The record-union., 1891-02-08

often, it is a foreign class, II takes little
interest in the country or its institutions,
and is careless about informing itself
concerning the living topics Of the day.
The growth of the peasant" class, as
Professor Welch styles it, tends to drive
the few remaining Independent American
farmers to the town, and out of surround
ings that are uncongenial.
So the farmer has been losing his place
and influence, thinks Professor WEIGH, in
the councils of the State and the Nation.
Our later Congresses have not contained
farmers enough to fill the Committee on
Agriculture. The halls of legislation
have filled up with men subjective to
commercial and manufacturing in
fluences, and it is not surprising, there
fore, that the latter should be protected
by special legislation at the cost Of the
farmer. Az Professor WEIGH mildly puts
it, "Our National law makers have
known SO little about what would pro-
mote the prosperity of farmers, that they
have favored measures which have greatly
injured agriculture"
He holds, for instance, that they have
developed the national domain In ads
vance of demand for any more land;
purchased and opened reservations and
almost given the subdivisions away, and
thus encouraged tens of thousands to en-
gage in farming who would have re-
manned, otherwise, in other pursuits.
This, Professor WEIGH holds, has resulted
in unnatural competition with the pro-
ducers of the old States, and has over
stocked markets and reduced the price of
farm products. It has done still more; it
has stimulated the feeling that urban
life is preferable to rural life, whereas
fifty or sixty years ago, precisely the re-
verse was true, for then the society of the
settled rural part was quite as refined as
that of the town; its attractions as strong,
and its contributions to colleges, legisla-
tive halls, pulpits, and to the brainy
qualities of Americanism, greater than
urban life could boast.
1t is to be regretted that one who sees
as clearly as does Professor Welch, should
have stopped short of probing the SUBJ
ject to the bottom. We come to the con-
clusion of his paper with the expectation
of finding remedial suggestions, but meet
with disappointment. He does, it is true,
complain that rural districts are not given
the benefit of the improved postal service.
The farmer must still go to distant point
to cash or procure money order or postal
note, SO that the postal facilities in rural
parts are scarcely superior to what they
were fifty years ago. ''If," says Professor
Welch, "a farmer wishes to mail a letter
of a given class, he must go to the post
office, perhaps ten miles away, to do it.
If his commission merchant writes to him
to forward his cattle or grain quickly, as
the price is high, the chances are that he
will not receive the letter till the market
has fallen" He believes, and we incline
to agree with him, that money orders
ought to be issued from and cashed at
every postoffice in the country, and there
might be. without extravagant expendi-
ture, daily delivery and collection serv-
ice in most rural parts.
1t is a sound proposition that the gen
eral intelligence Of any class, bears close
relation to and depends largely upon the
facilities for learning what is going on in
the world. If in Europe the postal facili-
ties are quite as good in the country as in
the city,, there is no reason why there
should not in the United States be great
improvement in our rural service, despite
our larger area of territory and the spars-
ity of population.
But while these suggestions of Profess
sor WEIGH are valuable, the timidity with
which he touches the core Of the question,
amounting almost to avoidance of it, is
very disappointing. He knows that be-
tween manufacturing rings, commercial
trusts, congested wealth and the chicane
of bosses and low-level politicians, the
interests of the farmers of the land have
not been conserved, and that upheavals
of which such movements as the Farm
ers' Alliance are premonitive, result. It
is because the warning of Talleyrand has
not been needed, and the agricultural
class fostered; because of tariff discrim-
ations against producers; because barriers
have been diligently erected against ex-
port trade; because our governmental
policies have for long time tended to
make all industries connected with the
soil improbable, and because there has
been by law conferred upon industries
pursued in cities and towns an artificial
profit, that the urban conditions are what
they are, and are rapidly becoming those
of pauperized system.
The tendency to abandon agricultural
pursuits and engage in manufacturing
and commercial enterprises, which Pro-
fessor WEIGH finds to be so alarming, is
oAaHohSo oPon oAhSAaA AecoioS, SHoWlnS
that in the last ten years the mortgages
of land have aggregated one billion of
dollars value. The farmers revolt of the
present is rising up against ring rule, a
demand for the restoration of political
power to the people, and the wrestling of
it from the hands of trusts, rings,
bosses, and commercial and capitalistic
agencies which have usurped it.
Such movements of revolt are really