Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1892-03-17
THE DOCILE FARMER.
HE IS At LAST AROUSED TO A REAL
izATION OF HIS OWN INTERESTS.

No Longer Disposed to Pull the Chest
nuts Out of the Fire for Millionaire
MonopOIists and Their Political AIliee.
Done witt. the Old Parties.
The discussion of politics is perhaps
outside the realm of a local correspond
ent. but in consideration of the fact that
this is campaign year, allow me to say
that If the feeling among the farmers is
fair representative of that existing
among laboring classes generally it will
he hardly safe to risk much money on
the result Of the coming election There
never was time in the history of our
town when SO many men (figuratively
speaking) had broken loose from their
party mornings and were ahoat on the
great sea of American politics as at the
present time.
Usually there is no more docile or
tractable class of men than farmers, and
no one knows this better than the willy
politician. They doubtless think after
the national conventions the only one
thing needful will be crack of the
whip and ''whoa-haw- buck" to make
them step quietly under the party yoke
they have borne so long, but when they
drive out next summer to shake hands
with 'old hayseed" and talk about the
later crap" they will find him off OF
the Ounce stool where he has allowed
himself to be kept so quietly for the last
twenty years, and wide awake to the
fact that while they have attracted his
attention by talking protective tariff,
free trade. gold basis and high license
some one has had their hands in his
pockets up to their elbows.
LOCATING THE RoBBER.
On first discovering the robbery he
supposed the local merchant was the
thief, but on further investigation he
found great trusts, monOpOlies and syn
dictates all over the land springing up
under the fostering care of the govern
ment that he had with ballot and bayo-
net helped to sustain. that were laying
direct tax on every article that he or his
family used and at the same time de-
pressing the value of his products by
placing millions of bushels of fictitious
grain on the market to come in cOmpe-
tition with the hard earned real grain i'll
his bin; his beef and pork are brought
into the market to compete with mil
lions of barrels that never existed. He
finds that the government, through the
agency of the assessor, furnishes these
vampires with farm statistics that en-
able them to speculate on the labor Of
his hands and the sweat of his brow be-
fore his crop is planted. They are thus
enabled to step in and reap the blessings
God intended for the farmer and his
family.
AS he gazes helplessly on the high in
terest bearing mortgage he has been
obliged to spread on every foot of the
old homestead he turns his eyes hope
fully to the public domain west of the
Mississippi, only to see all the tillable
land in the hands of railroad corpora
tons and foreign syndicates. These
lands, that should have been carefully
guarded for homes for American chill
dren, are in the possession of profigate
English lords
a RICH MEMS GOVERNMENT.
Nor is this the worst feature of the
case. He finds a majority of the legis-
lative offices of the land filled with
lily handed, perfumed aristocracy
known as millionaires. who have lined
their pockets with the peoples money,
wrested from them unjustly by crooked
legislation. and every avenue to these
bodies are so carefully guarded by paid
agents that few men who have ever
soiled their hands with honest labor or
eaten bread earned by the sweat of their