The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1891-11-14
About Calamity Howlers."

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about Calamity Howlers, as the]
term the leaders of the Farmers
, Alliance, all of which has been to-
political effect, and to keep the eyes
of the public efectually closed te
the true condition of things as they
exist in our country. These writers
speak without investigation OF
knowledge, and, of course, without
regard for the rights or welfare OF
the farmer, or, indeed, of any class
except the corporations and money
changers, whom they regard, OF
affect to regard, as the rightful rulers
and masters of the country. But
ridicule is a towards weapon and
an ignoramuses defense, and the
class these papers ridicule SO per
sistently and glibly is the largest
and most substantial class in the
country. They produce two-thirds
of our wealth and pay eight-tenths
of our taxes. We refer to the farm
ers. They, with all who labor, are
dissatisfed-are Calamity howl
ers." Zwinglius, Shakespeare, our
own immortal Jefferson, and John
Adams each testified that no wide
spread discomfort could occur with
out cause, and it is a natural law
that the effect is never greater than
the cause that produced it. There
is in this country widespread and
very deep-seated discomfort, observ-
able among the classes who till it's
soil, operate its shops, develop its
mineral wealth, navigate its rivers,
and, when war comes, fight its bat
ties, and who have made it great at
home and honored and respected
abroad. These classes are coming
together millions strong. What for?
To become calamity howlers? To
right purely imainary wrongs? We
think not. We think they have been
forced to come together by wrongs
and by injustice quite adequate to
produce the effect we see; and we
think every intelligent student of
current history, who observes and
weighs the facts he reads, will con-
cur in this opinion.
While all other classes have been
gathering spoils by cooperative ac-
ton, and piling up riches by means
of fraudulent legislation and by ap-
propriating to themselves the public
lands and public money, our Amer
lean farmers, miners and day-labor-
ers have been without organization.
They have been pulling this way
and pulling that way without any
definite purpose or aim. They did
not apprehend the danger until it
was upon them; they did not see
the advancing wave of ruin until it
had engulfed them. Intent upon
their own pursuits-honest and con-
fding-they suspected nothing of
the fate being prepared for them by
treason until the mort
cages on their farms began to be
toreclosed and their children turned
out upon the commons.
They had become beasts of bur-
den, made so by class legislation,
and because they now dare to form
counter organizations, and to col
late and present to the public and
the world the ugly facts which en-
body the story of their despoilment,
they are hooted at as calamity
howlers." If they are calamity
howlers, they have no cause of COM
plant.
Let us see whether this is so, or
whether the railing press is mislead-
ing its readers in the interests of
the mortgage holders Our laborers
produce more than those of any
other country in the world. Our
resources are greater than
those of Germany, France and En-
gland combined. Our facilities for
reducing these natural resources to.
available commodities Of social and
commercial life are unequalled. At
no other time in the history of
these United States have capital
and capitalists been so prosperous
as they are now. Only productive
labor languishes.
In 1850, the producers of our
wealth owned IS per cent of the
whole. At this time they own
fraction less than % per cent.
From 1850 to 1860 agricultural
values increased in this country
over 100 per cent. In 1884 the sta.
pie crops of the country sold for
ess than 2 per cent more than they
sold for in 1866. From 1856 to
1884 the farms of the country had
almost doubled in extent and the
had doubled in value
1t least. Agricultural implements
and machinery had been improved
20 an extent that more than doubled
he facilities for cultivating crops,
1ut these advantages, as already
stated, had not increased the value
If the farmers products, for 2 per
cent is not an increase when it is