Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-07-09

and -four, and that we have no reason
whatever to fear the few thousand bush
els brought into the country by some
body who wants seed wheat.
A LETTER TO MERCHANTS.
Franklin Macveagh, One of Chicago's Prom
inent Wholesale Grocers, Explains Why
Country as Well as City Merchants Should
Labor For Tariff Reform.
The following letter from Franklin
MacVeagh, for twenty-five years one of
the leading wholesale grocers of Chica-
60 will be read with interest by mer-
chants throughout the West, inasmuch
as he has never been in politics, never
held an Office and never was a candidate
for one, but discusses the tariff question
from the standpoint of a business man:
The time has at last come when the West
ern merchant-whether a wholesale mer-
chant or retail merchant-is pecuniarly
involved in the tariff question. Until now
he has felt no pecuniary interest in 1t; but
henceforth he must rec gnize himself as an
important sufferer from the burdt rs of thu
tariff and as Cne of the victims of its oppres-
sions.
He has considered himself an outsider. He
has thought that he could afford to take any
view of riff ref rm that suited his fancy,
and to subordinate this view, il he pleased,
to any other polite fancy and especia ly
to his partisan prejudices. He has felt at
full liberty to prefer political associations
to the exclusion of tariff r. form notions;
and IL he chose to go back and rake up The
issues of the civil war and rest his voc
upon these, and to be perfectly Indifferent
to the cruel exactions of our excessive
tariff. All this he felt that he could afford
to do, notwithstanding many other pockets
were involved But the inevitable has over
ia at nd Vxho ha
must rank himself with the farmer and the
woTkingman, making a third in a t. 10 of
tribute bear rs.
That he has had little suspicion of this is
but part of that public blindness which
has so long delayed the emancipation of the
people. High protection has itself been
protected by this blindness of the people
while tariff reform has been handicapped by
it from the start. 1t has grown up because
the burdens of the protective sys EN- are in
d rect and disguised. and, therefore, ii the
country is rapid y developing and univers
ally prosperous, pass unfelt, and conse-
quentiy presented. Only those who study
political questions apart from personal con-
siderations, see burdens that are not per-
sonally felt. Meanwhile the protected
classes receive directly and constantly the
benefits which correspond with these bur
dens, and have according a lively sense of
pecuniary interests to defend These in
terests they have defended perslstently and
gantzed, powerful and slee pless, as becomes
the defense of pee un ary privileges so great
and so viv dly realized
TIis until now has made the contest be-
tween high protection and tariff reform an
uncquaj one
The situation is, however, rapidly chang
ing. The burdened classes are beginning to
realize their burdens The tribute PAYERS
are beginning to feel the payment of their
tributes. They will sooner or later feel also
the personal humiliation of tr butte paying.
The laborng men are g tting their attention
fixed upon the sums they are paying for
somebody else's protect on, and are already
being counted for If reform. The farm
ers, too, at last are being forced to see that
their prosperity is diminishing, and conse-
quently are beg inning to ask why. When
! they shall ask why with the earnestness
which is fast growing out of their diminish.
ing prosperity, and perceive, as they surely
will, that Tut one reply is possible, farewell
! to the privileges of our protected classes
| TIE protected classes will no 10 ger have
mere quiet reformers to deal with then but
! an aroused force, about which they can
| profitably ask tn railroads of the West
! They will be sorry then that they did not
! listen to the mild protests of the disinterest-
! ed period, since, insjeal of political per-
| suasioS, they will have to face political
! force, and, p rhaps, political fury.
| For to take the place of the disinterested
| period when tar If reform is urged upon
! purely scientific grounds there is coming in
\ an interested period, when oppressed com
munities will hOtly content for their rights.
! The battle is to be between two par les, boz h
| pecuniarily interested The advantage will
! be with the greater number, and the pro-
| tected classes are the few.
| As a result of the new Ii ght that is break
| ing on the victims of high and higher pro-
| lection, 1 believe awakening of the
wholesale merchants and retail merchants
is at hand.
The merchants have to pay the reQu ar
bounties on all they individually consume
like the other consumers; and as thev are
not all superfluously rich, a great many of
them viii get tired of doing this, as every
body else is getting tired. But this is not
where their shoe will really pinch. The Sc
/ rious trouble at hand for the Western mer.
! chant lies in the diminishing ability of the
! farmer to buy the merchants wares The
| farmer is the chief customer of the mer-
| chant; and the prosperity of the merchant
Is bound mp with the prosperity of the farm
| er When the farmers surplus is cut down
! his buying power goes with it.
! Now, the farmers profits have been d.
min ishing for some time, and they have at
! last reached the point VIII re in average
! communities he is running behind He n "a
! but one thing 10 do, and that is to redut his
| scale of living. This result has long been
! inevitable. The farmers prices have been
going down because he has to meet the com
/
| avoid doing so, while on the other ha nd he
must buy of our prot ect d classes or at their
! dictation, and pay Immensely more for ali he
consumes than he would pay if the Govern
| ment would let him huy he Sells--under
! the competition of the world
AS long as the farmers were making
money ffcely it did not mat er to the mer-
| chants. nor for some time after, because the
farmers at frst took to unning into Cebt
and mortgaging tilar farms, or to moving
| further West think ng tHst the bad weather
| would pass over, as is sb boR-p Rg the aban-
| { oned ia ms of the Eass and the decreased
farm mortgages of the West But that could
not go on forever, and the time is now upon
US when the farmer Is compelled to reduce
! his expenses aud his scale of living He
must cut hiS ca2t according to his CLOTH
| This would be very unfortunate for our CIV
| ilization and would Seriou sly tell uEes it, If
| it should last. But it is immediately unfor.
tunate for the Western merchant. whole
sale and retail, all of whom depend either
directly or Indirectly upon the purchasing
| power of the farmer
Thei efore 1 that the merchant has be-
come an Interested party in the tariff ques-
tion, and must take his part in the move
ment fer ref rm Hc must giye his time
! and money to reform, as the pr tee ed
class give theirs to resist IT form for he
has cei tainly and somewhat uddenly be-
come party to the flght. Very truly,
FRANKLIN MAcVEAaH.
in one of the interior counties of