The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-08-05
STAND UP FOR KANSAS.
A Word from a Farmer to Farmers and
About Farms.

ing corn that will certainly produc'
from fifty to eighty bushels per acre i
| an assured fact. The threshing ma
| chimes are demonstrating that the yield
of wheat in our favored land is equal to
If not greater than any preceding crop
our pastures filed with young horses
| mules and cattle; while the crop OF hog;
Will 10 few months be simply immense
and will be sold at prices 90 per cent
greater than we heretofore received
The calamity howlers are silent, know
ing that the Kansas farmer is in better
circumstances than the lawyer, the doc
tor or the merchant. All classes will be
in greater or lesser degree benefited
by the prosperity of the farmer, who i;
surrounded by more real wealth
Than all the treasures buried far
Within the caves OF Istakar.h
Now Is the accepted time for all farm
ers, forgetting their past alteration, to
''stand up for Kansas" and administer
a well merited rebuke to the dreamers
who for partisan and personal reasons
would defame and bring unmerited con-
tempt on state, for which natures God
has done so much and Calamity SO little.
should they still do their worst,
There are moments of joy
When we think on the past,
Which they cannot destroy"
We take pride in the past. Kansas
whether periodically or industriously
considered occupies high place in COM
parison with the older states. The tax.
able wealth of Massachusetts, from 1880
to 1890 increased less than 36 per cent
while the increase in wealth in Kansas
during the same period was more than
so per cent. New York the home of
lordly importers who amassed fortunes
for themselves as well as the
foreign corporations which they
represent, during the said ten years
increased in taxable wealth but AZ per
cent, while old mossback Missouri in
creased nearly 48 per cent in the same
time. The increase in taxable wealth
from 1880 to 1890 in the neighboring
state of Nebraska was nearly three times
as great as in old Massachusetts,.
Notwithstanding these facts the apos-
ties Of discord are engaged in classifying
facts and figures, slandering Kansas and
all other farming states. They institute
comparisons between the bondholder
and the farmer in which the farmer is
usually made to appear as a semi-civil-
lied clodhopper with his shirt sleeves
rolled up above his elbows, dressed in a
pair of overalls remarkable for their tat
tered condition, holding plow SO obso-
lete in construction that you might fall
down and worship it without a breach
of the first commandment, for it is not
the likeness of anything in heaven above,
on earth beneath, or in the waters under
the earth. The bondholder Is represented
sitting comfortably in luxurious arm
chair, holding in his fingers
a pair of scissors to cut off the coupon
annexed to his bond. A farmer with
any self-respect, who takes pride in view
ing his broad and fertile acres, gazing
with admiration akin to love on his
sleek aud well proportioned horses and
cattle as they expand in symmetry and
form beneath his protecting care, must
arrive at the conclusion that the immor-
tai Shakespeare arrived at when he as
sured his readers that comparisons are
odious. 1t is time to teach lesson to
these visionary economists, who depict
us to a soothing world as being but few
degrees removed in intellectual powers
from the horses we drive and the cattle
we fatten. The farmer of today is the
peer of any man in the community.
Ask him to invest his savings in bonds
bearing per cent. and he will consider
you fit subject for admission into the
nearest lunatic asylum. This invest
ment may do for the people of New
York or Massachusetts,, but he can do
better by investing IN another place in
his own township. One of my neighbors
here in Delano township, bought
an additional farm less than two years
ago, having already in his possession 800
acres: he received from the renter on
this farm one-third Of the crop of wheat,
corn and oats and received therefor in
cash more than lSper cent. on the invest
ments. This is not an isolated case;
there are numerous examples of greater
gains in Sedgwick county. Where is
the bondholder or the owner of bank
stock that can do as well? Since the
commencement of the government of
these United States each succeeding de-
cade shows greater proportion of the
people residing in cities and these
apostles of calamity assure US that I'M
just laws Is the cause. Any person,
farmer with an inch of
brow and an ounce of brain" knows that
legislation just or unjust has nothing at
all to do with it. The improvements
introduced in plows, NOW
ing machines aud self binders by the
Deering Manufacturing Co., tie McCor
mick Co., and others made it
possible for the progressive farmers of
and other western states to SOW
and harvest large, hmitleSs, areas of
land with very little cost for human
labor. Are these men, who are ignorant
of this fact-a fact that all farmers are
familiar with-qualified to represent US
in congress? AssuredIy not; and strange
as it may seem, they rely on their real or
their assumed ignorance as the chief
means for their political promotion.
We are familiar with the fact that there
is very little demand for human labor on
the western farm as at present operated,
and if it had not been for the wise and
benefcent policy pursued by the Repub-