The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1891-08-01
MoRGANTowN, VIRGINIA, SATURDAY. AUGUST /
What Hurts the Farmers.

The organization of the Farmers
Alliance is sign of the times.
Every social or industrial movement
that involves a considerable body
of the people and persists in its de-
mands is sign of the times-and
the Farmers movement is certainly
a phenomenon of this kind. 1t in
dicates.that the political conditions
of the country are unsatisfactory
and that the vast body of the people
engaged in tilling the soil for liv-
ing are discontinued The country,
as whole, is prosperous. In
the last decade population has
increased 100000, and six
new States have been added to
the Union. One bountiful crop after
another has added its increment to
the general wealth. The railroad
mileage has increased from $4,000
to 10000, and the internal traffic of
the country is estimated at $25, 600,
600, 000-figures so vast that they
can only be stated not comprehended.
We produce more gold and silver
than any three other countries in the
world; we make more iron than
Great Britain, or any other country !;
and Hon. WIN. Mckinley, of Ohio,
told nothing but the truth when he
said 1--WE lead all nations in agri
culture; we lead all nations in min
ing, and we lead all nations in manu-
featuring"
But why are the farmers discon-
tented in the midst of this phenom-
email prosperity? Why is it that the
largest class of workers in the land,
and the class which contributes more
than any other to the general wealth,
finds it necessary to organize in ALI
ances, hold conventions and thrust
its grievances before the public?
Never before in the history Of
the country did the farm
ers as body talk so much about
mortgages, low prices of crops,
scarcity of money, the pressure of
debts, the difficulty of finding crop
that will pay for raising it, the i'm
possibility of selling their farms at
any reasonable price, and the general
hardships of their condition. Why
is it they do so now2 What is the
matter with the farmersi
1t is not that the railroads are
owned by corporations instead of by
the Government; it is not that rail
road property is assessed at too low
valuation; nor that there are too
few Union veterans receiving pen
sions; nor that the President and
VicePresident are chosen by electors
instead of by the direct vote of the
people-nor all of these together, as
some of their conventions appear to
imagine; and when the Farmers
conventions humble about these
things they give painful evidence
that they do not grasp the situation.
The real cause of farmers hard
ships is to be found almost in one
single word - protection. Other
agencies have something to do with
the trouble, such as extravaganza at
Washington, excessive land grants
to Eastern corporations owning rail
roads in the West and manipulation
of the national debt and finances
during the last twenty seven years
in the interest of the moneyed section
and the creditor classes. But the
eminent and overshadowing
cause is that the Government has
exalted manufacturing over all other
interests and fostered it at the ex-
pense of other producing interests,
particularly that of agriculture; that
certain kinds of manufacturing,
found chiefly in the Northeastern
States, have been favored and pro-
tected by the Government by sys-
tenn of tolls and exaclions that fall
most heavily upon that class which,
being the ground sill of the social
structure, is incapable of charging
them against class next below it
the tillers of the soil.
Somebody must pay for the pro-
tective fasers which have made the
manufacturing interest and the man
ufacturing section SO enormously
rich, for it is impossible to protect
one class except at the cost of others.
1t has been estimated that the sum
that every farmers family in the
land pays to protect manufacturers
in the shape of an excessive price
for articles of necessity and comfort
is $50 a year, and that is what hurts
the farmers.-.St. Louis Republic.
The Country Newspaper.