Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1890-01-17
A PART OF THAT WHICH WE THINK

That the industries of this country are
being strangled, and the producing
classes slowly pauperized we believe.
Especially is this true Of the west,
That an industrious man, in a glorious
climate of sunshine and of rain, the pro-
ductive soil of which he owns in fee
simple should be unable, in spite Of
abundant yields, to make both ends
meet and live in comfort, and that he
should be compelled to discount his fu-
ture and assign his home as securely mot
only proves an abnormal condition of
things but emphasizes the existence of a
deep wrong. The fundamental rule of
political economy which holds to the
self-evident truth that everything is
worth the cost of its production. has be-
come the exception. The matured field
of corn is not worth the actual cost of
of the cost of its raising or of the inter-
est of the money invested in the land.
So with wheat and so with oats with the
the other two prominent staple COM
modities. There is no adequate pay for
the time consumed in feeding steer for
the market even though the grain with
which he is fattened could be
had for the merely husking of it. The
margin of profit would beincreased but
little even though the steer was stolen by
him who thus fitted it for market. The
man who will be found criticising this
declaration will not be the farmer nor
any man who is in the steer business,
the beef combine and the local butcher
excepted. The profit Of the wheat and
corn and oats crop, together with good
portion of their original cost of sweat
and muscle that produced them, are an
nually disappearing in the high living
and in the bank accounts of a set of
gamblers, known as option dealers, who
pile up fortunes in day from margins
which have been forced by never end
ing, eternally depressing squeeze applied
by the machinery of their own game.
The balance goes, or whatever of them
Is left, in paying dividends on transporta-
ton lines stocked and bonded at two or
three times their original cost, and
for the fixed charges of SUCH
lines. the which fixed charges
largely consist of magnificent
salaries to unnecessary officers and in
competent pets. The hundreds of mill
lions of bushels of grain sold by the gam
blerS in the great pooling exchanges of
this country for future delivery must be
raised by the farmer and delivered by
the farmer, and at the price fixed by the
option dealer, with all transportation
charges paid, otherwise the gambler
would lose his margin and his opportun-
ity to rob, in both of which the laws and
the courts protect him. The animal
foods for the armies of Europe are con-
tracted to be supplied by the American
meat combine for from two To seven
years in advance and the American
stock raiser must meet these contracts,
at the prices fixed, and leave for the
combine margins consisting of princely
fortunes, annually. to each and every
one of its members. As for the
rest of the farmers interests, the
unredeemed Understanding mortgage,
is hawked through the channels of east
ern loan agencies, into the hands of
whose managers the aggregated blood
money-capital. principal, interest and
farm. finally all fall. The result of all
of which will be, in the end. that the
wealth of the country will not only not
be found in the hands of those who
should use it, but of those who abuse it:
will not pc controlled By those who pro-
duce ii, but its creator will become the
slave of his own creature, aye, is already
fast becoming so.
If these observations are fallacious and
untenable will some one please right us?
for this is but single paragraph of the
columns which We think We know.