The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1890-01-28
WHERE AND WHAT IS THE
. REMEDY2

TNHE Press and C~arolinsan, of the
Il 10Th inst, gives a column or
more Of advice to the farmers in which
they are informed that if they would
work six days in the week, keep out
OF debt, make their implements, ETC.,
they could and would be independent
OF combines, trusts and spectators,
and thus farming could be made to
pay. Then Immediately following this
advice is another column showing the
farmer that "while protected manu-
facturers have grown rich by the pro-
tecttye system the farmers and others
who have bought their goods have
been kept poor, to a degree, Verging
on bankruptcy" So, upon a sober
second thought, our contemporary
concluded that it was not altogether
the fault of the farmer that he is poor,
and his conclusion is correct. But
unjust, oppressive and Ubiquitous, as
is u protective tariff system, the
trouble, dear brother, lies deeper still.
It lies in that financial policy of the
government which is reeking with
corruption, and which is draining the
very life blood Of the wealth-producers
of the land and has paralyzed the in.
dustrial energies of our people. 1t is
this wicked financial scheme that
fosters and fattens insolent' and domi-
neering monopoly, and is crushing out
the very life of our people. It is this
that builds the gorgeous palaces Of
those who extOrt from the honest
yeomanry of the country all their
earnings and consigns them to novels
of poverty.
Take your map, brother, and look
at Illinois, then at Kansas, and see
the network of railroads connecting
these two great States. Last year
Kansas made a large crop of corn. In
parts~of Illinois the corn crop was an
entire failure. There are more acres
of coal in the State of Illinois than
there e acres of corn in Kansas.
To-day the people in Illinois are sit
ting on these acres of coal suffering
for Kansas bread. To-day the Kansas
people are sitting, shivering around
their corn fires, made of their corn,
and suffering for the Illinois coal.
To-day the Kansas farmer is forced to
sell his beef at one to three cents per
pound and it is brought to Asheville
and Charlotte and sold so as to drive
our dealers and farmers out of the
market and give Armour & Co., a
monopoly, and thus ruin both the
Kansas and North Carolina farmer.
Yea, verify, there is something wrong,
besides the i~mprovidenee of the
farmer and the Press and CarolanGan
is beginning to have the truth dawn
upon it when it suggests reformatory
legislation for relief. But it must not
begin nor stop with the tariff. It
must uproot and subvert the present
financial policy of the government and
rebuild and re-establish it on princi-
pies of justice and equity. And how
is this to be done? Not by the farm
ers "working six days in the week."
but by their going to the polls and
electing men to Congress who cannot
be bribed or dominated and who re-
gard the interests Of the people as
paramount to the arrogant claims of
corrupt monopohsts. If the farmer
gets in debt (and nearly all of them
are) they are cody told they should
"stay at home" "make more" and
olive closer" And when they do all
this and make good crops and get al
most nothing for their labor, they are
then told that the low prices care due
to overproduction." And what is the
poor, struggling farmer to do? If he
fails to "work hard" and olive hard"
he can make motAdng, but if he does
"work hard" and olive hard he
makes too mWcb and can get nothing
for it. Away with such clap-trap!
Let us tell the farmer the tro&b and
that is, however much he may make
he will reap little or none of the profits
so long as the government and our
Congress are under the control of
those who care nothing for their in
terests-that relief can only come of
legislative reform and that this reform
must begin in the capitol at Washing
ton, and that it will only begin when
the people shall rise in their might and
place patriots in power.