Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-06-10
GENERAL BRATTON'S POSITION.

General John BrattOn publishes a letter
in the Winnsbor0 NeWS of last Saturday,
giving his views about the farmers move
ment in this State, and defining his posi-
ton on the questions discussed in the Farm
ers' Convention. After according to the
advocates of the farmers movement homes
ty of purpose and good faith, he says:
But grant the correctness of these assump--
tions-do the measures proposed reach and
cure the evils? Do they tend to generate
or call into service a healthy, sound, ele-
waited, liberal and enlightened public senti-
ment? This is the only reliance-the sim
gle and sole agency by which %rottenness in
a government like ours can be reached and
eradicated. TO meet the assumed condl-
ton (Which, by the way has strayed entire
ly away from the incipient object of the
Convention, namely, agricultural depression
and its cause) the farmers are called upon
to organize as a class, to enforce class legis-
lation-to capture the Legislature, to take
what legislation they want. They are to
call a convention of the people, and reor-
ganize the government to suit their views.
In the meantime, such institutions as the
assembled wisdom of all classes of the
State have been able, with patient and
earnest labor in adjusting complications and
surmounting difficulties, to build on the
ashes of our ruins are to be felled at one
blow as State institutions, and, without re-
gard to cost, converted into class establish
ments. If the farmers organize for such a
fight they will i%naugurate class conflict, in
which the actions of men are governed, not
by moderation and wisdom and calm con-
sideration for the common veal, but by
passion and prejudice. Will this, l submit
to the organizers, call into action that sound,
booltI1, ,,,h1;o confipoanf thaf Won mood RI
cure rottenness in the government?
1t seems that one of the purposes of the
movement is to take by legislation for the
benefit of the farmers their just share of the
public treasure. When the power is OBJ
tanned by such means to do that, who is to
determine what the just share OF the farm
err class is? Who is to measure the grab?
Where is the authority for distributing the
public treasure, justly or uni Justly, among
the classes of our people? When wa 1t
ever done in our country, except unJustly
and indirectly, as is proposed here, by class
eqisldtiON, the great source to which some
of US trace the depression of our industries?
| mean Federal class legislation, however,
not State. But push on a step further: We
make this class fight and win. And what DO
we as farmers, or our agricultural interests,
gain to remunerate us for the POUNDS and
scars with which a crippled and debased
political sentiment energies from the con-
tiict?
We will have lowered our standard of ed
u%cation, especially that of the farmer, by
substituting, regardless of expense, a set of
special class schools for our State Universe
ty system. BY special class education we
will secure the perpetuation of the class dis
sension and strife which we have inaugu-
rated. The State will not be allowed to
concentrate her educational strength and,
in her impoverished condition, exercise the
highest and wisest economy in atfording OPP
portunities for the moral and intellectual
culture of her sons and, breaking down
class lines, train up all into hearty, healthy,