The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-08-15

tne drlVlng OF the people, native and
foreign-born, back to the wretched-
ness he himself has escaped from?
And why did not the governor tell
his hearers, that Bulletin lO4, of the
eleventh census, proves that from 1880
to 1890 nine north-Atlantic states, in
Guiding the great centers of manufac-
turing, and the capitalistic sections,
gdined more aoeahh than t,Uenty-one states
an the middle and ,ceste,n part of the co,.,,
t'y, including the great Mississippi GALLEY,
the most fertile body Of land on the globe?
Why did he not tell them that those
tWenty-one states, in 1880, contained
six times as much land, twice as many
people and almost as much capital, as
the nine Atlantic states referred to,
yet they gained but l,698, 900 of
net wealth, while the nine Atlantic
states gained 3,054, 100000
And Bulletin No. Sc shows that
while those nine states owed $52, ,O00,
GEO of mortgage debts, the twenty-one
agricultural states owed 1921, 600, ,OOO!.
And not satisfied with showing his
Red River Valley audience where the
wealth of this ountry,-produced by
the labor of farmers and mechanics
went to geographically; and thus de-
onstrating that while the govern
ment was tender father to the East
it was plundering step-father to the
West, why did not Governor Nelson
show how the great corporations, rail-
roads, banks and manufacturers, rep
resenting but ttce,,ty per cent of the to-
tai wealth of the country, absorbed as
their share ninety per cent OF the net areahh
gained: LEAVING BUT TEN PER CENT
TO THE EIGHTY PER Gent OF CAPITAL,
OF ALL OTHER KINDS, INCLUDING
THE WEALTH OF TIE FARMERS.
All this the governor would have
found by collating the statements in
ten bulletins issued by the United
States government, in reference to
railroads, banks and manufacturers.
And why did not the governor,-for
he is we'll posted,-also tell that
Argyle audience that an eminent
economic writer, Mr.. George X.
Holmes, Of the Census Bureau, says, in
the Political Science Quarterly, that
4,047 families in the United States
own t,celre billions of dollars of property?
In other words
ONE PER CENT OF THE POPULA-
TION OWN ONE-FIFTH OF
ALL THE WEALTH!!
And worse still-nine per cent of
the population own seventy-one per
cent Of the entire wealth! And that
ninety-one per cent Of the people o,e,s but
ttrenty-nine per cent of the aceaM.!!
These figures cry, out on the hill
tops. They scream--they shrek into
the ears of the sleeping people. They
are colossal, awful, unprecedented
Talk about ''calamity hOwlerS."
These are the calamitieS themselves:
calamities such as the world has never
seen before; calamities that point
downward to an abyss that will swal-
low the Republic and all civilization,
in chaos of blood and flames.
And Governor Nelson has not one
word of remedy for all this dreadful
state of affairs, except to continue the,n;-
and to continue in po,cer the corrupt or
blind leaders, ,cho hare produced them.
In the face of these terrors he points
simply to the fact that in thirty years
the country has doubled its popoula-
tion and therefore doubled it's farms.
But population is not prosperity. The
frin in bo
India and China-are the most
wretched.
And is not the very statement the
governor quotes,-t wit: that in 1860
the agriculturists were 17,OOO,OO out
of total population of 81 100000, or
narly one-half, while in 1890 they were
but 20.000,000 out of a total of 62,o0O,-
coo. or little less than one-thud, conclu-
sive evidence that farming has suffer-
ed while other pursuits have grown?
Millions of farmers have been
squeezed off the farms, and into the
cities, by mortgage foreclosures, to
swell the ranks of the day-laborers: or
their sons and daughters have gone
there to escape the horrors of hard
and unremunerative toll on the
farms. And the governor quotes this
as proof that agriculture has pros
pered!
AS to his claim that manufactures
and railroads have thrivcn, we agree
with him: but at whose expense has
this growth been accomplished? That
is the question. rfhe swelling of the
leeches does not prove that the man
on whom they have fastened them
selves has more blood in him than be-
fore. He has less. All the laws of
the country have been directed to
build up the East at the expense of
the West; and to enrich the capitalists
at the cost of the producers. For this
your Mckinley tariff bills,-your
trusts, your watered stock,-your re-
duced circulation of money, your bank
ing system, and, chiefest of all, your
demonetization ofsilver have been de-
vised. Nor is there any intention
that it shall stop even with the ruin
which now Overwhelms our people.
Not at all. The leechcs are as hungry
as ever; they hang on as vigorously as
ever. they continue to enlarge their
engorged bodies. Ind now the COVER
nor OF MinpesotS, this northwest stern,
agricultural, plundered state, with
$4,000, 900 of mortgages on real estate
alone, comes forward and proposes to
I'll, H. -