Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-06-13
THE PROPOSED GOVERNMENT
WAREHOUSES; FOR FARM

Senator Carlisle has addressed letter to
of the Farmers Alliance, ON the proposed
Government Warehouse system for the
farm produce of the country. The system
requires that the government appropriate
some $50,000,000 to build warehouses for
the storage Of wheat, corn, oats and cotton
in every county in the Union that produces
and sells annually over 100000 worth of
these articles. The manager of each ware
house is to be elected by the people of the
district he is to serve, and his duty will be
to advance in legal-tender notes so per cent.
of the value Of the crops deposited with
him by farmers. The depositors of pro-
duce will pay per cent. per annum in in
terest on the money received and other
charges for handling, &c. No produce is
to be retained in storage longer than one
year.
MI. Carlisle says this plan simply propo-
ses-what the farmers Of this country
are to-day suffering under and protesting
against-tO tax one man for the benefit of
another-one farmer for the benefit of
another farmer. There are, he says, 800
counties in the United States, and not five
hundred of them produce and sell annually
more than 100000 worth Of wheat, corn,
cotton, oats and tobacco. At the very out
set the system promises to bea plan to COM
pei the Government to issue and distribute
money for the benefit of the people living
in the rich and productive counties, at the
expense of the people living in the poorer
and less productive ones.
Moreover, he says, it is plan to enable
INSCRIPTIONS SPECTATORS to take advan-
tage of the farmers pecuniary misfortunes
and extort exhorbitant prices for food from
people who reside in cities. 1t is evident
that no farmer will subject himself to the
labor and expense of transporting his pro-
ducts to the public warehouses and to all
the other charges which he must pay for
storage. for handling and taking care of
them while there, when he has barns and
granaries at home, unless he is in debt and
absolutely needs the money which the Gov
eminent is to advance, and if he is in that
unfortunate condition, from what source
is he afterward to acquire the means to re-
deem the products by returning the money
and interest and paying the warehouse
charges? In great majority of cases, he
will never be able to redeem them, but will
be forced to lose the remaining 20 per
cent, of the value Of his products, OF sell
his warehouse receipts for whatever he can
get for them, which will he very little, for
it must be remembered that after he gets
his warehouse receipts he has a remaining
interest of only 20 per cent. less charges for
interest, storage, &C., and this is all he can
dispose of. He will find the time rapidly
approaching when he must have money to
redeem his products OF sell his small re-
manning interest in them OF allow them to
be sold at public auction by the Govern
ment, and this will be the golden opportu-
nifty Of the spec ulatOrS, whose agents will
swarm all over the country, ready to take
the warehouse receipts from the embarrass-
ed owners for merely nominal sum. The
receipt is simply privilege of redemption,
like pawnbroker's ticket, and the farmer,
being himself unable to redeem, will be
forced ultimately to dispose of it at any
price offered. In conclusion Senator Car
isle says:
You and are Democrats, and as such we
believe that the Government should scrupu-
lously abstain from all unnecessary interior
ence with the person and domestic concerns of
the citizens and confne itself strictly to the
administration OF purely public affairs. 1t is
a cardinal principal Of our political faith that
the people are best governed when they are
least governed, and that they are most pros
porous and contented when left to the free ex-
ercise Of their own judgment in the manage
ment OF their own business, subject only to
such reasonable regulations as may be neces-
sary to preserve the peace and good order of
the community. These propositions are fun
damental, and we cannot abandon them
without repudiating all the traditions of our
party and all the distinctions between consti-
tutional government and paternal despotism."