The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1891-01-01
BANK KSANDFARMER
GOVERNMENT PROTECTS ONE
AND oPPREssEs THE OTHER.
The Farmer Realizing That the National
Bond systo,n Is - C~onsummatc Job to
Rob H;m-Somc Pertinent Inquiries and
III piies.

SyosOhA 20 SVnbuIlllNaNS OOU ID
Rob H.m-Somc Pertinent Inquiries and
Replies.
What is the matter with the farms and
what is the matter with the bonds?
Why are the farms, that produce, all
%blanketed with mortgages and down,
down, down to bedrock prices, with no
sales except sheriff's sales?
Why is the holder of a national bond
that never added one penny to the
wealth of the country-thc fellow in
luck?
Why is q national bond that v
produced o penny so much more prefer
able to a good farm that produces all?
10 u young man of enterprise and
business qualifications you can hardly
now give a farm and compel him to re-
main upon it and cultivate it as a means
of obtaining a livelihood; no matter
though the farm represent the life labor
of tho sturdy pioneer, who converted it
from the forest and who is now sleeping
in his grave, and who. it is to be hoped,
is alike blind and deaf to the acts of his
%unthinking sons.
Think, brother farmers, for just one
moment of the struggles and privations
of your fathers who first let in the sun
IiSHV VII Gl1CSC SiOll Jus OIu Hills anu
valleys surrounding us! Think of their
labors, their hopes, their aspirations and
their privationS, that they might leave,
unencumbered to their children, good,
pleasant, comfortable farm homes!
Why, it is enough to make the very
heavens bow dr~n in bitter tears of
agony and remorsc to note how ruth
lessly the sons have squandered the
grand inheritance bequeathed unto them
by their %forefathers.
What has become of their struggles,
their tolls and their privations? Gathered
into the weil-tilled Golfers of the bond
holders.
There lies the farm spread out before
you; every inch of which is made sacred
with the footprints of your fathers; like
a giant skeleton whose blood has been
sucked and whose flesh has been gnawcd
from the great, white, scpulchrai bones
dead, dead, DEAD, drawn into the
Golfers of the bondholders!
Each successive year., good old Mother
Nature lifts from the earth her ermine
mantle of ice and snow, and covers
mountain and forest, hill and dale with
a robe of living emerald bordcrcd with
rainbow-tintcd flowers. The birds sing.
the rills gurglc, the little germs hidden
in the cold, dark earth reach out to the
warm south winds and glorious sunshine:
all animate nature awakcns into the
ecstacy of a newly found life. The
farmer plows faithfully his broad acres,
%cultivates them and gamers his harvests.
He cares for his stock, his bees, his
dairy, his poultry. He uses. in the main.
what he cannot sell, and sells what he
cannot use. His interest money and
taxes must be paid. Low prices and
slow sales for everything.
The wife and mother, whose whole
duties are never recorded by mortal
hand, is busy from mornings dawn till
late at night. No rest. no recreation. no
recuperation.
The son want to leave the farm to go
out into the crowded cities and study
professions.
The daughters want to go out away
from the farm home inQuisition to be-
come teachers. artists, girls with a salary,
or, somebody's wife.
The farm home is d%ilapitatcd and de-
serted. There is nothing there bcauti-
full and notwithstanding there that
pays. Every year the farmer %drudges:
every CT he tolls; every year the
wrinkles are ploughcd deeper into cheek
UAN " - oiN DSs LIZ StlS W l uIl-
ming to town oftener than seems ncces-
sary. The saloon is bright and attract
i've; he must have somewhere to GO. He
must have something to brace him up.
Farming doesn't pay. He has no pride
in it: no heart in it. He hires money
and hires to meet his expenses. He
struggles, and works, and frets. and
fumes, and struggles again. He looks
out into the peaceful serenity of the
churchyard and wishes he was at rest.
But he cannot die. He tries again and
again to hire money to meet his expenses,
and fails. 1t has leaked cut that he is
wrapped up in mortgages.
a bondholdOr, who lives at a little dis
lance, holds the mortgage; the farm
must go; the b%ondholdcr is sure to draw
it in-aS sure as death, taxes or the null
| tiplication table. The %bondholder is a
neighbor, who, years ago, sold his farm
and invested the money in United States
bonds. He has never since that time
earned a penny, yet he lives in a palace:
has a servant to wait on him at call;
rides or drives at his pleasure; and at
the next session of congress is to be sent
to Washington to make laws for the
farmers! He is sleek and fat and well
kept. He attends church regularly,
hires a centre pew, and pays literally.
He thinks the national banking system
is all right; that the farmer who pro-
iuces all is the only one to blame be-
cause he begins to think: because he is
so ~eXtravagant and strives to ape the
habits and customs of his wealthier
neighbor over the way; because be bears
not his yoke of scrvitude in the mcekness
that doth best become him.
NJ fnu ~o -, lo-;,, - E-I sd xl.. 49,
national bond system is a consummate
fraudulent job put up on him from the
beginning; that the wealth producers of
the nation have paid to the bondholders
more than three times the amount of the
national debt; that it will still require
more than twice as many products to
liquidate the debt as at the beginning;
that the money gamblers have refunded
the United States bonds, making their
payment impossible; thAi they have
made their interest payable s%emi-annu-
ally in gold, instead of legal legal-tender
%paper-thus holding the farmers and
wealth producers Of the nation their
slaves forever.
United States bonds, instead of being
paid off and discharged as they should
| haya been, have doubled, trebled and
| quadrupled IN value, drawing interest
s~enii-annually in gold; while farms and
farm products have decimated to the
lowest possible minimum in prices. In
fact, there are nc sales except forced
sales. The sheriff sells out the farmer;
the bondholdef cuts his coupons, laughs
slyly ut the duplicity OF the people and
gathers in his spoils,
Do you not see, brother farmers. that
class legislation, and that alone. have
made II. S. bonds at so fabulous a pre-
MUM, and have brought farms and
farm products at so fearful a discount?
Think as you work, and vote as you
think.
Study opt the problem from yenr own
standpoint,
When you have solved it. it is as plain
and distinct to Your mental vision as a
rule in multiplication.
No man can gainsay 1t.
None will attempt it.