The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-09-16
IDLE ADVICE.


Paul State, a Farmers Alliance organ, is
out with a sensational circular, the sub
stance of which appeared in The HERALD's
telegraphic columns on Tuesday. The gen.
tleman tells the farmers to hold on TO their
wheat, and says that If they will do this
they will be able to get $3.50, or perhaps
$500 bushel for 1t. He gives statistics
and goes over the European situation to
sustain him in his prediction. Mr.. MILLER
undoubtedly means well. He would help
the farmers and if his article could be
obeyed the agriculturists might grow rich
from this years grain crop. While the
season has been an unusually bad one in
Europe and Asia, causing sad deficiency
in the bread supply, nature has been ex-
ceedingly kind to American farmers.
The grain yield in the United
States this year is larger than
ever before, and there will be an
enormous surplus with which to feed the
hungry people of the old world. Nearly all
the wheat we have to spare will go abroad,
where it will fetch good prices, for Europe
will be compelled to pay all that is asked
for the bread which it must have aud can
obtain nowhere else except in America.
But MIR. MILLER does not understand the
true situation when he talks about the
farmers boarding their grain until such
time as they can get their own price for it.
If he would open his mind to the facts he
would know that if the farmers were able
to do as he advises he would not be editing
an Alliance newspaper, and there would be
no Farmers Alliance. Because the farmers
were not in a position to hold back their
grain, because they were deplorably in
debt and their farms were weighed down
with mortgages, they grew disconnected
if not disheartened and banded together
in an effort to free themselves from the
financial and political evils with which
they were afflicted. The truth is, the
farmers are compelled to put their grain
upon the market at once. Not one in q
dozen can hold back three months. In
many cases the wheat has been sold in the
field and the unfortunate farmer has used
the money to pay interest on his mortgage
and keep the collectors for the AGRICULTURAL
implement concerns from proceeding
against him. The situation has been plainly
described lately. At the commencement
of the harvest circulars were issued re-
questing the farmers to withhold their
grain from the market fer few weeks
or months and advising them of
q certain rise in prices; yet ever since the
threshers began to hum the railroads have
been unable to handle the wheat, so great
has been the rush to get tho grain to mar
ketand receive the cash for it. Within a
week the dispatches have told US of five
great railroads that had brought all their
resources into play, and were literally par
alyzed by the demands upon them for cars.
In one city more than two thousand loaded
grain cars were blocking the yards, and the
railway managers were almost distracted
The farmers are not particularly eager to
accept present prices when they know that
they could get more in few weeks, but
they are compelled to sell In order to save
themselves from disaster. And this will
be the case iustso long as the farmers ar g
ground down by debts, and they will
be thus held in subsection to the capitalists
until the farmer has the privilege of buying
what he needs for himself aud his family in
the cheapest markets of the world, just as
he is now forced to sell his products in the
cheapest markets. IL is idle to advise the
American farmer to hoard his grain unless
the advice be accompanied by the substan-
tial relief which the farmer must have,