The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-05-28
REPORT ON MANUFACTURING
AND STOCK RAISING.
Read Before the Duplin County Farm
ers' Alliance, April 5th, 1889.


Mr.. President and Members Of the Duphn
County Farmers Alliance:
The undersigned, a committee ap-
pointed by this Alliance to inquire
into and advise this body as to the
ACCESSIBILITY and feasibility of co-opera-
tive factories to be established by
County and Sub-Alliances to manu-
facture as many as possible Of the
articles we purchase from others
at high and sometimes exorbitant
prices, and also of raising our own
horses and mules, have the honor to
report as follows:
l. To him who reads, as we'll as to
him who travels, it is quite evident
that all over the earth those who en-
ploy steam and machinery to produce
the goods and wares which mankind
need, have amassed wealth beyond
any other classes of men, while agri-
culturists, whether States, communi-
ties, or individuals are struggling,
often in despair, to keepthe wolffrom
their doors. The manufacturer clears
on an average not much less than
thirty per cent. per annum on his
capital, while the farmer does not
reach there. The injustice of this
state of things points Enthusiastically,
we think, to a duty which it would be
suicidal in us to neglect. Every SEN
timent of patriotism and of affection
for our children and the coming gen
~erations of our people, demands that
we shall strive to prepare the way for
their deliberation from the vassalage
which, without proper effort on our
part, will almost inevitably be their
lot.
2. AS a natural consequence, wealth
is followed by ease, leisure, travel,
schools, colleges, and other seminaries
and sources Of education and enlight-
eminent, and the knowledge which en-
ables mar to understand the materials
and forces which nature has so boun-
tifully placed within his reach and to
subdue them to his own uses, and to
outwit his less enlightened fellow-man
in the struggle for wealth and power.
Hence it is, among other results, that
legislation i~nthiscountry and in Europe
is unduly influenced by manufacturing
centers and sections. Induced by the
timidity and avarice with which it is
proverbially afflicted, wealth forms
combinations, and finds means to mis-
lead or corrupt voters and legislators.
There is no need of commenting on
the farmers voice in the conduct of
public affairs. He has lived so long
under governments and laws framed
and designed for the benefit of other
classes of men, that he has come to
look upon his situation as normal and
necessary. He has little comprehen
sion of the sources of the evils which
surround him and less of the proper
remedies. The one Item of cost of
armies and navies in the nations which
profess and call themselves Christians,
maintained, in most cases, for the sole
purpose of gratifying the ambition,
pride, revenge or rapacity of the rul-
ing classes, is a burden on the farmer
without any corresponding advantage,
and is generally a shameful waste of
his money. For these reasons, point
ing in the same direction al those pre-,
viously given, we feel justified in re-
iterating and emphasizing the duty of
entering upon such a system of manu-
featuring as will bless our State, our
county and ourselves, and prepare the
way for our children to enjoy that
share of the pleasures and comforts
of life which an enlightened and
benevolent humanity would gladly &C
cord to them. To us of the South
this duty is immeasurably reinforced
} by the demands of self-respect, since
the unjust burdens laid on us are
largely for the enrichment of those
who, during a nominal peace of twenty
four years, have given us few tokens of
their friendship Or n of justice.
Does any one affirm that we cannot
do these things? He may as well
affirm that we are not men. Before
the invention of the steam engine, the
cotton gin, the spinning frame, and
the power loom, many communities,
now reveling in wealth derived from
manufacturing enterprising, were nc
+ more able to enter upon such enter
ptises than we are now. Moreover,
the Farmers Alliance as a co-opera.
tive association enjoys peculiar and ex-
ceptional advantages. A few dollars
or cents paid in monthly or quarterly
for a year or two, would soon make a
sum sufficient to establish one or more
factories for working up our cotton,
wool, leather, timber, phosphates
: pine straw or other raw material, OF
: for doing many other things which
we now employ others to do, and il
erecting buildings, materials and labor
can take the place of contributions in
( money. The only real difficulty il