The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1891-07-25
CROPS AND POLITICS.

CROPS AND POLITICS.
Presumably everybody remembers
that intelllgen. fisherman who voted
against the party IN power because
there were no eels in his eel pot that
year. He was the phototype of the
Alliance calamity walters, who wanted
new party because drought last sum-
mer cut off quarter of the corn crop,
fifth of the wheat and more than a
quarter of the oats. These disasters
fell with crushing force upon men who
had bought land with mortgages and
could hope to get out only with long
and unbroken succession of big crops.
| Also those suffered who had bought
land on speculation beyond their means
and those who had bought in unwise
localities, and those who had lived be-
yond their resources. 1t was a bad
year for all these, and they sole mnly
res olved that the party in power could
no longer be trusted.
1t is curious phenomenon-this
habit of growing at a political party
because crops are not good, but it is not
new. For many years practical politi-
Clans have been accustomed to expect
political reaction whenever there came
industrial or business misforlunes, and
to reckon general prosperity worth
thousands OF woes to the party in
power. Grant that the great majority
of voters are too sensible to change
their political action for no better rea-
son, yet comparatively small minority
shifting from one opinion to the other
is often enough to turn the scale.
Even of those who thus suffer their
political actions to be governed by
temporary circumstances, most would
Indignantly repel the idea that per-
sonal ill success prejudiced their minds
against party or national policy. But
the influences of which a man is rot
conscious are often those which have
the greatest power.
Shrewd wives know that a good time
to ask favors from a ciusty husband is
after good dinner. When a man is
prospering and making money, he is
apt to think the world a comfortable
sort of place, and to conclude that his
country is nightly we'll governed, but
when he is In any difficulty it is not
his own fault, OF course. Something
or somebody must be to blame. Ole
man charges his i'll success to that
malignant fisnd, Bud Lick. Another
holds his neighbor accountable, and
another his agent, his landlord or his
creditor. But the un.utored American
who supposes that the business of a
Government of the people is to give
every individual what he cannot get
himself, is prone IN time of trouble to
believe the assertion of any demago2ue
tnat this law or that policy has robbed
him of the splendid prosperity which
was his birthright.
Hence it is that good crops are like
ly to have political meaning, espec-
tally in agricultural States. Whenever
things prosper, the farmer is not so
sure that the railroads are robbing him,
or that creditors are sharks, or that
money monopolists have sucked out
the life blood of the country. At such
time it does not appear to him i'm
peratively necessary that the monetary
circulation of the whole country should
| be debased and debauched in order to
help him out of trouble. He is not so
ready then to burden all the rest of the
people indefinitely, by means of legisla
ton for his own benefit. The dema-
gogue who tells him that a particular
law or policy is reducing HIM to star
vation excites laughter rather than
sympathy.
The official reports Ct the Agricul-
tural Bureau do not look as If the cal
amity walters we going to multiply this
year. There is fair prospect of larger
crops on the whole than have ever
been produced in any previous year.
If these foreshadowings are answered
by events, the members of the Farmer S
Alliance who went out of it month
ago or more will congratulate them
selves that they started in time. For
when this movement moves no longer,
and the Alliance resolves itself into its
constituent elements, it will be reckon
ed somewhat honorable thing to have
pulled out of it early.