The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-26
THE LONELY FARMER.
Is BOOkwalter's Scheme a Stem
= To General Landlordism?
PAWNEE COUNTY LAND IN PAWN
Old World Tenant System Revised-The
owner of the Farm Owns the Man
Who Lives Upon 1t.

walter on "The Farmers Isolation and Its
Remedy" Mr.. Bookwalter's picture of the
farmers isolation, his various trials and hard
ships, under the dominion of the constantly
spreading mortgage leprosy, etc, is clear aud
striking, and does credit to the authors head
and heart
HIS remedy" is valuable only as it suggests a
future condition in which the tillers of the soil
shan not only enjoy the social and cooperative
advantages OF the proposed plan, but be indie
pendent of some second party, who, by virtue OF
being millionaire, and who, through the
wholesale purchase of mortgaged farms at not a
quarter OF their real value, GOWNS the soil and
controls the tenant tiller
happen to he well acquainted in Powell
county, Nebraska, where Mr.. Bookwalter has,
through methods well known in ''business" cir
Giles, managed to come in possession of "12 0o0
acres of land in one body" in one of the richest
and Oldest portions Of Nebraska
But viii let that pass. as Mr.. Bookwalter is,
l have no doubt an exceptionally kind hearted
ana philanthropic man who realizes that the
producer has cause for complaint, and who
would be glad to see some of the causes removed.
His plan is as good as any that can possibly be
devised under landlord system-which at best
is but slave system-but if it ends within Mr.
Brookwalter's implied limits and without a cor
responding change in our present industrial
system. 1t simply means old world landlordism
revised and improved for American adoption
and use.
II Mr.. Bookwalter proposes this as a scheme
OF redemption" through which the farmer is to
be saved from all his woes, while all the private
corporations and combines are permitted to
prey upon him just as OF old, he has, like the
prematurely born chicken, as it went down the
1rishman's throat, ''spoke too late" for the far
mers are already in advance of him. in theory
at least, and have more democratic ideals in
view
He evidently miscalculated the temper of the
farmers and greatly underestimate their intel
igence.
Ii he will read the reform papers-and there
are nearly 1000 journals of this class to select
from-he will perhaps discover that the honest
grangers have either kept from him some
things which they knew when he canvassed
them Tor their opinions, or that they have
learned great deal since.
For instance, Mr., Bookwalter after enumer-
atlng the various popularity alleged causes for
rural poverty and discomfort, such as
are freely aud clearly presented in all
the agricultural and labor reform "a
pers, chief among them being trusts,
transportation rates, unjust taxsfsGa. essss con-
troll and manipulation of the snAncna 81 eat-
rency, etc.-goes on in the foilowisss sk7asd
strain, which every well-informed iarukx4 all
not fail to resent as an impeachment OF his CON-
mon sense
who blame the present industrial system-''are
only minority. Let certain men think as they
may, 1t Is minority, a small one indeed. in the
west that is ready for general financial and
industrial revolution. The solid and conserva-
tive farmer-the middle-class man-simply
saws:
"'Im blessed if / know: things get worse and
worse; the more corn and wheat we raise the
less we get for the whole of it, unless they have
failure in crops or they get up a war in
Europe"
bot nf tha
Mr.. Bookwalter draws in the foregoing pas
saga portrait not far from correct as ap-
piled to the farmer of the past, but not at all
lifelike so far as the farmer of the present is
concerned.
The farmer of today is not on his knees beg
glng Tor salvation by grace at the hands of those
who have plundered him. He proposes to work
out his owa financial salvation, through the
proper and independent use of the ballot
At the end of Mr.. Bookwalter's article the ed
itor OF the Forum adds the following explana-
tory note: "Mr Bookwalter is now proposing
to demonstrate how the need that he has point
ed out in the foregoing pages may be supplied by
establishing farm villages in Nebraska. The first
OF these will be built on tract of 1900 in
Pawnee county. The tract will be divided into
80 farms OF eighty acres each, and in the center
OF the tract will be village cons sting of $50
houses, one house for every farm"
The first question is: Who is to olCp the
eighty acre farms and the 80 houses,-the
farmers or Mr.. Bookwalter?
If the latter, then the farmers are at the mercy
OF their landlords, and if their condition in the
end, is any better than that of the ordinary ten
ant and track" renter, ii will be solely because
the ordinary landlord. Mr.. BoOkwalter approves
and defends our present industrial system
whose motto is clearly expressed in the old
phrase: Each for himself and the devil for the
hindmost' Under this system, not only
the more thrifty but the more greedy. cunning
and cruel must inevitably, and by the Flaw of
natural selection, rule over those who have
more heart and conscience and less aequisitive-
ness than their neighbors.
Nothing can prevent this result, which the
system itself invites, inspires and in sense,
even compels l will not deny that Mr.
BookWalter may, like Leland STAN
lord, be more kind AMI humane
demands and inevitably develops, and that his
tenants would be better of than most serfs.
but ustice, which includes mercy, is more to be
desired than any one mans generosity.
II Mr.. Bookwalter would be an object lesson
to illustrate justice let him sell his lands 70
farmers-of his own selection, If he prefers-in
2 Hsy cost s sf what ihoIua thsv 0rg
crued taxes, and without more than per
cent. interest. giving reasonable terms for
payment In this way the buyers would not
and could easily become independent owners
while maintaining all the other features of Mr.
bookwaiter cooperative idea, which is feasible
and good.
But SO long as the lands and houses are owned
by Mr.. Bookwalter they are subject to him. and
the families occupying them are to alI in;ents
liable 10 become intolerable whenever the
baron dies and Is succeeded by "kiug that
knows not Joseph The only novelty in the
scheme lies in its social idea and in the dlub e-
headed landlordism that takes in town and
country at the same time. and exposes the fam
lilies occupying both the soil and the home TO
the mercy or caprice of single individual
who may be totally unfit for the responsibility
but who rules merely because he happens TO be
in possession through accident or, perhaps,
crime, OF a sufficient amount of money to make
y IN IN 81 VI n arc ma Of
better than himself. The plan has every mark
and syn OF being sugar-coated proposition to
introduce landlordism in this country.
LORD Bacon said: tine usurer dealing in
certainty and all the rest in uncertainties, in the
end of the game all the money gets into the
box
In the past twenty years tens OF millions of
lands have been absorbed in the usurer's boy
in the United states.
It Is but asiEgle step more 10 a system OF
land oFdiSm that IN the end would kill ont
small, indlv idual farming. as trusts are already
crashing and absorbing independent dealers all
over the land.
eeive the American farmer nor cause even so
much as an opposing ripple IN the resistless
current that Is setting IN from all
directions 10 overturn and dissolve al species
OF private monopoly, through general co-opera.
ton ~ the people, by the people and
Tor the people Anything less than
but the outermost twIgs Of an industrial tree
that was planted in raplne and plunder-a tree
that ! corrupt from root 10 top, and whose
branches bear fruit in hypocrisy, robbery. THEFT.
bribery. judicial. political, religious and social
prostitution, war famine, assassination, and
sAddcst OF Au-in Ward MacAllister and his
lou
The tree is doomed. The SIX IS laid az us
roots. Il must fall and be cast into the FIRE and
burned. and out OF it's a>hes viii rise one that :
= bear fruit for the healing OF the nations
That which = good in church. state and society
viii not perish with il, but simply be emanci-
pated from corrupting association and con