Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1894-08-10

pletely brush away the fallacies of
modern reformers. The address in full
is here published, and every man in
Minnesota, especially the farmers,
should study it well:
Hard times and industrial and economic
depression, in various forms and from
various causes, have been in our midst
during the past sixteen months. In the
wake OF these times and as an incident
thereto are a number of 'I-told-you-so''
refOrmers who have an easy, fippant and
demagOgic way of diagnosing and &C
counting for all our troubles and all our
ailments, and who have no difficulty at
all to suggest and tender, in connection
with their own personal services. a variety
of reforms of a social and economic char
acter as a swift and sure relief for all in
dustrial congestion and stagnation. It is
the aim of these reformers, first of all, to
breed as much alarm, suspicion and dis
trust as possible and to array class against
class, poor against rich and capital against
labor, and, above all, to make our farmers
restless with the idea that they are now
suffering chiefly from the expressions of
the other classes of society, especially from
those who have accumulated more than
the ordinary level of wealth and are there
fore termed capitalists It is openly
charged, or in some form insinuated, that
our legislation has all along been framed
so as to Cypress the farmers and to
enrich, at their expense, those who are not
engaged in such pursuits. 1t is assumed
that all other classes have combined to
despoil and impoverish the farmer; that
he has been the neglected stepson of Or
ganiZed society, on whom tribute has been
levied without stint or reason. 1t is
assumed that while most other classes
have been prosperous to a greater or less
degree the farmer has not tprospered at all,
but, on the contrary, has become more
and more impoverished, and that he is TO-
day mere serf at the foot of the economic
ladder. 1t is assumed that this deplor-
able condition thus assigned to the farmer
is wholly the offspring of economic and
financial legislation hostile to him and
calculated specially to enrich the so-called
capitalists. To substantiate these assump-
tions and insinuations statistics are ap-
peal:d to. up to $780," we are told,
''our national wealth was equally dis
tributed between the farm ers and the rest
of the people," In other words, that
The Wealth of Our Farmers
was at that time not less than so per cent
of the entire wealth of the nation. and
that since that period the rate of increase
of wealth has been gradually to the dis
advantage of the farmer, until in 1890 the
farmers share of the aggregate wealth
was only % per cent. In short, the farm
ers have not increased as rapidly in wealth
since 1860 as the rest of the nation. This
may be true, but it entirely fails to estab-
ish that our farmers have not been thrifty
and prosperous. Up to 1860 we were, to
an unusual degree, an agricultural peo-
pie. Our agricultural population was in
that year II, 900 900 out of total of 81 ,OOO,-
900, while in 1890 it was 25, 600, 900 out of a
total of g., ,OOO, 900. In 1860 the population
of our cities was :, ,O0O,O 600; in 1890 over 49,
OOO,OOO. In 1850 our manufactures were in
their infancy. In that year there were
employed 81 600 men in our factories. as
against 4, ,342, 900 men on our farms; while
in 1890 there was 1859, sos men employed
in our factories, as against s, 1000, 600 men
on our farms! In 1860 there was employed
in our manufacturing q capital of 81, ,0O9,
S55, IT'S, as against Sc, ,5A, Az, ,305 in 1890. In
1850 the value of the products of our man
ufactures was 81 1886, ,961 ,676, as against &c.
27O, 170, $40 in 1890. In 1860 our railroad
1 oySGclu was SOlll III lGS CQllO0OOQ ana O0-
developed. We had then in this country
about &, 600 miles in operation, as against
10000 miles, capitalized at SIC, COO, ,OOO, coo,
D in 1893
These figures afford vers clear and sat
isfactory explanation why the increase in
farm values has not, since 1860 kept up
with the increase Of wealth in other direc-