The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-09-05
HOW FARMERS SHOULD LIVE
according to Newspaper Pub
llshed at Gov. Nelson's Home.
A PIE asant Picture.

lished at Gov. Nelson's Home.
A Pie asant Picture.
Alexandria Post-News: Congress
man Boen would have the government
issue billion of dollars on paper and
pend 1t on public imprOveme nts, rail-
roads, etc. The mechanism OF Mr.
BOen'S head evidently needs no oil.
what it needs is a brake. Even Coxey's
imagination stopped with an expendi-
ture of $500, 900. but Boen's financial
mill knows no such limit. What is
beggarly $4,000 000,0 900 to him? He would
create that much before breakfast
and divide it among the boys for gum.
Mr.. Cincinnatus Boen should come
home, return to his plow for year or
so, dig few acres of potatoes, hoe a
little corn, hustle the cows and pigs,
get up at O'Clock in the morning and
bring in the kindlings at night with
lantern and learn over the lesson that
you can't make som ething out of
nothing.
Let the farmers Of Minnesota study
the concluding words of this article
They throw flood of light upon the
feeling of the old party newspapers
towards the farmers.
In sending Boen back to his farm
Cincinnatus Boen-(Cincinnatus was
Roman farmer who left his plough
and saved his countrywide is told, by
the Post-News, how he is to Iive;-and
he is, as Cincinnatus Boen, mark you,
type of all the agriculturists; and he
is to live according to the rules Of his
class. Here it is: He is to ''dig few
acres Of potatoes, hoe little corn,
hustle the cows and pigs, get up at i
O'Clock an the morning and bring IN the
kindting aC0Od ,cith q ldntern'
This is to say he is to work from be-
fore daylight until long after sunset.
And for what? To support the
usurers, and the railroads, and the
manufacturers, and the merchants,
and the millers, and the machine men,
and the elevator ring: and the state
government and the national govern
ment and the county government,
and the township government and the
schools, and everything else in all this
broad land. This is big job and no
wonder he has to begin his work at
o'clock in the morning and end it by
lantern light: and then deyour his
hurried supper and tumble into bed:
and up at o'clock the next day; and
SO on week after week, month after
month, year after year, until he dies:
and then the preacher, the coffin MAX
er, the lawyer and the judge of pro-
bate, will each take bite out of the
little he has left; and he goes up to
God, to ask him,-why he put him in
to such devilish tread-mill as that,
and kept him there from the cradle to
the grave?
Now does the editor of the AleXan-
dria Post-News get up at o'clock in
the morning and hustle around until
he has to carry lantern to bring in
the kindlings. No: he sleeps sweetly,
between his warm covers: and when
he wakes, long after sunrise, he
chuckles to think that tnat fool farm
er, and hundreds more fool-farmers
just like him, have been, for hours, at
work, digging potatoes and hoeing
corn and "hustling the cows and pigs
from before daylight till long after
sunset; and working like God-forsak-
en-, galley-slaves; and that out of their
potatoes and corn and cows and pigs
and sweat and toll they will come
cheerfully, joyfully, and bring him a
share of their money, so that he may
write articles to show them that they
are just the jolliest, happiest. best-fed,
best-clothed set of enlightened Ameri-
can citizens that ever danced jigs to
the tune of Yankee Doodle.
Isn't it pretty? And a great many
of those chaps, that get up at
o'clock. and bring in the kindlings
with lantern, will 60 out and vote to
perpetuate their condition until the
end of their lives. They sort of admit
that they are not made of the same
choice porcelain as the lawyer, and
the merchant, and the editor, and the
preacher. and the miller, and the ma
chine man; but are moulded out of
coarser kind of cheap clay: and that
they ought to be happy to work like
SLAVES ulldU OUIlCIS Iudy udWuIc duu
snore and feast and enjoy themselves.
Christ said, "there are vessels Of h on
or and vessels of dishonor," and the
old-party farmers are tickled to death
to think that Christ referred to them
when he spoke Of the latter class.
They are the nameleSS utensils into
which the injustice of the ages has
been poured, and which feel happy to
hold It'll
Now there are lots of farmers in
Douglas county who will be really
proud to scrape together enough, out
of their little earnings, to keep the
editor Of that Post News alive for an
other year, by subcribing for his choice
sheet: SO that he can assign them to
their proper lot in life, o'clock
and the lantern and all the rest of it.
And he says that the Cincinnatii of
Douglas county will learn that they
can't make something out of nothing.
Well, this may be true. But nature
came as near to it when she created
the editor of the Post-News as it was
possible to come without performing
an absolute miracle. And now if the
o'clock farmers will only keep him
alive everything may be happy yet.
Oh, brother farmers. Why should
L.. -,