Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1890-03-26

dent Cleveland so grandly threw himself in.
to the arena in his last annual message to
Congress.
In the Senate, on the 10Th instant, Mr..
Voorhees, delivered a great speech which
should be in the hands of every farmer in
all the country. 1t says in no unmeaning
terms that the great battle of progress in
its Just and fair and liberal sense has been
waged and that light is breaking over the
horizon. It is coming to cheer the heart
of the toiling farmer who mas been Knocked
in his supplications for relief and scorned
for claiming larger benefit to his industry.
the greatest of all and for the relief of over
taxed and unpaid labor generally.
We wish we could mako room to-day for
it's full text as we'll to furnish an exhibit of
the futtering it caused in it's sweeping allie
cations as the most distinguished leaders
of the Republican party in the Senate
WINGED and writhed under his denunciations
of their party as it has put its iron heel up
on the progress of American Agriculture.
On the 19sh Mr.. Voorhees, addressed the
Senate upon the resolution which he had
offered on the 18th instant which reads as
follows:-
"Whereas the deep and widespread de-
preston and decay of the agricultural in
terests of the American people. the enor-
nous and appalling amount of mortgage
indebtedness on agricultural lands, the TO-
tai failure of home markets to furnish re-
munerative prices for farm products, the
palpable scarcity and insuficieney OF money
| in circulation in the hands of the people
| with which to transact the business of the
country and effect exchanges of property
and labor at fair rates, are circumstances Of
the most overwhelming Importance to the
safety and the we'll being of the Govern
ment: Therefore,
Be ii resolved, That it is the highest duty
| of Congress in the present crisis to lay aside
all discussion aid consideration of mere
party issues and to give prompt and imme-
date attention to the preparation and adop-
| ton of such measures as are required for
the relief of the farmers and other overtax-
ed and underpaid laborers of the United
States"
In making brief summary of the speech
Of Mr.. VOORHEES,, we scarcely know where
to commerce or where to end for the whole
is gem which we would gladly give space
for of it was practicable to do 80.
He spoke of the deep, strong current of
anxiety, discomfort and alarm prevailing in
the farming communities, and said that he
proposed to aid them in the inquiry as to
the cause of the existing depression. 1t
was now nearly % years since the close of
terrible war had given to unhallowed
avarice au opportunity to prey upon the
self sacrificing patriots of the country, such
as had never before been presented to the
basest passions and the most sordid and
odious vice. The measures then resorted
to for the taxation of one class of citizens
and for the enrichment of another class had
been the legislation by which the burden
of the public debt had been doubled, silver
demopetized, aud high protective tariff
established. He characterized the protee.
tive tariff as curse and not blessing. He
was dealing, not with theory, but with
condition which even a blind man could
look at and draw from it an unerring con
clusion. The farmers of the United States
to day did not receive on an average more
than ten cents bushel for their corn, fifty
cents for their wheat and from two to three
cents pound for their hogs. The time
would come, at no distant day, when the
farmer would look on the proposition to tax
him and his wife and children for the pro
| lection and benefit Of other people besides
himself as he would look on a law of Con.
gress to establish the army worm and wee
vii on his wheat, to infest his cattle with
murrain and his hogs with cholera. Every
pretense of a home market for the farmer
was fraud, and every pretense of taxing
wheat and oats and potatoes for his benefit
was cheat and sham. It was notori-
| GUS and self evident truth that the tariff, as
| il now stood, Increased the farmers expense
account from 35 to 100 per cent. on every
| implement of industry with which ne toll
| ed, and last year binding Irvine had been
enhanced to IS cents pound by the tariff
aud Irvine trust He did not believe that
the hands of the farmer would hold repub
| lican ticket at the next presidential election.
He declared that not only had there been
no increase in the value of land for the last
| quarter of century, bat thsre had been an
absolute loss of SO per cent. If the improv-
ed farm lands of the United States were
put to sale to-day, under the most favorable
circumstances, they would not, he said, on
| a general average realize more than two
thilds of what their value had been twenty
five years ago. The farms of the State of
Ohio were now undar mortgage to the
amount of $500, 900, 600. In the State of
| Illinois things were no better, the mort
cages in that State amounting to $402 00O,-
600. Twenty-three per cent. of the whole
| face of the State of illinois W as under mort
gage.
The State of Michigan was still worse.
| Forty seven per cent. of the whole surface
of that State was under mortgage. In the
States of Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kan
| nd no hol
vest, from twenty to fifty per cent. of the
farm lands were under mortgage at such
rates of interest as the farmers could never
pay out of their crops. to say nothing of the
| principal. The farmers were thus brought
| face to face with the loss of their homes,
with ruin, and hundreds of thousands OF
| them were standing in that attitude at the
present day and hour Nor were the farm
era of New England different in that respecs
| from those of the Western States. There
was the same decadence in Vermont aud
| New Hampshire, where there was a move
ment to recolonize them with Scandinavian
immigrants, aud where farm lands could be
purchased at from one to two dollars an
acre. In the face of such appalling facts,
who, he asked, would eulogize the work
ings and results of system of tariff pro-
lection which had for continuous term of
twenty eIRnI years omPiSneu notuihs
save the concentration and amusement of
wealth in the hands of few protected peo-
ple2
TEE CARNEGIE BANQUET.
He went on to speak of the recent Carne-
gle banquet in Washington. Reading some
of the newspaper headlines, such as Like
old Luculius - gorgeous nDer that out
rivaled an ancient Roman feast" "a menu
which almost the whole world furnished"
that banquet brought to his mind That
other historical feast which Be.shazzar, the
king, gave to Thousand Of his lords, aud
when the King saw the fingers of a mans
hand write on the wall, lover against the
candlestiok," the ''mene, meme, tekel,
upharsin." bis earnest prayer and belief