The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1891-06-12
FARMERS REVOLUTIONS.
Never Begun Until Forbearances is No
Longer Virtue.

|
| Never Begun Until Forbearances is No
Longer Virtue.
| It is hard to believe that the quiet
long suffering and conservative farm
ers are ever revolutionary IN their
ideas and methods, says the Atlanta
Constitution. They submit to a good
deal of oppression and plundering. 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 farmers and the
masses generally had scarcely any
| rights that were respected by the gov
erning classes. The story is too long
| to tell in detail, but something like a
| Farmers Alliance was organized, with
Wat Tyler at the head. The move
ment spread to the towns and cities,
and the people were soon banded to-
gether to resist unjust taxation and OPP
pressive laws. The countrymen with
their town allies got together in a
compact body and swept over the land
like 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 skirmish, they
dispersed when the king had made
ment succeeded in furnishing many of
the prominent ringleaders, but the
solid fruits of victory rested with the
revolutionists. From that time for
about a century English farmers and
workingmen had the use of as much
land as they could cultivate, and were
free to combine together for self-pro-
lection. That period was the golden
age of England. Then there was no
poverty. All were we'll fed, well
clothed, and we'll paid After that,
in the sixteenth century, the monopo-
lists of privileged classes forcibly
gained control, and the concentration
of wealth in the hands of the few
plunged the many into poverty.
Another farmers revolution was the
one in France in the latter part of the
eighteenth century. The French
countrymen were as much oppressed
as the English brethren were in the
fourteenth century. The organized
local societies with central society,
and in the course OF {. bloody carni-
val of several years duration brought
Their king and queen and thousands
of their Oppressors to the guillotine.
Generations of suffering made them
unreasonably violent, and they gave
France what is known in history as the
Reign of Terror" Yet this revolu-
ton was a great triumph for demo-
cracy. 1t greatly modified monarchial
rule in Europe, and paved the way for
the present French republic, under
which the farmers are the most pros
porous 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 remembered
that in those days the people 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 vic
tories for the farmers The uprising
in this country at the present time of
the agricultural population 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, op-
pressive law and monopolists, who,
in their way, are as dangerous
as the feudal barons of old But our
people, armed with the ballot, under
stand the power of organized ac-
tion and they know the full signifi-
canoe OF the supremacy of numbers.
Yet while this great struggle for re-
form is thoroughly peaceful and in the
interests of peace, it bids fair to be as
sweeping a revolution as the others
that we have mentioned. The cause
OF the united farmers is the cause of
democracy. 1t is an effort to restore
a government of the people, for the
people, and by the people. with equal
rights for all and special privileges for
none. 1t is cause that will win, and
its triumph will be all the more glori-
GUS because it will be a victory of
peace, victory of honest labor, won
through ballots instead of through
bayonets, won at the polls and not on
battlefelds. This hurried glance al
the past is suggestive. 1t shows what
organized farmers have done, and fore
shadows what they will do.
! 1t Will Not Work.