The Goodland republic., 1894-05-25


many regions in the west and south,
for less than the cost of production.
In Kansas that greatly to be feared
condition is not yet arrived at, but
that disaster is threatened in the near
future. The inability of the producing
I! class of Kansas to continue to pay high
interest on the mortgages they laid on
| their farms to raise money with which
TO carry on the agricultural competi-
tive warfare they have waged for 20
years, and to pay exorbitant transpor-
| tation charges, and to make up the
loss in value due to the increase in the
purchasing power of gold that resulted
directly from the demOnetiZation of
silver, threatens to result in the trans
formation of the Kansas farmers from
free holders into tenants, which is the
first step downward toward peasantry.
1t is evident that this Transformation
would be the most serious disaster that
could befall our commonwealth, that
it would inevitably be followed by the
descent of our people into peasantry,
that it would sap and finally destroy
their courage, that it would shacIzle
individual liberty Of action, thought,
and enterprise, that want, misery and
woe would drive prosperity and happi-
ness from our state and enter into
all your homes; and if the disposses-
sion of the people, who have of stern
necessity been forced to mortgage the
fertile lands of the west and south, be
carried to its logical conclusion, that
the republic will be destroyed.
Public attention should be called to
the fact, that the financial loss that
has resulted from the decline in value
of farm products has fallen wholly on
the farmers, and most heavily on the
farmers of the west and south. The
transportation corporations have most
resolutIy refused to bear their just
proportion of the loss by reducing
freight rates. Wheat to-day is worth
in our primary markets just one half
what it was from 1876-80 The railroad
freight remains the same. The mort
gagees who hold the Kansas farm mort
SeASCo lS51O4J iLIo1SO OAIcbG GnSy O0oI hO
share of the loss. They charge as high
per cent for the use of money as when
wheat sold for 81 per bushel and it
takes from two to three times as much
produce to pay per cent now as it
did 10 years ago, and our people who
have contracted to pay per cent
really pay from 16 to % per cent in
their products. If this continues all
the mortgages will become deeds.
These real estate mortgages cannot be
lifted when values of agricultural pro-
ducts are falling, and we are strictly
an agricultural people and viii ever so
remain; nor can they be paid, and high
interest also, with prices as at present.
Tens of thousands of western farmers
have lost their homes by foreclosure
proceedings. The arabic public land
has been exhausted, and these unfor-
tunate men who have lost their farms
have been reduced to tenantry, and
scores of thousands of our people are
threatened with loss of homes in the
near future.
All intelligent western and southern
men, realize and freely acknowledge
that the reduction of the agriculturists
of the west and south from free hold
ers into tenants would virtually end
the republic, and these unfortunate
people will not peacably be torn from
their land by process of law, and they
will inevitably fall into battle ranks
when they fully realize the magnitude
of the disaster that the money power
of the east and England have sought |
by the financial policies of contraction
of the currency aud demonetization of
silver, to cause to overtake them so |
that they could wiring illgotten piunder
out of their misery and the misery of |
their children.
To avert this war OF the land owners
of the west and south against the
money power of the east should be the
aim of every citizen of our land. To /
prevent 100000 of white people from
sinking into condition that would be
virtual slavery. it is certain that the
western and southern people will spend
their last dollar and the lives of their
sons by the million. Before they sur
render their land they will cause the
surface of this continent to be cum
bered by the corpses of men slain in
battle, and if they should be conquered
BY force of arms, the land will possess
no value because only widows and little
orphans viii remain to cultivate Il.
Tt is well known that the western
and southern people who till theesoiI
are even row restless and discontented
and that the. spirit of revolution stalks
over the fertile wheat. corn and cotton
lands and is everywhere greeted eager
II, asEids lovingly gazed at through eyes
that blaze with fierce sectional hatred.
4 hundred strong men could today
cause q tidal wave of revolution to.rolI