Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1881-03-10
WHAT DOES A CONGRESS
Composed of One Hundred and Forty
one National Bankers Care Tor the
Farming Population orts lnterests2

10 lllukp lllc OlllCc VI lllc commissioner |
of agriculture u cabinet position, every |
farmer in the United States has suffer-
ed defeat, and his rights Of due consid-
Grafton from the government have been
disregarded. The agricultural depart |
ment should rank second to none in
Importance, and the facilities for its
eiTectual operation should he as wide
as the great agricultural interests of
the country While as at present oper-
ated and us it must be so long as the
Monroe doctrine is adhered to, the navy
department is but an excuse for ap-
pointing cabinet minister and the
distribution of patronage under him;
while it represents nothing but yard
without ships and seaboard without
armament, the agricultural department
would represent three-lifths of the pop
ulatiOn and hve-eights of the wealth of
the whole country. Yet one is a cab
met portfolio, carrying the weight of
large appropriations, and the other
bureau without official power or patron
age.
But what does congress composed
of one hundred and forty-one national
bankers care for the farming popula-
ton or its interests? They are too
deep in farming government bonds, for
which the farmer mustpay, and sowing
Il new crop of Indebtedness which the
children of the farmer must reap, to
care whether the adaptations of seed to
soil he understood, and made available
knowledge; or whether the winds and
tides of one section may be used to
watt prosperity to another2
Far-fctched and inane jokes may be
made about Mr.. lie Dues endeavor to
grow tea, and the useless expenditure
Of money to carry out his designs,
which seem all too simple for the men
whose least complex combination can
rob the treasury of million. Mr.. lie
Due, no more than any other officer,
can make bricks without straw. His
facilities have only permitted him in Il
most superficial manner to try one or
two of ten thousand experiments
which might he made. In this coun-
try all knowledge pertaining to the
real interests of life, its social and polit.
ical economy, and the uses of soil, is IA
hapla2ard knowledge, which men are
expected to catch as they grow up as
they do the mcascls, and the later in
life they get it the harder ii is to as
simulate to their wants. \ man in the
chaotic movements Of unsettled Amer
lean life may at any time be thrown
from behind Il counter over which he
has received money into an uncultiva.
ted field which he must force to yield
money, and the adjustment of means
To the end in his case is puzzle more
involved than that of the primal first
cause to II theOSophist. OF rains and
floods and thermal tides, of soil that
will grow tuhcrS and will not perfect
cereals; Of the soil that will give bill
lowing swathcs of grain and squecz'
the life out of Il potato, he hai
mo more knowledge than jus
enough To put the wrong crop in TIN
ground, and, like marrying in haste, HI
rcpcnts at leisure, for Il succession o
failures ends by making him dronC
All this with its endless train of evil
which do not stop short of ovcrcrowdet
cities, and all the misery and crim
which is born of the city slums- al
this might he avertcd by the prope
administration of Il department whicl
would directly benefit every citizen il
America. But, no; our congress is to
busy in legisating the capital of farm
crs into their own pockets through tn
corporations which buy them, to Civ
their valuable time to helping me
make wealth for themselves and tn
country at large,
We do not speak for Mr.. lie Du,
notwithstanding we honor his inter
tions and deem the limitations of hi
experiments disgrace to the govern
ment, and not to him. That he has
far higher and broader conception {
the needs and the possibilities {
America, than the petty-fogging Law
yers and narrOw-minded bankers wi
defeated his bill, we know; but it is II,
for him that we speak. 1t is for Il pO
ton Of our population which is fl
larger than any other one class, an
which has, so far in our history, hi
the least consideration and no repr
sentation whatever at the hands of Il
government. Show us one place
which the gathered wisdom of al
number of farmers has been made II
adiudicating power in fixing agrarii
laws. A crime against the soil, ;
abuse of its redundant benelicience,
Il crime against nature and an abuse
creative power. Yet these crimes a
committed on every acre of land und
cultivation, and that abuse of pow
brings its certain retribution in worn o
lands, arid and burning with denunc
ton or sending the curse of its fore
and awful miasm to work justice up
people grown effete with the soil tn
have debased. And yet these legis
tors, these calculators of the sum
human endurance, these vampires
the blood of the race, these panders
the lust of power, lay, with rib
lest, llclr Dulu CuIS6 upull Ille ~
which the tender voice of a loving G
hath declared redeemed by the swt
of sad mems brows. Eternal justice a
eternal love is satisfied with the swe
and accepts the explanation. Ma
inhumanity wrings the blood-drop W
the sweat and transmutes the age
into a treasure which shall buy for
hell of repentance. So let it be.
Colonel mgersoll talks glibly of
"Mistakes of Moses" Go to
archieves of that great and inspi
law-giver, and read the record of
sole agrarian laws which have e
served to keep the virgin product
ness of soil intact for two thousi
% years. Those laws did do it in Ii
moro subject to the fux and failure
heat and moisture than any that eX
elsewhere on the globe.
Those laws did do it, and so long
they were made the laws of life
that almost purely agricultural nat
there was not an unproductive acre
depleted forest within the radius
Mosaic law. And IL is also true