The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1884-05-13
The Farmers Foe.

We make the following strong anC
clear extract from and admirabI,
speech recently delivered at Spring
field, Tennessee, by Capt. G. E
Morrill,, the accomplished editor of the
Nashville World, and formerly wei
known to the readers of the Courier
Journal as one of our ablest staff cor
respondents. 1t will repay perusal.
The farmers of the country have
been for the greater part of seventy
years hewers of wood and drawers OF
water for the most grinding monOpo
lies that ever cursed the earth. Men
talk of prosperous era, and point to
Vanderbilt. 1t ought not to be posi-.
bic for one man 10 own 100000, 900
under republican government. Un-
der normal conditions no one brain,
10 one pair of hands can make the
tenth part of it, and never have made
it. Your hands, and mine. and the
hands of your wives and children,
have, through class legislation and
protection, laid that immense sum at
the feet Of shoddy aristocrats. A dis
iinguished stakeholder in an iron cor
poration said in a public speech,
April 18th. 1883, at Nashville, that
an iron furnace near that city had
just realized So per cent. on the CAPT
tai invested. How much that fur
mace paid the men we have never
been able to make him tell. Farmers
of Robertson county, can you make
So per cent. per annum? Or 60? Or
30? Or 10? Or 5? Why not? 1t is
because you are not protected. You
ought to be the richest on earth. 1t is
because you are bed in every stitch of
clothes you wear, in every band and
gusset and seam, to build up immense
fortunes for the protected classes.
= Can any man in Gods name tell
why the government-our gov
eminent should protect one of Its
children and not another {? Why il
should dandle some as pets upon its
paternal knee and treat the remainder
as if they were step-children to be ig.
nored. robbed, despised, maltreated
Can you tell why you must be forced
by the government to pay the LOuisi-
ana planters seven cents for sugar
when, unless the government forced
you to do so, you could buy it for
four cents :?
When asked as to the prosperity OF
the country, the mopopollst will point
to Gould and Vanderbilt. But fol-
two billionaires l can point TO a mil.
ion paupers. Such wealth as the
Vanderbilts exhibit, their millions
upon millions, are not the emblems of
a happy people nor the evidences of q
prosperous country. They only serve
to show
"How wide the limits stand
Between a wealthy and happy land.
Give me thousand cheerful homes,
with all the necessaries of life in
abundance, rather than one million
aire and 99s poor families who find
life one perpetual struggle.
The farmers, through their blood
and money, have aided an empire to
the original thirteen states and bow
much of this empire, think you, has
been squandered by our government,
given away to corporations which TO-
day arrogate to themselves franchises
and prerogatives which no ducal
crown in Europe would dare assume I
Seventy-two billions seven hundred
and thirty nine millions-330, 28O
acres. Estimate these lands at $40
per acre-and that is less than its In
trinsic value-less than it will bring
in thirty years from this day-and We
have given away to lordly capitalists
ia land alone, over 1920, 0OO, 600, 900.
Through the present dsmnable tariff
you are impoverished with every
breath yon draw. A young gentle
man suggested recently that the tariff
was a difficult question, and he hadn't
time to study it, but said he saw a
friend, a Mr.. Wallace, just from
England, the other day, who bough
three handsome suits that cost him
500 In the aggregate. He tried to
duplicate those suits in Montgomery,
and the lowest price at which It could
be done was $3.50. / said to my young
friend: There you have it in nut.
shell, that is the whole tariff question
in two minutes and q half. Stop
paying tribute to the manufacturers.
Stop paying the Internal robbers Is
per cent. per annum while you don't