The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1890-11-25

05IuSO Ny GuO S"Cob VI yO"IS " ~
slipping from beneath their feet.
Mean while, there is no tea, colt or
sugar in the house, and but little Fl 'ur,
and the federal treasury having been
looted, so that it has become heces
sary under the pretense of reciprocity,
aud of subsidies to the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company, to re impose the
$50, 900, 900 tax upon sugar, the chill
dren must continue to cry for it as an
impossible luxury The boys labored
hard, all the summer from sun to sun,
in the burning heat, only to find them
selves tired and ragged, without
money to purchase clothing to decent
ly cover their nakedness and render
them fit for attendance at the district
school. The daughters, d~elicately
reared, have been compelled to enter
the factory of the adjacent village to
earn wherewithall to pay the taxes,
and keep do Vn the interest upon the
homestead farm, while Congress,
pressed by political bosses who are di,
rectors in the Pacific Railroads pro-
pose to extend the loans of more than
a hundred million dollars to those
companies for a further period of sew
enty five years at two per cent interest.
1t is a sorrowful thought that unless
the farmers movement shall secure
honest government millions of the re
enslaved sons Of those sturdy grand
sires who st Lexington and Bunker
Hill fired the shot heard round the
world" to procure the liberty Of free
dom for their progeny, for al time,
will be compelled to toll during count
less ages to grub up from the soil in
terest and dividends upon railroad
securities three parts out of four Of
which may represent only water. and
for much of which no value has yer
been received except by the railroad
millioDaires.
Thus the toilers of the earth having
become the mere vassals of the railway
potentates, and the victims of the po-
litical leaders of both parties who are
affiliated with and serve them, the
Farmers Alliances have sprung, like
Jonah's gourd, out Of the ground in a
single night. Their aggression into
the realm of politics will not be for a
day, nor pitilessly repressed. In the
eyes of humanity and of religion the
farmer is exercising a sacred right
which should be guarded and enforced
by all the power of the government.
The poor and the prosperous are
equals before the polls where the
farmer will appear in the grandeur of
his misery, and the rich in the petit
ness of his folly.
The overcapitalized railroads are
beasts of prey,-the farmers the vic
TINS. The Assembly of the State of
New York truly declared by resolu
ton of May 10Th, 1873, that: "The
practical effect of allowing dividends
to be paid on such stock would be to
recognize and encourage fraud, to
paraIyze the industries of an innocent
people living tributary to the line of
the road by imposing additional bur
dens on them for its USE; to levy I'm
just and oppressive burdens OF the
commerce of the city; to increase the
cost of living, by increasing the cost
Of transporting the n~ecessaries of life
between producers and consumers,
and finally, to enrich adventurous
gamblers and Spectators as against
good morals, the welfare of the PEG
pie and public policy" (See State Of
New York Assembly Document No,
SO, of 1879
The railway manager, hol ling the
finger upon the pulse Of the farmer to
ascertain how much more he can en-
dure without extinguishing of the
vital spark, should be deprived Of
power to Cypress by enacting laws for
more rigid regulation, or for the gov
eminent ownership of the railroads.
The swindles SO successfully perpe
trated by railroad rings naturally lead
to the organization of the trustg,-
scorpions singing the farmers to
death,-the decay of our social and
political ediice which permitted the
one having suggested the other. If
one dollar invested in a railway could
be converted into three OF stock why
should not that initiating b. applied to
other property OF business ny turning
it over at three times it's sctual cost to
a trust corporation which lives for,
ever, and being without soul or body
to save or punish is enabled to extort
prices sufficient to earn ten per cent
profit upon such inflated capital?
While the actual value of farms has
shrunk fifty per cent the nominal value
of trust properties has been increased
three hundred per cent. Such comb
nations were by the laws of England,
made crimes hundreds of years ago,
and should be suppressed by federal
and State statutes wherever they ex
ist in this country. The poor tillers
of the soil pay for all.
IN