Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1894-03-28
i n R ES T OF IA R NJ ERS
IMPORTANT PAPER BY DIR.
JOHN MERIWETHER,
OF JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
He is an Edgetield Boy-The Case
Impartially Presented-COn-
f1ict Between Urban and
Rural Communities.

The farmer movement goes back
to the beginning of city life and
rests on the struggle between urban
and rural communities. Social
ease and readiness make the dwell
er in towns ridicule the "country
crackers" and country jakes."
This raillery and contempt typify
the contents always going on.
The farmer is undoubtedly over
reached by his city competitor, but
he has no just ground for COM
plant exceptin these cases where
the governing powers aid the mu-
inequalities to fleece him. He has
loudly sounded his grievance
against middlemen-commissio
dealera-but he has here no cause
to murmur except at his own OBJ
stinacy and ruinous independence.
He can cooperate with his neigh
bors and snip to an appointed
agent and reap all the profits him
self. If he will not adopt this
plan of combining against the tacit
combinations of cities then he will
have to stew in his ignorant fumes
until poverty brings him to his
senses. The standard of life is
higher in cities and the man in
town has a commanding position
in the higgling in the markets.
i Undoubtedly trusts are a heavy
discrimination against the farmer.
No combine" can raise the price
of his wheat, his beef, or his cattle
for him, and yet nearly every i'm
.pIement he buys has a fictitious
value on it, and it is put there
mainly through the aid of the gov
erning power. Trusts rest on two
:.t!!,ii,las The tariff and patents. Both.
of these are matter of legal regu-
lation. In such instances the
farmer has his only genuine griev-
ance, grievance against his gov
ernment because it extends special
favors to some. Legislation is so
often for special classes, with sop
now and then to the great bulk of
the people-the patient agricul-
tural masses. The halls AID corri-
dors of the capitol at Washington
are being worn smooth by the pro-
tectionlsts crowding and clamoring
for pet schemes, but the solid tread
of the plowman is never heard
there.
1t is only when the supreme au-
thority that we all support turns
it's benefcent rays upon a chosen
few that the farmer should raise
his voice in protest outside of gov
ernment interference; his contest
with cities is on an unequal plane,
and if he is beaten by cunning
and compact voluntary organiza-
tion he can only blame himself for
not uniting into an industrial
army. But when his representa-
tives are hoodwinked and bam-
bcozled by shrewd lobbyists and
imposing delegations and cooked
up petitions to pass statutes that
gently but mercilessly flch from
his pockets the hard earnings of
his labor, then he has a righteous
cause of indignation.
He has made an outcry about
his mortgages, but their amount
and humber only show his distress.
Under our present social and in
dustrlal system he has no basis of
attack in this matter, as he freely
assumed those obligations under
the law of supply aid demand.
The holding of these claims SO
largely by Eastern capitalists on
Southern and Western farms is an
unfortunate occasion for the de-
velopment of a sectional feeling.
But the farmer claims that his
chief burden comes from having
10 help carry other vocations that
the government looks on with par
tial eye. The establishment of
banks is peculiarly facilitated and
great power is put in their hands
The expensive requirements make
such business hopelessly beyond
the reach of nearly every farmer
in the land. Their control over
the volume of currency is COM
plete. Such sway is too potent for
evil to be delegated to another
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