Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1888-03-16
Bill Nye Talks Tariff.

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seventy-fve miles the elbow of large
man whose name | do not know. He
was not railroad hog or 1 would have
resented it. He was built wide and
he couldn't help it, so ! forgave him.
He had a large gently, kindly eye,
and when he desired to spit he went
to the car door, opened it and decor
ated the entire side of the train, for
getting that the speed would help to
give scope to his remarks.
Naturally as he sat there by my side.
holding on tightly to his ticket, and
I evidently afraid the conductor would
forget to come around and get it. |
began to figure out in my mind what
might be his business. He had
pounded one thumb so that the nail
was black where the blood had settled
under it. This might happen to shoe
makers, a carpenter, a blacksmith or
most any body else So it didn't help
me out much though it looked to me
as if it might have been done by try
! ing to drive a fence nail through a
leather hinge with an axe an nobody
| but a farmer would try to do that.
| Following up the cue | found that he
| had MIXED on his boots and then |
| knew | was right. The man who
/ milks before daylight in a dark barn
when the thermometer is down to go
/ below, and who hits his boots and
misses the pail by reason of the cold
and the uncertain light and the Prudis-
| ness OF the COW is a marked man. He
cannot conceal the fact that he is
| farmer unless he remove that badge
SO | started out on this theory, and
remarked that this would pass for a
pretty hard winter on stock.
The thought was not original with
me, for | have heard it expressed by
| others either in this country or in
Europe. He said he thought it would.
My cattle has gone through a NOW
full of hay since October, and eleven
ton O. brand. Hay don't seem to hev
the goodness tibet it he'd last year, and
with their new process grist mills they
| jerk all the juice out o the brand, so
you might as well feed cows with
excelsior and upholster your horses
with hemlock bark as to buy brand"
"Well, why do you run 50 much
stock? Why don't you try diversified
farming and rotation of crops?'
Well, probably you got that dose
in the papers. Farmin is like running
paper in regard to some things f.
| Every Teller in the world will take and |
turn in and tell you how to do it even
The don't know a blamed thing about it.
| There amt man in the United States |
Today who don't secretly think he can I
run any one if his business busted on
him whether he knows the difference /
between a mich cow or horse rake |
or not"
What are the prospects for farmers
in your state?"
well they are pore. Never was so
pore in fact since | ben there. Folks |
wonder why the boys leave the farm. /
My boys left so as to get protected |
they said, and they went into a clothing
store one of 'em and one went into .
hardware and one is talkin protection |
in the Legislature this winter. They
said that farmin was gettin' to be like
tishin' and huntin' well enough for a
man that has means and leisure, but
they couldn't make Twin at it, they
said"
1--WE always hOllored for high tariff /
in order to hyst the public debt, but
now that we've got the national debt
coopered | wish they'd take little
hack at mine. I've put in fifty years
Of in
any form. I've worked from ten to
eighteen hours day, been economical
in clOZe and never went to a show
MORN half a dozen times in my life,
raised a family, and learned upwards
of POO calves to drink out of a pail
without blowing all their vittles up my
sleeve. My wife worked alongside O.
me SEWN new seats on boys, pants,
skimmin' milk and helping me load
hay. For forty 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. ketched cold
in the spring house probably skimmin'
milk and Washin' pans and scaldin'
pals and spankin' butter. ANY way
she took long breath one day while
me and the doctor was watchin' her,
and she said Henry, I've got a chance
to rest and she put one tired, worn out
hand on top of the other worn out hand,
and | knew she'd gone where they
don't work all day and do chores all
night.
81 took time to kiss her then. I'd
been too busy for good while previous
to do that, and then | called in the
boys. After the funeral it was too
much for them too 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 O low about goin' to town and
gettin' a job.
They're all gone now and the snow
is four feet deep on mothers grave in
the old burying ground"
Then both of us looked out the car
window quite long while without
saying anything.
Il don't blame the boys for going
into something else longs other things
pay better; but | say-and know 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 a
day and goes to bed at 9 o'clock, so
that future generations, with good
blood and cool brains can 60 from the
farm to the senate and congress and
White house-he is a man that gets
left at last to run his farm with no.
body to help him but hired man and
a high protective tariff. The farms in
our state are mortgaged for over
S7O00O0,00O. Ten of our western
states-I see by the papers have got
about $3,5000OO,00O in mortgages,
besides the chattel mortgages filed
with the town clerks of farm machinery,
stock, wagons. and even crops, by gosh!
that amt two inches high under the
snow. The government is rich, but the
men that made it, the men that fought
perarie fires and perarie wolves, and
Injuns and potato bugs and billiards,
and has paid the war debt and pensions
and everything else, and hollered for
the Union and the republican party