The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-10-24
SENATOR VANGE'S SPEECH
AT THE STATE FAIR ON THE
18TH OF OCTOBER.
He Gave Good Advice and Said Many
Good Things--The Silver Question.

III LII NC4 . ~
Senator Vance said:
l can truly say that no occ aston of
mF life gives me more pleasure than
to respond to the call of the people of
my State whenever they have occasion
for my services. 1t does me good to
look intoyour faces, and | am reminded
that agriculture is the great and dOmi-
nant interest of the State of North
Carolina. Seventy-five per cent. of the
people of our State are devoted to agri-
culture and its kindred pursuits
seventy five out of every n hundred
seventy five thousand out of every
one hundred thousand of our popula
ton; that is to say, out Of every four
men you meet three of them are en-
gagged in agriculture and are dependent
upon it. It is, therefore, the dominant
interest of the State of North Carolina,
and as such, recognizing that fact, my
political obligations, as well as my in
clinations, have been in the direction
of the interests of those who r en-
gagged in agriculture more particularly
than in any other direction. The peO-
pie who till the soil are the most con
sentative of any Of our population.
They are more dependent upon nature,
therefore they are more fixed in their
| lCJO1UOS bAO - A4O4O AACN
in their opinions and have more power
to Judge than any other class of our
people. They r nearest to the God
which created them. Whether they
are better Or not, I am not permitted
to say. 1 can only say that they should
be better than any other class Of our
people. At all events, they constitute
the most conservative element in our
society, and as such there is a vast and
wondrous responsibility resting upon
them. We look to you, farmers Of
North Carolina, to resist wild and i'm
practicable schemes; we look to you to
adhere as nearly as possible to the track
marked out by our fOrefathers for the
preservation Of the liberties and the
happiness of our people. We look to
you in church and state to resist what
has been characterized by the Apostle
as every wind that comes along" we
look to you to help preserve, rather
than to mark out and create ne
things; we look to you to hold fast to
those things which are good and to
eschew and resist the progress of those
things which are evil.
Many years ago, fellow citizens, it
was brought to my attention, as it
must have been brought to the atten-
ton of every man who looks at the
state of u country n the things
which are directly before his eyes, that
while the people of these United States
were making the most wonderful
| physical progress ever known to the
children of men; that while they were
accommodating wealth and spreading
and widening and broadening the means
of civilization faster than any other
people has W. done; yet that wealth
was not being distributed properly in
proportion to those who earned it and
created it. That natural tendency of
the strong to Cypress the weak which
will prevail whenever man has
more money than another; which will
prevail whenever one man has more
power to fight than another (and he is
disposed to exercise it that tendency
which nature has created and provoked
to an unequal distribution of the a3cu-
INFLATED wealth of the country, has
been fostered by law. And for thirty
three years, a quarter of a century, l
had observed and still observe, that
the legislation of the national legisla-
ture of the country has been either in
different or indirectly hostile to the in
terest Of the agricultural classes of our
people. In the last thirty-three years
great corporations have grown up that
dominate whole States and communi-
ties, whose directors and controllers in
the back room of the Office of their
secretary and treasurer, or their presi-
dent or vice president, levy more taxes
on our people than all our Legislatures
put together, and these corporations
are not responsible to anybody. Under
this system of legislation all of the
banks (Which ever since the Constitu-
ton was formed were considered an
essential element of State sovereignty
have been created with such powers as
enable them to contract the currency
or to initiate it at their own pleasure,
and the banks and banking institu-
tons chartered under and by authority
of the States have been driven out of
existence by unconstitutional taxation.
In some way the manufacturing in
terests Of the country have procured
legislation IN their favor. There is not
a corporation created for the purpose
of accommodating wealth created in the
last third of a century, that has not
been created absolutely at the expense
Of the agricultural classes of this coun-
try. 1t is not denied by the most rabid
advocates of capital that agriculture
has not had this chance. 1t has not
participated in the general prosperity
of this great country. On the contrary,
fellow citizens, under the State legisla-
tion for the last twenty or twenty five
years the laws of your State have been
favorable to you, and so far as the State
Government of North Carolina can
promote the wealth of the agricultural
and all other classes. l challenge any
other State in America to show more
~disinterested legislation than that ex-
hibited by North Carolina. Show me
a government in America anywhere
that has been better administered that