Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1890-04-10

scear. When you sell your surplus
and invest the foreign gold you
receive for it in the products of Euro
pean pauper labor, bringing the latter
home, you make large profit in dis
posing of these products of pauper
labor" to your countrymen. You can
undersell any one in business here.
Your competitors in this business
are the owners of 1850 American
mills. They ask for and receive pro-
lection FROM YOU. They have no
other competitor except you, and moth
ing enters into competition with what
they produce in their mills except what
you receive in payment for your farm
products sold abroad. The only COM
petition that can exist is between our
farms and our American
mills. No other competition is pos
sible, because no American can obtain
to eat. wear Or use except by
his labor on a farm or in a mill or by
professional or personal service.
The IA 500 organized and united mill
owners declared open war on you thir-
teen years ago. They have almost par
alyzed your industry and they have
deprived you of all your profits.
Flushed with this success, they now
declare that your competition with
them must be entirely stopped; that
your business must be strictly confined
to feeding the people of the United
States and your sales limited to "Amer-
lean markets." Mr.. Mckinley says
your taxation and restraint is the die
tate of enlightened patriotism" and it
is proposed to still further add to the
taxation and restraint" now imposed
upon you by compelling you either to
sell abroad for gold and bring it back
to this country, which you can do only
at a loss, or to force you out of farming.
They give you your choice-and it is
HObson's.
This ie your business, in which no
one else has a right to interfere. It
has been by your votes that the mill
owners have been protected from your
You have howled even
louder than they have in favor of the
taxation now levied upon your pay
ment for what you sell abroad.
If the value of your land has not in
creased 45 per cent. in the last ten
years, it has been because you would
not permit its cultivation to be profit
able. If the price of your product has
it has been by your own act
it impossible for you to sell it
abroad at a greater profit. If there is
a mortgage on your roof, it represents
the money that you deliberately de-
stroyed or refused to take.
If you desire your land to decrease
in value, your crops to decline in price,
your mortgage to be foreclosed and
your days to end in the poor-house or
on the highways, there is nothing more
to be said. No one is your keeper, and
only fool would try to persuade you
to act differently.
But, If this is not your desire, if you
are willing to admit that it is possible
you may have been deceived by the
mill-Owners-Organized into separate
associations or trusts and all banded
together in a protective tariff league
if you are willing to think for yourself
act for yourself and decide for your
self, then there is much more to bt
said.
Will you not take up this subject Of
protection and study it during the long
eveningsr Will you not discuss
it with your friends. and seek to edu
cate them and yourself. Will you no
force it upon the attention of your agri
cultural societies and fellow-members'
Will you not organize tariff clubs Whose
object is to get at the truth withou
reference to where truth may lead
whether to protection or tariff reform!
Above all and beyond all will you moi
force the editors of your home paper'
republican and democratic alike-tt
answer fairly and honestly each poin
made on either side with facts ant
sense-not with appeals to passion o
the waving of British tags.
The war is upon you. Your situa
tion is critical. Even If you come to
clear understanding Of the danger
menaoi ng you, it Is by no means Ger
tain tn at you have time to save your
selves from your I'm pending ruin. Blu
if ruin must come, will you not prefel
to perish like men, with your eyes opeI
to its causes and the manner in whicl
you have brought it upon yourselves
than b!indfolded, never knowing wha
hurt you?-T. E. WILSON, in the n
Y. World.
IL AN agricultural article in th
Hope Dispatch, the editor says: 9Th
western farmer must come to
realization of the fact that he mus