Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1890-05-31
10, THE POOR HUsBANDMEN.

No one familiar with the condlGons
of life in the agricultural regions OF
the United States can be surprised
by the statements which were made
BY Gen. Butler in his recent speech
on the Farmers Alliance. There has,
however, been some disposition mani
tested to question Gen. Buffers sta
tistics. It is asserted that he e1ag-
gerates when he says that the farm
mortgages of the country amount to
'the stupendous sum of S3,45oOOo,-
OOO;" that Senator Stanford's pro-
posed loan of 100000 would enable
the western farmers to pay about,
two-thirds of a mill on the dollar on
their mortgages, or the interest on
them for five days; that the farm
debts of the country exceed the pub
lie debt at the end of the war. What
ever else may be SAID of Gen. Butler
he has way of keeping himself sup
piled with hard, gritty facts.
The truth about the husbandmen
is the saddest that can be told of an
American citizen. Tax-ridden, ep-
pressed, the victim of Federal laws
enacted for the enrichment of favored
manufacturers, the farmer is carrying
on a BUSINESS which every year
plunges him more deeply in debt.
Gen. Butler was correct and moderate
in estimating that the $124, 100000
of Illinois farm mortgages in 1887
have increased to 100000. 1t is
known to be the fact that the tenden-
cy of the times is towards tenant
farms
So much for Gen. Buffers status
tics. So far from being exaggerated
they do not tell the whole of the dis
NAL truth. Hundreds of farmers,
unable to live by tilling the soil, have
simply abandoned their farms in Vir-
ginia. Fertile lands in Westchester
county, within twenty miles of New
York, do not pay their expenses. If
frst-rate western farm, we'll stocked
and appointed and unencumbered,
were to be given to a careful farmer,
in three years it would bring him in
debt at present prices for farm prod
ucts. Farm lands throughout the
country are depreciating in value.
The city man who goes home to visit
his fathers farm finds it worth less
than it was when he was boy. Then
the land afforded comforts and lux
uries to tide family and high educa-
ton to the children. Now the crop
and the stock bring the owner into
debt.
|QGradually the husbandmen Is beng
driven to the wall. Not many years
ago he was the incarnation of the ID
dependent American citizen. 1t was
his sturdy patriotism which preserved
our republican institutions. He
shouldered the musket thirty years
ago and saved the Union. Now the
government is repaying him by taxing
him to death, giving him a pittance
by way of pension when he is dis
abled, and making him beggar.
What is it all to come to? Simply
this, that the laws of the country are
degrading the farmer. Even now he
can make both ends meet only by Ia
boring from morning to night. living
on the coarsest food. foregoing COM
forts, bringing up his children with
out education, dwelling among his
beasts of burden, who alone are less
miserable than he. Zola's story is
terrible and repulsive, and yet it tells
the truth about the French peasantry.
It is to such complexion that our own
laws and the trust conspirators are
now driving the once independent
and prosperous American farmer
n. Y, World.