The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1891-07-15
PROTECTION.
The Real Cause of The Farmers
Hardships.

The organization of the Farmers Alli-
ance is sign of the times. Every So
cial or industrial movement that involves
a considerable body of the people and
persists in its demands is a sign of the
times--and the Farmers movement is
certainly a phenomenon of this kind.
1t indicates that the POLITICAL conditions
Of the country are unsatisfactory and
that the vast body of the people engag-
ed in tilling the soil for living are
discontinued. The country, as whole,
is prosperous. In the last decade the
population has increased 12,500,000,
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
timated at $25,OOO,O00,O 1000, figures so
vast that they can only be stated, not
comprehended We produce more gold
and silver than any three other coun-
tries in the world we make more iron
than Great Britain, or any other country;
and Hon. VIM. Mckinley of Ohio told
nothing but the plain truth when he
said "We lead all nations in agricult-
ure; we lead all nations in mining, and
we lead all nations in manufacturing"
But why are the farmers Disconnected
N hn mid - ,Nh al
perity 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 alliances, hold conven-
tons and thrust its grievances before
the public! Never before in the his
tory of the country did the farmers as
a 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 impossibility of selling their
farms at any reasonable price, and the
general hardships of their condition.
Why is it they do so now. What is
the matter with the farmers!
1t is not that railroads are owned by |
corporations instead of by the Govern
ment it is not that railroad property is
assessed at too low valuation; nor that
there are too few Union veterans re-
ceiving pensions; nor that the President
and Vice-President are chosen by cleo
tors instead of by the direct vote of the
people-nor all these together, as some
of their conventions appear to imagine;
and when Farmers conventions humble |
about these things they give painful
evidence that they do not grasp the sit
uation.
The real cause of farmers hardships is
to be found almost in single word
protection, Other agencies have
something to do with the trouble, such
as extravaganza at Washington, excess
sive land grants to Eastern corporations
owning railroads in the West, and manip-
ulation 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 pre-em
inent and overshadowing cause is that
the Government has exalted manufact-
uring over all other interests and foster
ed it at the expense of other producing
interests, particularly that of agrcult-
ure that certain kinds of manufacture
ing, found chiefly in the Northeastern
States have been favored and protected
by the Government by system OF tolls
and exactions that fall most heavily
upon that class which, being the
ground-sill of the social structure, is
incapable of charging them against a
class next below 1.-THE tillers of the
soil.
Somebody must pay for the protective
avors which have made the manufac-
lring interest and the manufacturing
section so enormously rich, for it is inn
possible to protect one class except at
he cost of others. 1t has been estimat-
ID that the sum that every farmers
amily in the land pays to protected
in the shape of excessive
prices for articles of necessity and COM
ort is $50 a year, and that is what hurts
he farmers.-St. Louis Republic.