Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1890-08-18
cAPITALISTIC LEGISLATION.
This, Says Norman j. Coleman, Has Been
the Farmers Curse.


the Farmers Curse.
Norman j. Coleman, ex-secretary O
agriculture. addressed the farmers O
Pike county, Mo-, in the town of Louisi
ana recently. The following is taker
from report of the speech, which ap
peared in st. Louis paper:
He asked the cause of the rapid in
crease of farm mortgages in most states
doubling in many Of them in the las
ten years He pointed to the fact thai
no new farm buildings were going up
as in days when farmers were prosper
GUS, and stated that while in 1860 So pei
cent of the wealth of the nation was in
the hands of the agricultural classes, IL
1880 but 40 per cent. remained in thei1
hands, and in 1890 but 35 per cent.
AS the wealth of the agricultural
classes had declined the wealth of the
money changers of the east had increas
ed. AS the farmers had gone down the
manufacturers and capitalists of the east
had gone up. Millionaires in that sec
ton of the country could now be count
ed not only by the thousand but by tens
of thousands. AS the farmer became
poorer the rich became richer.
There must be some cause for thit
strange condition of affairs. The farm
ers see and feel that something is wrong
that the iron hand of the oppressor and
the task master is upon them. Like men
cropping in the dark they are trying tc
find out who are their oppressors. One
hundred and sixty thousand of them in
this state have banded together that they
may more intelligently, more certainly
find out who are the factors in bringing
them to poverty, to bankruptcy, and
when they do find out woe'unto them.
The speaker said no one would deny
that he had h9d unusual opportunities
in investigating the causes that had pro-
duced this wonderful decline in the
value ofzfarm properties. During the
four wears he had the honor of being al
the head of the United States depart.
ment of agriculture he had investigated
with the best lights before him freeing
his mind as far as possible from bias and
prejudice), the cause of the farmers
downward career. With good crops
with bursting granaries, with large
focks and herds feeding upon the thou
sand hills and valleys and plains, his prof
it's diminish, his mortgages increase
notwithstanding he gives the best efforts
of mind and body to keep even with the
world He is struggling against a cur
rent that bears him downward toward
the gulf of despair-and is unable to ex
tricate himself.
No such results as these can come tG
the farmer without cause, and wher
this cause is seen and understood it vii
be removed, unless the farmers power
in controlling legislation is forever de
parted.
There is no time for mincing matters
The truth must be told in language SC
plain that the most unlettered can un
derstand it. The speaker said he was
speaking from farmers standpoint
and not as a partisan. No one could
deny his right to speak from farmer:
standpoint, for he had been born anG
reared upon farm and had been en-
gagged in actual farming all his life.
The real truth in a nutshell is the
dominant power in federal legislation il
no longer in the interest of agriculture,
but in the interest of the manufacturer
and capitalist. Here is the cause of al
our woe. Since our unfortunate civil
war began the capitalists and manu-
facturers of the east have had complete
sway in shaping legislation to theil