Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-10-02
THE FARMER IN POLITICS

LIE FdHhEA I<N L CLA = ~ -
The remark is quite often heard that
the meddling of the farmer with politics
in late years has had great deel TO 90 !
with his unprosperous and uusatished |
condition, and that if he would stay al
home and give more attention to ms
crops and stock, he would be better OH.
To his lack of industry, thrift and man.
aeement, together with new-found
zeal for politics, is attributed his present
hard condition. The benevolent gen.
tlemen who reason so mistake the case
woefully by trausposing cause and effect.
The farmer is not poor because he Is IN
politics, but Is in politics because ne Is
poor. His unprosperous condition Is the
cause and not the effect of his polltlcal
activity. Besides, Incidence and thrift
lessness are not the cause OF glutteu
markets and upremuneratiye prices
When the farmers Of the country produce
far more than the ever glorious home
market can paw fair price for and con-
sumo, it can hardly be said of them that
they are lazy and indolent. Before gen.
tlemen of leisure, with phllosopnlc
notions and dogmatic airs, are lustineu
in haunting the farmer with being SHIFT
less aud thriftess, they will have 10
demonstrate their capacity for consuming
| ali or more than all of his surplus
products. As loug as the farmer
wagon carries al or part of its LOAD OF
farm products buck from town because
there is no market for it, no man has
right to call the farmer lazy and Thrift
less, or sheer at him as politician. 10
do so is as idiotio as though one VINO
Ind lust filled his stomach should after
wards kick the table over and ouf the
cook out OF pure wantonness.
OF course there are all sorts of farm
ers, some good and some bad, some
wide-awake and intelligent, and some
stupid and good for nothing. But OF
what calling or profession is not that
true? Are all mechanics, all doctors,
LAWYERS, artisans, models of excellence!
Are there not an abundance OF shYsters'
ouacks and charlatans? Is 1t wonderful
then that there should be some poor
farmers? Tie mistake made is in class
ing all alike and branding them US indo-
lent and faetious because they manifest
q iisposition to make themselves felt IN
noIitics. 1t ought to be a matter of con-
graduation that they are waking up to
political activity and exerting some por-
ton of the giant strength which they
nossess, Never since they wrung magma
charta from King John have the farmers
of any country banded themselves
together as such IN an unholy cause, or
exerted their power but in defence
of the common good. NO one
ever dreams of looking for anareh-
Ism. communism or Jacobinism OF
any sort among them. Such Manifesto
tiops are looked for only among the dis
coutented and turbulent elements Of
cities. Never had the tillers OF the soil
better grounds for rebelling against th'
grinding tyranny of the superior class
than III France during the great reYolu'
ton. And yet the best authorities say
that the whole number of the revolu
tlonists VINO did such awful and blood,
work, at no time numbered ever 25o' oo'
in the whole of France, and that the
number of them in Paris never exceeded
5000. They were not farmers but tn
vicious of the cities, the class that
} always foremost in outbreaks. isurrec
lions, aud civil broils of whatever sort.
THE In fiuence of the farmer in polite
is healthful. even though he may max
some mistakes. His errors are far les
J harmful than the designed knavery o
, others who would Cypress him as the
are doing, to build up themselves.
western farmers had been as POLITICAL.
: active years ago as they are now, the
> would have had far more than free quip
inc and free binding Irvine.