The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1891-09-03
Ten Years Of Toll, for Whom!


In the last ten years statistics dem
onstrate that the country has in
creased in wealth almost beyond pre-
cedent. Statistics also show that
during the same time the wealth pro-
duced has made millionaires in the
east, and paupers where the wealth
has been created-in the west. The
census bulletins show that the farm
ers have not received their share Of
the increase, to which they contrib
ute larger proportion than any
other class Of persons, supplying as
they do not only the food for our g.
600 900 people, but they also furnish
the materials for more than three.
fourths Of our foreign commerce.
Yet, while making others rich, they,
who produce all these things, remain
comparatively poor.
Time was when an industrious, In
telligent farmer by his vocation
could reasonably indulge the hope of
independence and comfort, as the re-
suit Of steady work aud good manage
Inent, but under the present system
of bad laws that time IL past only to
return with change from the perni-
cious system which is rapidly Great
ing a nobility OF wealth and race
wage slaves. Prior to the adoption
of the vicious legislation Of the last
thirty years the agriculturalists of the
United States owned IS per cent. Of
the value OF the country. Now it has
been transferred to others SO that
they own but 90 per cent. For IS
years the government has been loan
ing to the national banks $500, OOO, 900
at per cent interest, which they in
turn have loaned to the farmers at
from 10 to "a per cent. 1t has dona-
ted to railroad corporations over 2OO,-
OOO, 600 acres of the public domain in
alternate sections, the sections re-
tanned by the government having
been raised in price, SO that the men
who purchase these lands and who
produce the wealth OF the country
are compelled to make good to the
government what it has donated to
the corporations. Sixty millions Of
dollars taken from the labor of the
country by an oppressive system Of
taxation have been loaned to the
national banks for series Of years
without interest, and 1854, 100000 Of
government bonds donated to the
Union Pacific railroad company, the
people are taxed to pay the interest
on and eventually must pay the prin-
cipal, and yet the men who thus
wrong and rob the labor of the coun.
try are permitted to hold the fran
chise and reap and distribute the
fortunes it annually earns. These
are the methods by which has been
made wealthy manufacturers, specu-
lators, lawyers, doctors and polite
ians by the thousands, ard paupers
of the laborers of the country by the
million.
And it is against this pernicious sys-
tenn that Governor Boies in his New
York speech SO vigorously protested
as to invoke the criticism of every
newspaper in Iowa in the interest OF
monopolists and corporations of the
east.
A few figures from the report OF
the census will not only corroborate
but emphasize what Gov. Boies had
the courage to tell the men In New
York, who for nearly a third Of n
century have been deliberately APP.
propriating to themselves the entire
profit OF western agriculture. In 1886
the value of all farm products in the
United States was *2.213, 100000 pro.
duced by 1870, 600 persons, an average
of 5000 to each.
The net manufactures of the coun
try for the same year were 81, 07a, 600,
600 produced by a.732,O operatives
giving to each over 800.
This shows that manufacturing
could pay labor more than twice a,
much as agriculture, and yet the
wealthy capitalists who conducted i,
were all the while clalnoring for ad
ditional tariff bounty to be paid b,
the less profitable industry. The re
cent census indicates that the manu-
featuring products of the country ma
increased to IS, 400, OOO, 900 annual!