The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1892-05-06
INSULTING THE FARMER.
Partisan Editors Who Say That He "Wants
Something for Nothing"

slonal politicians, have been having
much to say OF the various demands
of the labor organizations for legisla-
tive relief. and hold out the idea that
the advocates OF the sub.treasury
plan want end expect to get some
thing for nothing" A greater fallacy
was never in print and we don't be-
lieve the people are loager going to
be influenced by bootlicking Office
seekers.
The fight upon the sub-treasury and
land-loan plans says the National
Reformer has been particularly Bit
ter. The vocabularies of irony and
ridicule have been exhausted in long
editorials which editors with more
paunch than brains have enormously
called argument The impression
they seek to make on more or less
gullible readers is that the farmers
want something for nothing. In
other words, they want money
without giving something in
return. Were it possible to
exchange some of the so-called able
editors for money the feat would be
accomplished. But as they seem to
be already sold teeth and toe-nail
soul body and breeches it is hardly
possible by this means to demonstrate
that such a thing can be done. But
seriously. in view OF the fact that this
very proceeding has been going on
continuously for more than thirty
years and these able editors have
been either ignorantly aware of it or
criminally silent it comes with very
poor grace for them TO criticise the
farmer severely, even though he did
want a slice off the same piece of pie,
Let us look at the facts as they
really are, as even the able editors
will not attempt to deny.
The bondholder took fifty cents
in coin, bought dollar greenback
G changed it for a government bond,
and the government made that dollar
bond worth one dollar in coin, 1t
did this by legislation. The bond
holder gets 100 cents in coin" for the
fifty cents he gave the government
He got fifty cents for nothing on
every fifty cents OF investment Do
the able editors deny this. and have
they ever paraded the fact before the
public as an act of injustice? The
government deposits millions OF dol
lars in national banks for their use,
free OF interest. Under Cleveland
administration over 500, 900, 900 was
in possession of national banks at one
time. Here is u case of something
for nothing which the able editor
has not been swift to rush into prin
with in the shape of a scathing edi
torial.
by favorable legislation the gov
eminent doomed. the bonds to u pre-
MUM OF 20 per cent and then bought
them in, paying bondholders in pre-
miums over forty million dollars
Something for nothing Where il
the able editor that has honestly pro
tested against such ruinous proceed.
ipgP The government helped the
Pacific roads TO over 1920 900, 600
Another case of something for moth
ing. Speak out able editors hay,
you gone on record on this? Answer
these questions:
What did Jay Gould give for The
water in the stock of the Western
Union Telegraph company?
what did Vanderbilt give for the
water in the stock of his roads?
What did C.. p. Huntington, Ton
Scott and others give for their wateret
stock? Nothing.
What do you call the rates charged
on the basis of this fictitious stock
Something for nothing.
'tor shame! TO sit quietly fol
years. while farmers were WORKING
like Trojans to keep the wolf from the
door to see them loaded with taxes,
fleeced by railroad companies, and
robbed by banks and loans companies
to see their farms slipping out of theil
grasp because of these gigantic steals.
while you raise not voice against
them; and now when they ask to be
released from the clutches of Shylock
money lenders with a government
loan at a rate of one and two per cent
more than it charges the Pacific rail.
roads; two per cent more than il
charged the exposition companies al
New Orleans or Philadelphia, eighty.
one per cent better than it got from
the bondholder; with best security in
the world-better than mortgages on
railroads, better than gold-and you
raised the measly hypocritical cry
that the farmer wants something for
nothing
Now when he is sinking deeper
and deeper in debt; when the farms
are rapidly slipping out OF his grasp;
when the homestead upon which
lisping babes have grown
into manhood and womanhood,
and which their united efforts
have made to blossom as the rose. is
about to go from them under a mort
gage, when the price of products OF
his labor, already below the cost oil
production, is getting lower every
year. he raises his voice and asks to
come within the pale OF the protection
of the government he has made and
saved, and of which he forms the
most important part he is met at
the very threshold ofhis petition with
the cry calamity bowler paternalism
anarchist class legislation, fat lunacy
and hundred other epithets. the use
| Of Which Ill hncnrnns thnan uthnnn Lii