Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1890-12-18
IT'S MORAL IMPORT.
The Meaning of the Farmers and
LabOrers Uprising in this Country,
as Told by a Popular Pastor in New
York City.


Laborers Uprising in this Country,
as Told by Popular Pastor in New
York City.
l. 1t is the protest of the patient
burden bearers of the world, who have
toiled through weary years, struggling
beneath the wrongs of economic and pc
litical superstitions. In America the
farmers have literally become the beasts
OF burden of the nation. Their business
has been to feed over 65,0000OO people
together with the hosts of the old world
with the products of the years work,
and then through the winter exc out a
miserable existence wrestling with their
MORTGAGES, CYCLONES AND FLOODS.
While they are doing this, we laugh
and grow fat, dance and make merry
in the city, and bet how much they will
make next year, buy and sell their crops
fifty times before they are planted and
charge old "hayseeds'' with our losses.
The question is whether these men,
the freest of the free, the authors of this
country's liberty, shall assert theirrights
and obtain justice, Or degenerate into
the condition of tenants and serfs. The
conditions of labor in all other indus
tries have undergone marvellous develop
ment and changes in the past hundred
years. The farmer works under the
same stern conditions, perishing IN the
midst of boundless prosperity, for others.
Ia has Hafnrn,ipad to ptfaor ohaurya
these conditions, and re-adjust himself
on living basis to the new civilization.
= This movement means the
EDUCATION OF THE MASSES.
as masses-of the farmer as a farmer 1t
means the assertion of the manhood Of
the yeomen Of the nation. This is real
education. The accent Of our education
has hitherto been to get OF, 'to rise"
We have been taught to climb out of the
humble sphere i'll which we were born
into some sn-caled higher sphere. The
smith learns to despise his anvil, and the
ciOdhOpper 10 look with contempt upon
the plow. They rise to "hi cher" thirgs.
They become lawyers, and doctors, and
preachers. and bankers, railroad men and
politicians We now nave fully eight
million men in this country educated to
be presidents Of the United States. We
only need about a dozen presidents in a
hundred yeaTs-an awful waste of raw
material.
The farmers are learning and teaching
it to their children, in this organization,
that the work of the farm is as sacred,
as noble, as honorable as that of any
sphere in life. Women too are admitted
to the order. Well they may. There
are more farmers wives in the insane
asylums of America than any other class.
They have actually recognized the fact
that
WOMAN IS A HUMAN BEING.
A reporter once asked an old farmer in
the west what he thought about the
question rs marriage failure:" He
replied, What, marriage? Well, let's see.
There's Lucindy gifts up in the mornin.
kindles the fire. milk six COWS, starts
four children Off to school. tends to
three others, Skins twenty pans O milk,
feeds the hens. likewise the hogs, looks
after some motherless sheep, gifts break
fast, washes up the dishes, gets dinner.
ct cetera-why, man, do you think I
could hire anybody to do all that for
what she gifts? Not much It's great
success, slrr' All! these patient, sad
faced. weary millions of women. The
pathos Of their lives! They have enter
ed this organization with cheeks flushed
with hope. many Of them for the first
time in life. May God lead and bless
them
3. This movement means
COOPERATION AS AGAINST COMPETITION.
It is in this principle of social
ism that the order has it's
strongest foundation. They are
asserting in life the principle, that it is
better for men to fight for each other
than against one another They are
learning the secret of associated power
that in union there is strength. 1t is
in the light OF this fact that we solve the
apparent paradox, that while they cry
out against trusts and monopolies, in the
same breath they demand that the gov
ernment press It's functions to the very
verge of state socialism. These cries are
not inconsistent. They are the assertion
OF fundamental principles. They recog-
nlze the important fact that government
is not something seperate from the peo-
pie. but when normally administered, is
simply the people governing themselves
that it is not Il power to be forced. but
a power to be utilized for the happiness
of all.
hood. 1t IS a fraternal and benevolent
order with principles Of love and frater-
nifty, wide as the world. universal as the
rose.
The 9Th and 9th articles in their St.
Louis declaration OF purposes,
A SECOND DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
reads thu:
9Th. 70 constantly strive to secure
entire harmony and good will to all man
kind, and brotherly love among ourselves.
9Th. To suppress personal, local. sec
tional and rational preiudices, all I'M
healthful rivalry and all selfish ambition.
They have gone into politics not be-
cause they are political organization.
They have been
FORCED TO GO INTO POLITICS
because heir principles were social. eco
nouic and religious. All social and eco
nomic questions have become political
questions, and all political questions are
religious. The political arena Is where