Daily globe., 1882-01-30
1870 and 1880 will prove the truth of our


What striking contrast is all this with
the beliefs that have been industriously
dinned into our ears, that we are the
most prosperous people on earth, and
that the whole world is rushing here to
share in our advantages. Even Mlssis-
sippi, full, as we have been taught, of
unprogressive rebels and progressive yell
low fever, has made growth nearly as
great as this garden of the Northwest; it
rose from s27, 1922 in 1870 to l,13l, ,597 in
1880.
What is the reason for all this Is not
this good State? Is not our sell fertile
Are not our people energetic and indus
trious? Certainly. What, then, has ar
rested our growth?
Emigration has an instinct as delicate
and as certain as that which guides the
rootlets of the plant to moisture: it moves
inevitably towards prosperity, and you
cannot prevent it from shrinking away
from unprogressive lands. Go cut into
the rural regions of Minnesota; look at
the farmers that come in to sell their
wheat; observe their buffalo coats
and snow-packs; go to their houses
and ask them to show you their Ii
braries, their pianos, their carriages,
you will probably find them gather
ed around a cooking stove, the whole
family trying to keep warm in single
room: their diet of the plainest; no luxu-
ries; nothing but the rude necessities of
life. Observe them going to sell their
wheat; there IS no competition; no rival
buyers, as in other countries, fight for the
possession of the load and run the price
up. A single buyer, agent of the mime
apolis ring, meets them, surly, and in
many cases insolent. He fixes the price
of wheat, fixes the grade of it; he fixes
the weight of it, and he tells the unfor-
tunate peasant that he can drive back to
his gloomy and pinched home, with per-
haps the sheriff or the constable in his
company, OF take the price, grade and
weight offered him. He has no alterna-
tive. He goes home conscious that he
has been robbed, but he sees no remedy.
He does not increase his fields, he re-
duces them; he encourages no relative to
move to Minnesota; he corresponds with
friends IN Texas or Kansas, and as soon
as he can he drifts off to one of those
states, leaving his farm probably in the
ynH
lender.
But great ulcer, an imposthume. a
cancer at Minneapolis grows; in the midst
of that town arise unparalleled mills and
palaces; the healthy blood of the state is
drawn to that center, and,
"Wealth accumulates while men decay"
Lord Bacon said that the usurer would
always win in the long run, because he
dealt in certaintles, while his customers,
embarked in the hazards of diff
ferent pursuits, dealt in uncertain
ties, and in the end the money
would all be in the usurer's pot 1t is SO
with this ring. Be the season good OF
| bad, the crop big or little, tho price high
or low, they have their stealage of mil
lions; the grasshoppers cannot bese thick
but they will get part of the plunder;
even out of what the blast, the hal
storm, the blight, the weevil and the
| chinch-bug leave, the millers must have
their share. Given system which an.
nually carries millions from the people tc
ring, and it is a mere question of time
until the ring are princes and the people
paupers.
The law gives remedy, plain and
complete one. Have the people the cour.
age, the manhood and the capacity fol-
united action to insist upon it?