New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-08-18
GOOD-BY, WAILERS.

G00q-Dy, ola party, BOou-bS' '"ho 49,
delegates of farmers at Cincinnati. Then came
good crops here and bad crops abroad, and now
the county can sing, "GOod-by, calamity
walters good-byo Says one dispatch from a
Western State: "The crops are the largest
eyer known, and before the year ends nearly
all the mortgages in this State will be pald
off" 1t will be hard shedding 90 stir up pas
sionate feeling among farmers about mortgages
that one good crop has wiped out OF existence.
The Farmers Alliance started as an organ
ization for mutual benefit and information AS
such it had a great prospect OF usefulness.
Where it has kept out of the hands OF cheap
demagogues it may yet be useful. In many
localities it helps farmers to purchase more
cheaply. and combination for such purpose
is emnently praiscworthy. 1t has not always
found honest men for agents, as deiaicationS
among them has shown, but farmers have to
learn by experience like other men. AS Du-
reau Of information the organization might YET
bo of great service. The circular advising
farmers not to sell more wheat than they could
helm for the time had this one merit; IL maze
known t. them the probability that the demand
for their products this year would be unusually
large In such ways a farmers organization
could do incalculable good, if rightly managed
But kravish demagogues who wanted Office
soon found means to drag the organization into
nolitics. Then it became their chief business
70 circulate the widest misnfOrmatlon for the
purpose of helping their political schemes They
wanted the support of the greenbacli fanatics
and 50 borrowed. rehashed and sent abroad as
Gospel truth the stale stories that were not
within a thousand miles of fact fifteen years
ago. when the "more money shriekers" were
beaten by the common sense Of the people, ana
have been growing less true every year from
that time to this. They wanted the help OF
labor agitators and organizations and so plcked
nm all the mtruths devised by so-caled work
men who get their living by talking. To this
dolure of transformation were added some
spec;ous schemes to plumber other folks pro-
fcssedly for the benefit of farmers, and many
artful appeals to prejudice.
In this way the calamity walters started n
new party. Some of the farmers were drawn
into acting with them, but more refused ana
are glad now that they kept aloof. They have
learned that the new party movement, what
evcr else il may mean, has in it no good for
farmers They are learning that the pititul
tales of suffering. told so widely last year, have
this basis oil fact, that the farmers had hoped
for great crop but had met bad one. With
better weather the mortgages vanish and
also the idea that there must be new party
in order to raise more corn. Not solitary
fling has vet been done by the Farmers ALI
ance to increase the foreign demand for farm
products, but the Republican party has done
much. Not thing has the farmers organlza-
ton done to furnish a sufficient supply OF
money. but the Republican party has done
much. There has been some discreditable talk
Of Numbering the country for the benefit OF
impoverished farmers who could not pay their
honest debts, but the farmers themselves are
getting ashamed of it.
Before another year has passed there will be
made pubic an official record Of the mortgages
that were in force when the walls were lOudest
Then it will probably appear that the crushing
burden of debt was not fifth Or a tenth as
great as was asserted, and that the farmers OF
the country are not the paupers they were said
to be by sundry demagogues. Then there ought
TO come a swift revolution of opinion and feeling
in farming regions respecting the cheap dema-
eogues who have been disappearing the
farmers