The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-10-06

w uy SIlOulu OIl6y SGOOp 10 COIlpEOLnIS6
with this party here, with that party
there? Why should they trade, and
and make unholy compromises
with the devil? Why should they
stoOp to play the ~hypOcrite? to masque-
rade in stolen raiment? They are
enough to lay their hand upon
the helm of State and say, 10, here are
we! This is country; we made 1t
and we will manage it. We will not
trust to the pie-crust promises of this
or that clique Of spoilsmen to do us
justice, to remove the burdens that are
to that little fOrmality ourselves!
But, say the sophists, your theory
of economics is all wrong! No country
can flourish under such Industrial reg
ulations as you propose! Some of your
propositions are clearly uncOnstitu-
tional!
Hold! For many years the economic
dialectician has been on deck. The
press has been filled with his subtle
ties; convention halls have resOunded
with his theOrems and theories, yet
labor has in no wise received it's due re-
ward-the burdens of the farmer have
grown ever heavier and heavier. We
may make some plumbers, but it were
impossible to make matters much
worse than they r We may not
know much about the Malthusian
theory of population, of the theOrems
Of production and distribution, law
of rent, law Of wages, and what
not; we may not know what the
Manchester school thinks Of this or the
French physiocrats thought of that;
but we do know that logic chOpping
does not lift mortgages. that scientific
demonstrations of what would happen
under certain imaginable conditions
that do not, never did, perhaps never
will exist, puts 40 pie in the dinner-pail
of the mechanic. Constitutional"
be hanged! If what we propose does
not fit the Constitution, we will make
the Constitution fit it! 1t were a queer
idea if after SO many amendments
tackled on to that t~ime-hOnOred instru-
ment for purely political purposes we
could not add one or two in the inter
est of industry! Do not worry about
the blessed Constitution. Besides, if
our economic theories should run the
Ship of State into the shoals, whose
business is it? Is it not our ship, and
cannot we spread all sail, set helm
hard up and send it to the devil if we
like? Better laundering honesty than
deliberate ~rascality better an ignorant
pilot, who, with the favor of the gods
may miss the reefs, than a skillful one
whose object is to drive upon the rocks
that he may set at the treasure chest.
The perturbation of our hired men lest
we wreck a property which we have
built up with so much OnerOuS toll, de-
Tended at the cost of so much blood, is
truly touching. But the dear souls
can trust us. Have we not been watch
ing them all these years; how they
steered and tackled. now this way, now
that? Have we not served as able sea-
men long years before the mast, under
their skillful captainship? Have we
not learned the ropes? Don't we know
all the reefs and SOalS on the political
map? where the free trade rock is, and
the protection Sandbar? Have we not
had the danger of free silver and mon
Ometalism, subsidies and neglect of our
merchant marine, and various other
impediments to political navigation,
pointed out to us time and again?
Have not instructors told us a
thousand times how intelligent, patri
otto and conservative we are? and how
well we understand the true science of
SONSl ll1lUCl1U dI1u O1I wv IL lIlUGIoSIS!
| have no desire to inCite class ami
mOSities. The interests Of the entire
people should be Identical. Under
present arrangements they are not so.
The manufacturers interest lies one
way, that of the farmer another. Glass
legislation has split the American peO-
pie up into tribes, each preying upon
the other, all preying upon the farmer.
Tbn american q ric1I1t1riC+ CbO,7l1 1o
the most prosperous people on earth.
This is essentially a farming country.
To agriculture it owes it's true great
ness. Land is cheap, abundant and
fertile. American farming machinery
is the best in the world. The country
is threaded with railways, canals and
n~avigable streams, affOrding an easy
outlet to all the markets of earth. In
no country is the intelligence of the
farming class so high, it's energy so
great. The national wealth is increas
ing with giant strides, yet the condi-
ton of the American farmer is going
steadily from bad to worse. Toll as he
may, save as he can, he cannot hold
his own, IS getting ever deeper and
deeper into the mire. He is eaten up
by taxes, by transportation charges,
by high prices for all he has to buy,
while what he has to sell will oftimes
not return to him the cost of produc-
ton.
The farming class is by far the most
important in this country. Why
should it not quietly brush aside the
parasites that have been so long sapping
its life blood, and be come the political
as we'll as the productive head of the
national household and establish a new
order of things with justice for all?
To do this the farmer must shake
himself clear of all patriots for plum
der, all place-hunting politicians. He
must take whatever is good and true
in present parties, rejecting all speci-
Osities. He must study conditions
rather than theories. We have had
too much theorizing already, constitu-