The Globe-republican., 1893-02-10

at such ruinous prices. 1. myself hac
lust sold car load of steers that brought
me 81 ,sSS. hardly enough to pay the cost
of production, as you say. but have au-
other car load with fifty fat hogs worth
ONLY Z or cents per pound.
s.Then YOU say that the citizen is great
er than the state. Where did you get
that idea? You might have gone one
step further and said that the thief, the
murderer and the anarchist were greater
than the law. No. sir, the state OF Kan
sas Is strong enough, and loyal and great
enough to enforce her laws and punish
criminals.
..Then you say the government must
make it possible for the citizen to live by
his own labor. Suppose he won't work:
What is the matter with $500 per day
and board? Ipaid $500 per day during
harvest for farm labor the past year. aud
others paid even higher. Yon ought to
post up a little Wages have never been
better in this or any other country than
the last two years under the Mckinley
bill, Then YOU ask what is the state OF
the farmer who wearily drags himself
from morn till dark TO meet the mort
gage. OF course | and my boys are not
of that class. We don't and never did
drag ourselves and are always in to sup
per before the sun goes down.
Now. governor, will try to tell you
our present condition and what it was.
We came to Reno county in 1873, quite
poor indeed, with two wagons and two
teams and ten head of cattle. We made
us dugOut and lived there for two or
three wears. In ~ we had one hun
dred acres of good corn for the grass
hoppers. We then put out 60 acres of
wheat and 90 of rye. In the spring we
sOwed 20 acres to oats and 40 to corn.
On the 2nd day of June came a terrible
hail storm and left us nothing but the
bare ground. Wheat was ready for the
sickle and would have made 30 bushels
per acre; three thousand dollars gone
in few moments. So, governor, there
was something wrong. The year after
that we had good crops. My wheat av-
eraged &c bushels to the acre. Next
April we had another hail storm. Thi:
time lost $50 acres of wheat and or
chard of 400 trees; another three thOus-
and dollars gone. Afterward l sold
1926 worth of wheat to the miller and
never received one cent for it. Gov
ernOr, don't you think there was some.
thing wrong? AS you say, when ole
men go to the poor house and young
men become criminals there is some.
thing wrong. | think the Mckinley
bill was the cause of all this. and it wa:
not then born. When we moved into
our dugout we had not one dollar left
We were not broken merchant wher
we came here. Unfortunately for us We
were born of poor parents. When we
were 81 years old we could not read Ol
write our name and at the age of p W.
married poor girl who had been work.
ing in the kitchen for six or eight year:
for her board and what schooling they
might give her, and that was but little
She has been worth her weight in golt
to me. We have family of eight chill
dren-three boys and five girls. Tw'
sons and two daughters are married
there now being five families of us ant
each one has their home; each on
bought their land and covered it all owe
with mortgage for all that it was worth
and started bare handed. We neve
drew one dollars worth of relief, bu
worked wherever we could get the work
We all started poor alike; no bank t
draw on; all farmers and all republicans
There was nothing the matter with us
] Now let us see what we have accomplish
ed, commencing as we did on the raw
land. To-day we have fourteen hundred
and sixty acres of land-five good farms
we'll imprOved-and fifteen town lots al
paid for. Three of the boys ale clear O
; mortgage, the other two and myself viii
pay out this spring. We fed six ca
loads of steers last year, and raised 3
head of them. We are now feeding tel
or twelve car loads of steers and hal
that many of hogs. We have fifty-fiv
head of horses and mules to run tn
farms, $40 head of cattle and 300 hogs
The last year we raised more than 30. 90
bushels of grain. We can pay out ant
the farms are we'll stocked and just read
to make more. A few years ago we wer
paying interest on $1,000, so now W
can hurrah for Kansas. Is there any
thing wrong with that, governor: W
have neighbOrs all around us that hav
done as well. Hundreds of farmers o
Reno county have money in the banks o.
. deposit. Not one of us drags himsel
l from morn till night: we get up early
yet we are all happy and centented; and
. yes, governor, we are all republicans bu
1 ono and he is q STRAIGHT democrat than