The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-06-01
'OPfs, = THE SCHEME.
Senator Carlisle roe in Favor Of
Government Warehouses for
Farm Products.
Farmers Asking the Application
Of q Principle They Formerly
Denounced.
Very Small Proportion Of Agriculturists
Would BE Benefited by the Law
A Dangerous Departure.

WASHINGTON. May S1.-Senator Carlisle
has written to B. F. Howard, Tuskegee, Al
ALBANIA, in response to q request for his
views upon the bill providing for system
of government warehouses for farm pro-
ducts, upon which products treasury notes
may be issued. The senator says, in be-
associates that they are in favor of equal
justice to all and special justice to none,
embodies sound democratic doctrine, and if
it had been strictly adhered to in congress
the past twenty-five years, the evils of
which Howard and others justly complain
would have been averted and the whole
country would be prosperous and contented.
Farmers had been taxed 80 long for the
benefit of other classes, and seen SO much
legislation for the aggrandizement of cor
porations and syndicates that their pa
snss is asas d. and they yos Hcs %h de-
they have heretofore announced as
unjust and ruinous should be applied
to them, or rather part of them, for no
scheme yet suggested would operate alike
upon all farmers. But no evil can be cor
rected by increasing its magnitude and ex-
effectual remedy for the evil which un-
doubtedly exists, and that is to reverse the
policy which produced it.
The senator, after rehearsing the features
of the proposed sub-treasury plan, and
noting the fact that farmers themselves
will pay more than their fair share Of the
cost Of erecting the warehouses, and that
officers connected with them will be parti-
sans of the administering power. There is
not more than e-third' Of the $500 coun-
ties in the United States, if that many. that
produce and sell annually more than $780,
- -. nkc kko~o
| fore under the bill not more than one-third
of them could avail themselves of this plan.
At the very outset, therefore, it is plan to
| compel the government to issue and dis
tribute money for the benefit of people
| living in rich and productive countries at
the expense of the poorer ones. Moreover,
! it is plan to enable unscrupulOus specu-
lators to take advantage of the farmers
pecuniary necessities and effect exorbitant
| prices for food from the people. In great
majority of cases. the farmer would never
be able to redeem deposited products, but
would be forced to lose the remaining 20
per cent. of 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
4 receipts he has remaining interest Of only
20 per cent, less charges for interest, stor-
age, ETC., and this is all he can dispose. He
will find the time rapidly approaching
when he must have money to redeem his
products or sell his small remaining inter
est, or allow them to be sold at public auc-
tion by the government, and this will be
the golden opportunity of spectators,
whose agents will swarm all over the
country ready to take the receipts from the
embarrassed owners for a merely nominal
sum.
Senator Carlisle argued at length to show
that the plan proposed would produce an
| annual expansion and contraction of cur.
rency which would result in absolutely de-
stroying the market upon which the farmer
must depend for the sale of his crops.
No such facilities as this project
will afford for controlling markets
for purely speculative purposes,
says he, have ever existed in this or any
other country and no more perfect system
| for the oppression of the poor could be de-
vised. In conclusion, Senator Carlisle says
! that even if it could be conclusively shown
that this or any similar scheme would be
peculiarly beneficial to any particular class
Of pesple, he would still be unalterably op-
posed to it, because, in his opinion, it
would be another wide and dangerous de-
parture from the principles upon which our
political institutions are founded. 1t
would. in fact, be the longest step vet taken
in time of peace toward the consolidation of
power in the federal government and the
| subsection of the private affairs of the peo-
pie to the control of central and irresponsi-
BILE authority.