The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1893-08-04
The Farmers, Greatest Danger.


Man controls the beasts because he is
wiser than they. The driver calls ''gee'
and "haw" 10 his team and the team moves
mechanically 10 the right or left at the sound
of his voice without knowing why it should
do SO. Men are controlled in a similar
manner by other men who are wiser than
they, without knowing why they act and
believe as they do. The beast is honest
and does moi pretend to know why he moves
as hidden. Man is hypocrit. He pretends
he has reason for his actions and his be-
lief when he can give none.
Just now he is being geed and hawed by
the driver in financial harness, like the OK
and the ass. There is a portion of these
asses who are learning the new "gee" and
shaw" as they tug the heavy load for their
masters. You may pick them out by hear
ing them repeat the rev phrase 'plenty OF
money if you have anything to sell that the
people want TO buy" These donkeys never
think that people seldom express a want for
things they haven't money TO pay for. They
don't want 10 buy business or property which
will not pay for the management. Hence a
very little idle money looks to these be
righted people like a great plenty, and they
strengthen the power of their drivers by
docile obedience and implicit belief.
Scarcely anybody buys farms except the
mortgage, and he does it against his will,
and The price paid or bid is rarely as much
as the Improvements cost. The bare land
has no value. This condition of affairs is
ca1sing great distress and anxiety through
out the country. Every man is anxious.
The farm that has debt against it, though
the debt is ever so small, its owner sees no
prospect of paying the claim and getting
released from the yoke.
If money was as plentiful as it should be
the prices of his produce would enable him
to pay the mortgage and secure his freedom
from this bondage of debt.
The wheels of business are locked for the
want of sufficient money to conduct it.
Property of all kinds is unstable, because
there is an insuficiency of money 10 transact
business and sell the product for price
that will bring the proprietor out square
with the accumulating debt which usury is
steadily adding 10 every enterprise. People
therefore, have become afraid 10 enter into
business when they see no prospec! OF max
ing that business pay its way. This condi
ton creates both idle money and idle men
breeds misery and crime.
In the midst of the distress which this
state of affairs has produced, the wisest O.
the populalion-wisesti in affairs which they
haye become accustomed to-are, many O.
them thoroughly befogged, and are joining
their voice to that of their misleaders, anC
demanding we shall in future have les
money as remedy for The distress and bus
mess decentralization which the want O.
sufficient money has produced. Combining
money to gold is merely plan for having {
| smaller quantity Of money. That is all i
can mean, A small quantity of money
means low and falling prices. No mar
who has TO earn his money in productive
industry can prosper, but his condition mus
ever grow more hopeless under such cond
lions. A single gold money means greater
distress and poverty for the masses, ant
more wealth for the favored classes, the
office holders who have fixed salaries, the
people who hold interest drawing debts anf
live out of ann1ities. The cheaper things
are the more they can buy out of their 6xeC
salaries.
1t is one of the strapgest things of this
strange and changing era that farmers who
remember the ''good tiaes' they en-
joyed during the war and FIVE or six year:
after, when money was plenty, that they
are, so many Of them, in the midst of theil
misery, helping to make THAR own condition
harder by standing in with the contrac-
iionists, whose Gxed salaries make it ar
object with them TO contrast the volume o
currency and push prices still lower in order
that they can buy more with the salarie;
they are sure of receiving. In the sixties al
industrious farmer could purchase farm
pay one-third OF one al f down and easily
pay the balance out of the produeiG of the
land in few years. No man dares go il
debt for the one-fouIth or even one-tenth the
value of good farm now, for if he does be
is sure to be swamped hopelassly,
The policy which the two old poliiica
parties are committed to with Cleveland a
their heard, 10 make gold the only money
if fastened ca the United States, will ruin
in the end, every farmer in the eoantry, Oh
at all events his family. His land aad The
parental home must go sooner or later, into
ths hands of syndicates of capitalists. who
will reduce ths pfeSspt race of farmers Il
tenants and hirelings, working rader agents
and for stipulated rent paid to their land
lords, with the burthen Of taxes and i'm
provemenis ;E addition chained on thei
shoulders
England's gold money laws of 1916 ruined
her farmers and destroyed the nation
yeomanTy and pride. Similar fnaGcia
laws will destroy Americas pride and boast
her race of independent and patriot farmers
and replace them with a servile class o
tenanta. whose life will be chained to