Los Angeles herald., 1890-06-01
NATIONAL AFFAIRS.
Senator Carlisle Writes a
Letter.
A Political Question POintedly
Answered.
He Does Not Believe in Government
Warehouses.
Assistant Postmaster-General Clarkson
Coming to the Coast on Off
cial business.
Associated Press Dispatches. |

WASHINGTON, May Ex-senator Car
Isle has written letter to B. F. Howard,
of Tuskegee, Alabama, in response to
request for his views upon the bill pro-
viding for system of government ware
houses for farm products, upon which
products treasury notes only shall be
issued.
The senator says: In the beginning,
the statement of Howard and associates
that they are in favor of "equal justice
to all, and special favors to none," en-
bodies a sound Democratic doctrine, and
if it had been strictly adhered to in
congress for the past twenty-five years,
the evils of which the farmers and
others justly complain would have been
averted, and the whole country would
now be prosperous and contented. The
farmers have been taxed so long for the
benefit of other classes, and seen so
much legislation for the aggrandizement
of corporations and syndicates, that their
patience is exhausted, and they are now
demanding that the very policy which
they have heretofore announced as unjust
and ruinous shall be applied to them, or
rather part of them, for no scheme vet
suggested would operate alike upon all
farmers. But no evil can be corrected
by increasing it's magnitude and extend
ing the scope OF its operations. There is
but one -effectual remedy for the evil
which undoubtedly exists, and that is,
to reverse the policy which produced it.
The senator, after rehearsing the fea-
lures Of the proposed sub-treasury plan,
and noting the fact that the farmers
themselves will pay more than their
fair share of the cost of erecting the
warehouses, and that the officers con-
nected with them will be partisans of
the administration in power, says: Not
more than one-third of the $500 counties
in the United States, if that many, pro-
duce and sell annually more than $780,
900 worth of agricultural products, and
therefore under the bill not more than
one-third of them could avail themselves
of this plan. At the very outset, there
fore, it is a plan to compel the
government to issue and dis
tribute money for the benefit of
the people living in the rich and
productive counties, at the expense of
to enable unscrupulous spectators to
take advantage of the farmers pecuniary
necessities and extort exorbitant prices
for food from the people. In the great
majority of cases the farmer would never
be able to redeem his deposited pro-
ducts, but be forced to lose the remain
ing 20 per cent of their value, or sell his
warehouse receipts for whatever he can
get for them, which would be very little ;
for it must be remembered that after he
gets his warehouse receipts he has re-
manning interest of only 20 per cent. less
the charges for interest, storage, etc.,
and this is all he can dispose of. He
will find the time rapidly approaching
when he must have money to redeem
his products or sell his small remaining
interest, or allow them to be sold at
public auction by the government, and
this will be the golden opportunity of
spectators, whose agents will swarm all
over the country, ready to take receipts
from embarrassed owners for a merely
nominal sum.
Senator Carlisle argued at length to
show that the plan proposed would pro.
duce an annual expansion and contrac-
tion of the currency, which would result
in absolutely destroying the market
upon which the farmer must depend for
the sale of his crops. No such facilities
as this project will afford for controlling
the markets for purely speculative pur-
poses, says he, have ever existed in this
or any other country, and no more per-
feet system for the oppression of the
poor could be devised.
In conclusion, Senator Carlisle says
that even if it could be
conclusively shown that this or
any similar scheme would be
pecuniarily beneficial to any particu-
lar class of people, he would still be un-
alterably opposed to it, because in his
opinion it would be another wide and
dangerous departure from the principles
upon which our political institutions are
founded. 1t would in fact be the longest
step yet taken in time of peace toward
the consolidation of power in the federal
government and the subsection of the
private affairs OF the people to the con-
troll of central and irresponsible author
ity.