The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-12-06
SOME PORTENToUS FACTS.

I
| We like the way that Col. Marsh Muir
( dock hits from the shoulder in his paper,
/ the Wichita EAGLE. Once in great
| while some jay editor ventures to punch
! the EAGLE man upon reSubmlsslon, the
tariff or some vital issue of the day; but
we take notice he seldom returns to the
charge.
Uusually the newspaper man who ven
lures to ''fool' around Col Murdoch re-
tires ''sadder and wiser man" Indeed,
before now the luckless wight has present
ed the appearance of having been passed
through a threshing machine.
The last Republican editor to tackle
Murdoch is the noodle of the Medicine
Lodge Crcsset, who suggests that the
EAGLE man lis not posted on the Mckin-
ley law. and doesn't know rs much about
it rs Jerry Simpson" This shaft pro-
vokes from Murdoch the following sharp
armignment of Republican policy.-Tope-
ka Democrat.
The trouble is, the politicians and the
papers that have for months been firing
their sneers at the EAGLES Rebellion
are either ignorant or dishonest. There
are papers in this state claiming respect
ability, that now unblushingly declare
that the EAGLE in prophesying rebellion
did not base its declaration on economic
gronnds--on the farmer question,-but
on Resubmission. These papers either
never paid any attention to what we did
say or they are otherwise guilty of a
contemplate dishonesty. The McKin-
ley bill is not in the interest of the
farmer, and we in our answer to the
gibe of the Cressett would have said
something like this, in addition to what
we did say, had we thought he would
have comprehended it, but which may
be will be appreciated by others as it
will be by our friend the Topeka Demo-
crat.
The mortgage Indebtedness of the
United States is now shown to be $780,
600, 900 instead of the unnumbered bill
ions talked about during the last preSi-
dental campaign. Now, forty per cent
of the population is engaged in agricul-
ture. Their property, which in 1880 was
valued at ten billions of dollars, and
which now, to be in proper proportions,
should amount to at least sixteen billions. |
in ali probability does not exceed eight
billion dollars, and its earning power has
been decreased from fifty to seventy-five |
per cent by reason of the shrinkage in |
prices and which has destroyed the pur-
chasing power of twenty-six millions of
people for anything except the bare ne
cessities of life The result is 1
that not only the tradesman-the |
middle man SO called-who makes up the |
urban communities largely, but that the /
and every industry is de-
pressed because of the unfavorable po- !
sition into which the great and the most |
factor of our civilization, |
the farmer, has been forced and |
which the Mckinley bill but intensifies.
Destroy the purchasing power, i. e.,
the earning possibilities of forty per
cent of the people of any country and |
you at once PROSTATE all of the economic
of that country, and render
impossible. Say it costs 60
cents per bushel, under present con-
to produce one bushel of wheat,
and the producer sells it on a 60 cent
market, there is left but the profit of one
dollar to the cultivated acre. which
meagre margin strikes the business of
every manufacturer, the work of every
industrial agent and the price of the
services of every professional man and of
all kinds of invested capital
In other words America depends upon
her farmers and cannot possibly prosper
ong when forty per cent. or twenty-six
millions of her population have through
any policy or by any adverse rule been
of their purchase.power. The
trouble with the Mckinley bill is in that
{ seeks to benefit the farmer by helping
he manufacturer, when it should have
sought to benefit all. or the industrial
'lasses, 5y protecting the interest of the
orty per cent.---the twenty-siX millions
# producers in some, at least, apprecia-
Die degree.