Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-08-22
The Farmers and the Strikes.

The Farmers and the Strikes.
Now that the excitement aroused by the
railroad strikes has subsidized, it is well for the
middle class of producers upon whom all
great social and political disturbances weigh
most heavily in the end, to consider them
with the view of getting at the cause and
remedy of such an alarming outbreak.
We say the middle class of producers,
which includes the employing manufacture
ers, mechanics and tradesmen but mostly
the farmers of the country. These, who are
both capitalists and laborers, are greatly in
terested in any strife between capital and
labor.
1t is great mistake to suppose that there
is any real antagonism or essential conflict
between labor and capital. Both together,
and their harmonious cooperation, are nee
essary to the prosperity of any civilized
people.
As regards the great mass of both in this
country there is no conflict As yet the
mass of the national wealth is possessed by
the working people, and used by them in
their work A hundred years ago that state
of things was almost universal, so that it is
said that at the breaking out of the revolu-
ton there were in all this country but two
men possessed of as much as half million
of property and in the case of one these,
George Washington, the most of this was in
land, great part of which he cultivated.
On the other hand, there was at that time
(asde from slaves) no distinct class Of la
borers without capital. Every industrious
man in those days had some property, which
he used to produce an income on which he
and his family lived.
1t has been our boast, that this was the
condition of our people and nation. In the
countries from whence our ancestors came
it was not so, and the statesmen and think
ers of those countries have always prophe-
sled that as the American states grew in
population the same evils that afflct the
older nations of Europe would spring up in
them. These men have held that those evils
were essential to and inseparable from mod
ern civilization, and that as soon as the free
land of America was all occupied we should
begin to realize this inevitable result.
American writer's have combatted the
doctrine that hopeless laboring class is the
necessary product of Christian civilization /;
but recent events seem to sustain the views
of their opponents. As for ourself, we have
lost no atom of our American faith We
believe that so far as our civilization is as
Stimulating itself to that of Europe, it is be-
cause we have been betrayed into surrender
ing the fundamentals of liberty in our gov
eminent. There is, and perhaps always will
be, a considerable number of people in every
community who mean to live and grow rich
by their wits, instead of by work. We find
them in all walks of life, but especially in
politics, and that Legitimate branch of trade
and business called speculation" The
people have been betrayed into giving places
of power and influence to the wit living
politicians, and these have aided the wit
living spectators, by the enactment of laws
and the grant of special privileges, to such
an extent that already our country contains
millionares by the hundred, and men of
little less wealth by the thousand who in all
their boards do not possess legitimately-
earned dollar. By so much as these have
become wealthy, by so much have the work
ing people become poor and dependent.
The plain and only remedy is the abolition
of all special privileges, and as a necessary
preliminary to this, the stern exclusion of
all professional politicians from places of
public trust and influence. They have sold
the peoples rights to the spectators. 1t is
but mild punishment to deny them further
opportunities to make merchandise of our
dearest privileges.
While the country is on the rising wave
of speculation, everything seems prosperous
When the wave recedes, the wealth that was
once divided among the people is found tc
have been gathered into the hands of few
These sit upon their money-bags until ne
cessity and want compel every debtor in the
country to part with his property to then
for 1.-THE of its real value Then they star
another "era of flush times" enmesh another
shoal Of victims draw them in and salt
them down, and so on.
Meantime, while those ofsmall property
the business men and employers of labor
are being ruined, the working men withou
property are reduced almost to starvation
The spectators who have seized upon anC
now control such great nonopolies as the rail
roads (bult with money drawn from tn,
people, but which the people have lost ant
they have goD, take advantage of this des
titution to reduce the wages of their owl
employees to the starvation pitch. Anc
then come the strikes and riots of mel
driven desperate. How are the farmer
affected by all this First, the poverty o
the great mass of consumers compels stint
ing of food and clothing among them tina
reduces the prices of all farm products be
low their actual cost to the producer Thel
men into the country to engage in farming
which, from their ignorance of the bushes
and the low prices, is totally Improbable b
them. Yet it keeps down prices and disol
ganizes business on every side. Meanwhil
the farmers who are in debt fluid it imposs
BILE TO pay even the interest on their mort
cages, Their farms are confscated, and tn
wealth of the great capitalists still more IN
creased by this spelling of the people.
The lesson of it all is simply for the PEE
pie to take the government out of the hand
Of dishonest politicians, and to see that a
immediate return is made to the fundamel
tai principle of free government, "equi
rights to all, exclusive privileges to none
II this is not done, though we may presery