The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-05-05

the man. The farmer is stronger than
the monopolist. Though the farmer is
much stronger than the mOnOpolist,
the monopolist manages him for his
own purpose. He puts a bride, called
loyalty to party, ia his mouth, and a
! saddle on his back and rides him where
he wills. He puts harness made of
prejudice on the farmer, and by max
ing speeches to him, and giving him
plenty of taffy, induces him to walk
and draw a monopolist carriage. The
farmer does much hard work, but the
money gained by the farmers work
the m~onopolist appropriates to himself.
The farmer has become poor, and lives
roughly on a mOrtgaged farm, and
eats plain food from delf and tin
plates, and sleeps on a straw bed.
The farmer is very useful to the mon
opolist. Moral: Those who do not use
their brains for themselves must use
their muscles for somebody else.-In-
diana Messenger.
1t is hard to believe that the quiet,
long-suffering and conservative farm
ers are ever revolutionary in their
ideas and methods. They submit to a
good deal of oppression and plumber
ing, but it is dangerous to crowd them
to the wall. In at least two great
modern revolutionary movements the
farmers took the lead, and came out
on top. In England in 1881 the farm
ers and masses generally had scarcely
any rights that were respected by the
governing classes. The story is too
long to tell in detail, but something
like Farmers Alliance was organized,
with Watt Tyler at the head. The
movement spread to the towns and
cities, and the people were soon banded
together to resist unjust taxation and
oppressive laws. The countrymen
with their town allies got together in a
compact body and swept over the land
like a prairie fire. From county to
county, and from town to town, they
pushed their rapid march until they
reached London, where, after losing
their leader in a skirmish, they dis
persed when the king had made them
certain promises. The government
succeeded in Furnishing many of the
prominent ~ringleaders, but the solid
fruits of victory rested with the revo-
lutiOnists. From that time for about
a century English farmers and work
ingmen had the use of as much land
as they could cultivate and were free
to combine together for elf-protection.
That period was the golden age of
England. Then there was no poverty.
All were well fed, well clothed and
we'll paid. After that, in the sixteenth
century, the mOnOpOlists or privileged
classes, forcib1y gained control, and
the concentration of wealth in the
hands of the few plunged the many
into poverty. Another farmers revo-
luton was the one in France i'll the
latter part of the eighteenth century.
The French cOuntrymen were as much
oppressed as their English brethren
were in the fourteenth century. They
organized local societies with a central
society, and in the course of a bloody
carnival of several years duration
brought their king and queen and thou
sands of their OppressOrs to the guillO-
tine. Generations of suffering made
them u~nreasonably violent, and they
gave France what is known in history
as the Reign of Terror" Yet this
revolution was a great triumph for
democracy. Tt greatly modified mon
archial rule in Europe, and paved the
way for the present French republic,
under which the farmers are the most
prosperous people on the face of the
earth. These two revolutions were
essentially farmers movements. There
is much in them that will shock the
readers of to-day, but it should be re-
membered that in those days the PEG.
pie did not have the ballot to right
their wrongs, and they had to resort
to force. In both England and France
these popular upheavals resulted in
substantial victories for the farmers.
The uprising in this country at the
present time of the agricultural popu-
lation recalls the historic events which
we have briefly outlined. Like the
tillers of the soil in England and
France, our farmers are kept down by
UNJUST taxes, oppressive laws and mo
nopolies, who, in their way, are as
dangerous as the feudal barons of old.
But our people, armed with the ballot,
understand the power of organized &C