride i'll the mechanics who have endowed
our country with so many valuable inven-
tions, and whose work is used every day in
some shape on all our lands and in all our
houses But the farmers Of the United
States, working men as they are, seem SO
completely left out of the spcculations of the
Working Mems Party, that we cannot help
putting in claim in their behalf, as
laboring men also. They do not want to be
punished as malefactors if they choose to rise
at four on the long summer days and work
till shutdown. They do not half like the idea
that Government should take control of all
industrial enterprises, railroads, telegraphs
and all means of transportation. They pre-.
fer TO farm their own lands, and see furnaces
and mills run by their owners; men from
their own class and families, rather than that
they should be operated by committees of
the Legislature or Commissioners appointed
by Government. In fact, upon looking back
to any of the census reports, say 1870, we
find that the farmers constitute one-half of
the whole population of our country, while
the other working classes in mechanical and
manufacturing pursuits, in mining, railroad
ing; &c, make about one-sixth of the popula
ton. So the farmers are three to one. and hive
sIme right to a Voice on the subject of law
milking They are even in Il larger majority
than our estimate represents
The interests of all the country mechanics
and they are many in numbers and impor.
tant in intelligence and in responsibility, are
identical with those of the farmer. The men
of the cities who are now claiming to not
for the working men have suffered much :.
hardship and poverty are not likely to induce
men to reason calmly about the causes that
brought such unwelcome guests to their
doors; but the farmers may claim to have set
an example Of patti mt suffering, and strong
in numbers as they are they may demand
that some pttention be paid to their present
condition, and some thought given 10 the
three or four famine years through which
they have just passed. While they were get
ting $3.50 for wheat, and from 81 to as for
corn, the whole country was apparently
prosperous. Farmers had incomes which
consisted of the wages of their labor and the
interest on their lands and stock, which are
their tools of trade They spent these in
comes in employing the mechanics of the
cities and country. Trey paid libe, al wages
to hands They rebuilt their barns and
houses, and even began to improve the roads
wien suddenly down vert prices, and for
ever so long, three years at least, we have
returned to the traditional dollar for wheat
and two dollars for corn.
The farmer profits little by the flurries in
prices gotten up amongst the city grain mer.
chants, These ante.war prices came back to
us so unexpectedly that they caught almost
every man in debt to some one; and getting
no money from the crop to pay the credi ors,
these again dcfaulted to others, generally to
the greater merchants of the cities A year
or so of this, and of the non-buying policy
enforced upon the farmers, brought about
the panic and hard times for the working
men. Certainly farmers know what that
means For three years they have not really
starved, but have gone behind more than
they knew. They have eaten into capital
which was to have been the future life of
their families. Look at the depreciation in
lands and stock Can any one say they are
worth half what they were when the fall in
grain began, aud when gold was from 81 20
TO $1.3O? The difference of gold values
could be b,lLe, but their losses have gone
far beyond anything of that kind, while tax
es have swelled in tie other direction. They |