Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-01-14

to promote the welfare of all classes by
| making the formation of trusts, corners
and combines impossible. By cornering
grain, cotton, tobacco and money, the
whole country, except the monop-
! olistS, is severely injured, and
the imposition of paltry fines
and short terms of imprisonment
do not operate even in the smallest de-
gree to prevent their formation 1t is
true that, in order to reach these cor
ners, we have to provide warehouses
for the storage of farm products, and
money to be advanced in part payment
OF their value. and thus not only is the
farmer Immediately benefited, but the
whole country is benefited resultant-
ly, and quite as much, if not more,
than the farmers. The Federal Govern
ment makes an annual appropriation of
81, 250, 900 for the use of the Agricultural
Department of the Government. Will
any one contend that because the
farmers receive the immediate bene-
lit OF this appropriation, that only
they are benefited, and that it is
OF no advantage to the whole coun-
try for the farmers to thrive, and receive
and assistance in their business? The
Government appropriates annually $780,
00O,0O0 for the improvement of our
rivers and harbors, the benefits arising
from which are enjoyed most immedi-
| ateiy and in greatest degree by the mer-
chant vessels who are in the free and
daily use of our great waterways. VIII
1t be said, however, that this appropria-
tlon is entirely for the benefit of the
navigator class, and that the people Of
the whole country do not participate
IN some degree in the advantages thus
secured to the navigators? We do not
propose to go into a discussion of this
question, and only print the bill that
those whose attention is now for the first
time perhaps being directed to it by
these furious attacks of the monopoly
organs, may have the opportunity of
reading it for themselves. and of decid-
ing upon its merits, uninfluenced by
empty denunciations. 1t will be no.
ticed that it is non-partisan measure
having strong advocates and opponents
in all parties, and is not adopted as a
distinct plank in any platform, and is
merely suggested by a large element of
our American citizenship as a possible
remedy for the very greatest evil which
this country ever has or possibly ever
will again encounter; that is, the for
nation of combines and corners for the
purpose of depressing the price of the
five great American agricultural
products, wheat, corn, oats, cot
ton and tobacco, when the farm
er is compelled to go into the
markets to sell, and then when the
farmer has sold out, to corner the pro-
duce and make the consumers pay all
that they possibly can and still subsist,
the average difference between the price
| paid the farmer and the price paid by
the consumer, as shown by statistical
! tables, being 40 per cent. The burden
of this huge steal is borne partly by the
farmer and partly by the consumer. OF
course, in approving the Picller bill, we
only approve the principle embraced in
it, and not every provision. 1t is mere
| ly skeleton proposition, subject to
| change and amendment in committee
and upon the floor, and is liable to be
changed very materially in form. II
the Government will only incorporate
into law the essential features of the
| Pickler bill, we will be satisfed.-Nash-
vile (Tenn) Toiler.