St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-09-07
NOW RACK TO THELaNO

year should he set apart by the farmers
OF this country as a holiday, to be cele-
DRAFTED hereafter rs the day when their
deliverance from trade thraldom began.
For thirty years they have sold almost
all their produce. all the. more important
crops Of their farms, under conditions
of absolute free trade, while they have
bought almost all they needed either
to sustain life or to carry OH their work
under price enhancing restriction of
competition. AS all burdens fall ulti-
mately on the shoulders Of the men who
cannot fix the price of the things they
have to sell, the farmers have had to
bear not only the weight Of TAX and tax
bonus on what they bought for them
selves. but in addition those of their
happily circumstanced that they could
pass the burden OH to others by ali in.
crease of price for goods or services.
The inevitable result has been stead
lily increasing hardening of the condi-
tons of farm life, resulting in dscour-
agement and desertion of the farms.
The younger men have felt that farming
offered no sufficient inducement for
them to remain on the land, eklng out
hare living with the hardest and most
unremitting of toll, aud have flocked off
to the cities, lured there by the better
chances for remunerative employment,
the better opportunities for getting on
in the world and the wider social ad-
vantages the cOmpacted populatio
gave. If the policy of protection tend
ed inevitably to the encouragement OF
farming and the desertion of the land,
it acted as strongly towards attracting
men from the farms to the cities. Its
avowed purpose was to build up manu-
features. To this end it shut out or
impeded competition, and authorized
manufacturers to exact an abnormal
price for their wares. The manufacturer
was drawn to the centers of population
by ma ny considerations of profit. There
the opportunities for distribution were
the best. There the rebates OF the rail-
roads. denied to the smaller places and
the farmers, offered inducements. And
there, too, where the drained population
of the farms was centering, the greater
competition of labor with labor offered
him this important factor at its least
cost.
Here we have the chief causes of that
phenomenon of the last fifteen or twenty
years that has attracted so much atten-
ton and furnished the topic for so many
sage editorial and magazine writers. In
the earlier days of the movement the
additions to the population were hailed
nv xuif
acclaim. The abnormal growth of the
cities was pointed to with complacent
pride as indicating prosperity and
wealth. whereas its greater significance
was the increasing pow erty of the re-
gions from which the cities must get
their trade and life. Later, as the crowd
increased and the word unemployed"
began to appear in the papers with
ominous frequency, it dawned on these
writers that possibly population in the
cities was too ''congested," and many
and sage were the counsels rendered
the poor human moths, drawn by the
artificial glare of protection to the cen
tiers of protection, and driven away from
the farms by the chill of unrestricted
competition.
AT last the farmers, ploverbially the
slowest to move, the most tenacious of
prejudice, began to doubt the benef-
cence of the home market with it's
promised compensatory benefits, and in
large numbers gave their votes to the
party that had been denouncing protec-
tlon and the home market as transpar
eLt frauds. Short as is the relief given
of that promised and yet to be obtained,
its influence is already felt in lowering
cost of the necessaries of life and an
increase in price Of those farm products
cheapened in price by the very tax that
was laid to increase them. The burdens
begin to tighten, and as the multitude of
the farmers silent partners are made to
cease their surreptitious drafts on the
products of his labors, farming will be-
come more profitable and more attract
i've. 1t will cease to be the dreary, UNI
remunerative, toilSome life in which the
years income was so closely eaten up
by the years neceSsitOuS Outgo that
scaut if any margin of accretion re-
manned. Now the men who were drawn
to the cities by the lure of the false
pEOLilScS VI pLOtCStiOu Coh ~ b"Sh W
the land assured that the conditions
there will grow gradually but surely
better as the Democratic party marches
on to its ultimate goal of absolute free
dom of all trade, when the farmer will
be restored to his rightful position of
kingIy independence. They who go now
will fare the best, because protection
has cheapened farm lands as the com.
ing free trade will be sure to enhance
their value.
Whoever drew the money nlank of