The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1891-09-03
aaod by. Walters.
The New York Trlpune.

From The New Fork Tribune.
s'Good-by, old party, goodby,n sang
the delegates Of farmers at Cincinnati.
Then came good crops here and bad
crops abroad, and now the country can
sing, Good by, calamity walters, goods
by Says one despatch from Western
State TIE crops are the largest ever
known, and before the year ends nearly
all the mortgage in this State will be
paid off 1t viii be hard Shedding to stir
up passionate feeling among farmers
about mortgages that one good crop has
wiped out OF existence.
The Farmers Alliance started as an
organization for mutual benefit and in
formation. AS such it had a great pros
pect of usefulness Where it has kept
out of the hands of cheap demagogues
it may yet be useful. In many loeali-
ties it helps farmers to purchase more
cheaply and combinations for such a
purpose is eminently praiseworthy. 1t
has not always found honest men for
agents. as deialcations among them has
shown. but farmers have TO learn by eX>
perience like other men. AS bureau
of information the organization might
vet be of great service. The circular ad-
yjsing farmers not to sell more wheat
than they could help for the time had
this one merit; it made known to them
the probability that the demand for
their products this year would De unuS-
ualIy large. IN such ways farmers or
gauization could do incalculable good, if
rightly managed
But knavish demagogues who wanted
office soon found means to drag the or
ganization into politics. Then it became
! their chef business to circulate the wild
| est information for the purpose OF help
| ing their political schemes. They want
! ed the support OF the t5reenback fana-
| ties, and so borrowed rehashed, and
| sent abroad as Gospel truth the stale
stories that were not within thousand
miles OF fact fifteen years ago, when the
more money shriekers' were beaten by
| the common sense of the people, and
have been growing less true every year
! from that time to this. They wanted
| the help OF labor agitators and organiza-
tions, and so picked up all the untruth>
devised by so-called workmen who get
! their living by talking. TO this deluge
| of transformation were added some spec
| ions schemes to plumber other folks, pros
/ fessedly for the benefit OF farmers, and
many artful appeals to prejudice
Ia this way the calamity walters start
| ed a new party. Some of the farmers
were drawn into acting with them, but
more refused and are glad now that they
kept aloof They have learned that the
1 new party movement, whatever else 1T
may mean. has in it 10 good for farmers.
They are learning that the pitiful tales
/ of suffering, told SO widely last year.
/ have this basis of fact, that the farmers
had hoped for great crop but had met
a bad one With better weather the
mortgages vanish. aud also the idea that
there must be a new party in order to
raise more corn Not a solitary thing
has yet been done by the Farmers Alli>
ance 10 increase the foreign demand for
farm products, but the Republican par
ty has done much. Not thing has the
/ farmers organization done to furnish
a sufficient supply of money, but the
I Republican party has done much. There
| has been some discreditable talk of plum
dering the country fer the benefit of i'm :
poVerished farmers who could not pay
I their honest debts, but the farmers
themselves are getting ashamed of it.
Before another year has passed there
will be made public an official record Of
the mortgages that were in force when
/ the walls Were loudest Then it will
| probably appear that the crushing bur-
den of debt was not a fifth or a tenth as
I great as was asserted, and that the far
Iners Of the country are not the paupers
1 they were said to be by supdry dema-
gogues. Then there ought to come a
/ swift revolution of opinion and feeling
! in farming regions respecting the cheap
j demagOgues who have been nisrepre
! senting the farmers.