The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1888-01-12


government, in the legislative arm,
not voice in the Senate, and last ses-
sion Of Congress % members out of
32O in the House of Representatives
Is it strange that our calling is prac-
tically bankrupt while the nation is
said to be prosperous :? But | will
not longer abuse your patience by
discussing this section Of our interest.
We are impudently told that it is
true that no law of the United States
ever created a monopoly. One in
stance only will prove it's falsehood.
a few years ago there were two per-
sons in America manufacturing qui-
nine. They had monopolized that
business, and were so effectually pro
tected in their monopoly by the laws
of the United States that they effec-
tually throttled all domestic compe-
tition and drove off all foreign inter
ference by prohibitive tariff. A
movement was at last made to remove
the prohibition duty and lower the
price Of this necessity of life to the
poOI, -Ahc HSI "ClS IIlCtNlC ny lllS VO-
h5bittontsts, that foreigners would drive
out domestic manufacture entirely,
establish monopoly, and put up the
price to SS or $40, the price then be-
ing So per ounce. The tariff was
taken off the present price is from 80
cents to S per ounce, and the domes-
tic manufacturers are still working at a
profit. Oh, no, there are no monopolies
possible under the benign system under
which this country has prospered be-
oond all precedent Yet one person
owns and controls the telegraphs, and
one person owns and controls the tele-
phones, whereas less than ten persons
dominate the railway system of the
country, and can and will, and do,
wreck any railway properties which
venture to make the least show of
competition with their systems, or to
enter upon their territories, and yet
there are no monopolies
This state Of things, repeat again,
bears more heavily upon agriculture
than on any and all the other classes
combined, for their business is taxed
by these monopolies and by local and
State governments out of all proper
ton to it's income producing power,
and they are GENEROUSLY, indirectly and
insidiously taxed up ION their incomes
and their capital by the Federal tariff,
while at the same time thoroughly
cut off from all banking facilities by
system framed by and for commercial
interests exclusively.
1t is for the representatives Of the
thirty millions of population who live
by the plough in this country, SO
q marvellously free and great, d" to see
to it, that the party in power and the
present administration redeem their
ante-election pledges by reducing this
onerous, unnecessary burden of taxa
tion, until the treasury is disburdened
of this prodigious amount of surplus
money, and the people are freed from
the CALLING domination of monopolizing,
greedy and dangerous corporate power,
a poacer hot has groecn into a huge and
hidious incubus upon the shoulders Of the
people. l have said, and here [ repeat,
that if we lie still and suffer these
things, we can Justly blame no one but
for we have had the power,
and possibly yet have it, to change
these things by judicious and indie
pendent exercise of our suffrage. If
we do not, this so-called free govern
ment of the people, will inevitably be-
come an oligarchy in the hands of a
few privileged persons: aoseldang the
moneyed loager to the enszavenaent Of the
people, especially the agricultural classes.
Look to it today and let us avoid this
to our government.
| trust, gentlemen, that we shall
neither fail nor falter in the work we
have undertaken, viz: The thorough
of the agricultural classes
throughout the entire country, the
only safety to Republican government,
and for the protection Of civil and
political influence and power, and the
of our social, intellectual
and material status. Let me beg you
TO get up a thorough, independent and
perfect system of organization of our
classes for the protection of our inter
ests, as we'll as for free government,
,oforo xyo,, oI;o,,rp