St. Landry democrat., 1890-07-05
The Farmer and His Foes.

We suppose that a man who deliber-
ately plots to in lure another may right
fully be considered the lstter's foe though
the Rural confesses that it does not much
like to use the term when speaking of diff
ferent classes. Ali that this journal de-
sires is justice for all classes. 1t does not
desire to excite hostility and acrimonious
feeling between classes. But it is impos-
sible for US to conceal our impotence and
disgust with and hatred Of the deliberate,
criminal conspiracies against the rights of
the farming classes Former conditions
were such as to especially encourage these
conspiracies. The farmer was isolated
he had no organization in which to meet
to discuss wrongs even if he had clear
conception of them he was honest himself
and was slow to suspect dishonesty in
others. and he was non -combstive. 1t did
not take long for scheming rascals to note
these fay orable conditions for the maturing
of plans to fleece the producers. They
fastened to Washington and corrupted
scarcely knew what Congress was doing
him. Indeed, he hardly realized that he
was under government, and so the cap
italistic schemers went to Washington and
there was nobody there to oppose them on
the part of the people. They asked for
the public lands and they got them; they
asked for national credit to back them, and
they got what they asked for; they asked
for all manner of class legislation, ana
Congress FASTENED to give it, and even the
representatives of the people plotted
against their constituencies to enrich them
selves. State Legislatures were equally
subservient to the demands.of capital.
At last the farmer awoke to realization
of the situation. He found that he was
bound hand and foot by class legislation.
Railroads were plundering him both di-
rectly and indirectly. Money sharks were
gouging him. Middlemen were growing
rich upon his toll, and the sweat of his
brow. Capital was master. The farmer
learned early that he must effect organiza-
ton and he did. It was new business to
him, and he made some mistakes. But he
began to discuss public questions. He
demanded protection from the greedy
railroads, from careless and indeed a COR
rupt Congress, from Wall street, which
insisted upon making our monetary system
basis for trade and usury and fraud.
How astonished the moueyed and CONNER
cial and political classes were when they
bebeld the farmer thus discussing public
questions. These classes had regarded
the farmer as packhorse, an ignoramus,
q man whose business was to toll while
others shaped the policy of the govern
ment and gobbled all the wealth. The
turned in and lampooned the |
producer numerically whenever he dared |
to open his mouth in denuncistion of un-
mistakable evils. They call him a rag
baby advocate because he had sense and |
courage enough to declare that the govern
ment could issue legal tender paper money
any time it choose; they called him a
because he insisted upon the
coinage of the present silver dollar and
affirmed that between the illegal" green
back and the ''illegal" buzzard dollar, the
credit of the country would be ruined.
But the farmer went rig ht ahead. He took
to the discussion of public questions as
q duck takes to water. He very soon was
able to lay out the monetary metropolitan
editor in an argument and ultimately the
Supreme Court sustained him in his claim
that the State had right to regulate rail-
road rates, though for making these claims
sverv wise editor of the partisan press had
called him fool a thousand times. The
farmer is generally right in his conclu-
sions; he is generally honest in them, and
he is usually an honest man on any line.
His foes are not, and that gives the farmer
B big advantage, for truth usually pre-
7ails.- Western Rural.