Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-06-15

therefore, mat farming - III eSicn nuc-
plorable condition as represented by
some Of the calamity howlers, who seem
desirons Of arraying all Of those who,
hy industry, economy aud thrift, have
saved something, as the enemies OF
those who have, by shiftlessness and
jutemperance. secured nothiag-
IL Is pronounced a crime by many oi
the leaders of the Populists to have ac-
auired competency, no matter how
honestly, and they teach those 0fsmall
means to hate those Of large. Under
government like ours, where the eapi-
talist Of to-day may be the laborer OF
tomorrow, aud the labOrer OF to-day
be the capitalist Of tomorrow, there
is no possible danger of q conflict be-
tween labor and capital, except II be
the evolution of class legislation. The
first strike i'm the United States OF any
moment was the strike of capital for
higher profits. when 1t demanded a
protective tariff to give them a mo-
nOpoly of American markets and arti-
fetal prices for their goods. Since then
labor, seeing that wealth could be legis-
lated into one class, has asked for SINH
lar legislation In its own behalf. La
Dor demanded ard secured statute de-
claring eight hours q days work. 1t
only emulated mineowners, who asked
legislation to declare 65 cents worth OF
silver bullion worth a dollar. It is just
as easy to make 40 seconds minute
and 40 minutes an hour as 1t Is to make
eight hours a day, and there Is just as
much sense In 1t as there is In a statute
declaring that IS cents worth OF any
metal is equal to q gold dollar. Far
mers will learn after while,I presume,
that mankind has never successfully
manufactured money to continuously
circulate as measure of value and q
medium of exchange out of something
which had no commodity value before
| it becomes money.
All the talk that our Populist friends
evolve as to the intrinsic value OF gold
or silver is, to my mind, the merest
bosh. The value Of gold and the value
of silver is always relative. If the far
mer sells 100 bushels of wheat to-day
for S75 In gold, he has established for
the time being the wheat value of gold
and the gold value of wheat; and II to-
morrow the cable from Europe indicate
that the crops OF the old world are a
total failure 1t may take 500 In gold to
purchase 100 bushels of wheat, because
the rations have been changed, by the
failure of foreign crops, between gold
and wheat. The protective tariff being
removed from articles which the far
mer has to buy, the profits of manu-
facture will assimilate in their decline
the profits of the farmer. Then, all
being equal before the law, manufac-
turers and farmers alike, the latter will
be on q par with the farmer.
Because of the enhancement by vir-
tue of tillage and building improve
ments, the same number of acres of
land in a given county of Iowa or
Nebraka may, in 1889, carry mortgage
five times as great as they could carry
in 1879, and yet be in debt less per
cent, of their value than they were In
the latter named year. Statistics show,
l believe, that in the dry goods busi-
ness only atont3 per cent. of the mer-
chants succeeded, leaving 81 per cent.
as failures. Can any of our Populist
leaders show as bad state of affairs
among the farmers? Is not the per-
centage of failures among farmers less
than the percentage of failures In any |
other avocation In the United States?
How often do you hear assignments,
complete failures in farming, COM
pared to the assignments and failures
which you hear of in the clothing
business, in banking and in mercan-
tile pursuits. Every one acquainted
with the west understands that many |
of the mortgages upon farms represent
the very money which constructed
the house in which the farmer lives.
the barns that house his cattle and the
fences that surround his land. Of
course the conditions have changed |
very much. The railroads have
brought the markets for the great
populous centers to the doors of the
farmers of the Northwest, less the cost
of transportation, and that is not 30 |
extortionate as would seem, when you |
buy barrel of -four at retail delivered
at your house in New York for ST. |
more than you pay for the same quail
ty in Minneapolis, and that rs cents
out of the dollars goes to pay the dray-
man who hauls 1t from the grocer's.
The profits in railroad transporta-
tion have declined with the same, and,
possibly, with greater rapidity than
the profits in farming during the last
decade. Farmers, however, are very |
easily led astray, and their worst foes
are not the chinch bug, the grasshoI
per, nor the drouth, but the pseudo
economic teachers, naturally created
by the class legislation of the Republic
can party during the past 30 years,
and who now teach that all the farm
ers' woes, whatever they may be, may
be remedied by legislation.
There is no farmer of good sense and
good health who cannot anywhere in
the Northwest by sobriety, industry
good management make good living
for himself and any ordinary family,
and hundreds and thousands OF them
In Nebraska have not only made agood
living during the last 10 years, but
have doubled and trebled the number
of acres In their farms by purchasing
adjacent ground. The farmer, aside
from being led astray on money and
the tariff, Is now being worked to sign
petitions to Congress asking large ap-
of the public money with
which to irrigate the arid lands of the
plains. That Is to say, he asks that he
may be taxed to create his own COM
petitors. If it is aproper use OF the
taxing power to raise money with
which to fertilize with water the arid
lands of the plains, 1t seems to me it
would be equally legitimate to make
for the purchase OF
guano and other fertilizers to restore
abandoned farms in New England.
The New England farms were worn
out Just as those in the west may be by
non rotation of crops and non-manur-
ing. Under the operation of the mex
orabe law that the relation of supply |
to demand 10 the sole regulator ofl
value, the owners on the farms In the
United States have corner on the
greatest profits of the coming 25years,
because, while the demand for land