Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1888-08-30
Bill Nye on the Tariff.
HOW THE FARMER IS PRO-
. TECTED. ....

The Beuificent Results to Agriculture
ofa High Tariff Found In q Crop Of
Matured Mortgages. --...-
"What are the prospects for farmer:
in your StsteM
"Wen, they are pore. Never was sc
pore, in fact, sence I've BEN there
Folks wonder why boys leaves the farm
My, boys left so as to get protected, they
said, and SO they went into q clothing
store, one of 'em, and one went into 8
hardware and one is talkin' protection
in the Legislature this winter. They
said that farmin' was gittin' to be like
fishin' and huntin', well enough for q
man that has means and leisure, bHt
they couldn't make livin' at it, they
said. Another boy is in a drug store,
and the man that hires him says he is q
royal feller."
hKind of q castor royal feller,n said
with shrek of laughter.
He waited until had laughed all ]
wanted to and then he said:
"rve always hollered for high tariff
In order to hyst the public debt; now that
we've got the national debt coopered ]
wish they'd take little hack at mine.
I've put in fifty years farmin'. never
drank Ticker in any form. I've worked
from ten to eighteen hours day, been
economical in cloze and never went to q
show more'n dozen times in my life,
raised q family and leaned upward of
200 calves to drink out ofa tin pail
without blowing all their vittles up my
sleeve. My wife worked alongside o.
me sewin' new seats ON the boys pants,
skimmin' milk and even helpin' me to
load hay. For thirty years we toiled
along together and hardly got time to
look into each others faces or dared to
stop and get acquainted with each
other. Then her health failed. Caught
cold in the spring house, preb,bly
skimmini milk and washin' pans and
scaldin' pals and spankin' butter.
Anyhow, she took in q long breath one
day while the doctor and me was
watehin' her, and she says to me,
Henry says she, I've got a chance to
rest, and she put one tired, worh-out
hand on top of the other tired, worn.
out hand, and / knew she'd gone where
they don't work all day and do chores
all night.
II took them to kiss her then. pd.
been too busy for good while previous.
to that, and then I called in the boys.
After the funeral it was too much for
them to stay around and eat the kind
of cookin' we had to put up with and
nobody spoke up around the house as
we used to. The boys quit whistlin'
around the barn and talked kind of low
bytheinselves about goin' to town and
gettin' q job.
,"Theyirer all gone now and the
snow is four feet deep on mothers
grave up there in the old berrying
ground.n
Then both Of US looked out of the car
window quite long while without
saying anything.
81 don't blame the boys for going in
to something else longs other things
pays better; but say-and say what
/ know-that the man who holds the
prosperity of this country in his hands,
the man that actually makes money
for other people to spend, the man that
eats three good, simple, square meals q
day and goes to bed at nine o'clock, 90
that future generations with good blood
and cool brains can 60 from his. farm
to the Senate and Congress and the
White House--he is the man that gets
left at last to run his farm, with nobody
to help him but a hired man and
high protective tariff. The farms in
our State are mortgaged for over seven
hundred million dollars. Ten of our
Western States-I see by the papers
has got about three billion and a half
mortgages on their farms, and that
don't count the chattel mortgages filed
with the town clerks on farm ma
chinery, stock, wagons and even crops,
by gosh! That amt two inches. high
under the snow. That's what the pros
poets is for farmers now. The govern
ment is rich, but the men that made it,
the men that fought perarie fires and
perarie wolves and Injins and potato
bugs and blizzards, and has paid the
war debt and pensions and everything
else and hollered for the Union and the
Republican party and high tariff and
anything else that they were told to, is
left high and dry this cold winter with
a mortgage ofseven billions and half
on the farms they have earned and
saved thousand times over.n
"Yes; but look at the glory Of send
ing from the farm the future President,
the future Senator and the future mem.
Der of Congress"
''That looks we'll on paper, but what
, does it really amount to? Soon as q
farmer boy gets in place like that
he forgets the soil that produced
him, and holds his head as high
as a holly-hock. He bellers for pro-
lection to everybody but the farmer,
and while he sails round in highly
tightly room with q fire in it night and
day, his father on the farm has to
kindle his own fire in the morning with
/ elm slivvers, and he has to wear his
sons lawn tennis suit next to him OF
freeze to death, and he has to milk in
an old gray shawl that has held that
member of Congress when he was o
baby, by gorry! and the old lady has to
sojourn through the Winter in the
fiannels that Silas wore at the regatter
before he went to Congress.
$50 Isay, and ! think that Congress
agrees with me, Damn a farmer, any
hOwW
i He then went away. BILL NYE.