The Redwood gazette., 1895-12-19
"WHERE ARE WE ATT"
James Arnold Asks a Question and
Will Answer 1t,

To. THE ED1ToB:-The drunken
congressman from Alabama with his
fuddled brain, on being bothered in
his speech in congress by some
wag, was compelled to ask, "Mr.
Speaker, where was I at?" I
have changed his question so as to
embrace our country at large, and
though not for his reason, but a much
more serious one, am led to ask the
question which heads this letter. My
neighbors and I have just sold some
small lunches of good light hogs at
from $3.50 to $3.50 per hundred lbs.
We have also sold most of our wheat
at from about 40 to 46 cents (much of
it at the lower fgure), and our flax at
from 70 to n cents. The crops in this
part are mostly marketed, the farmers
are taking retrospective look, and
from the sounds one hears, about,ev-
eryone appears to be grumbling and
inquiring as to what hit him. Neither
is this state of things confined to farm
ers. In our small villages, merchants
are selling out at auction, and claim
they p,ust do something else for they
can't make living at their present
business. Men of good business ca
pacity, and who have been in business
a number of years, and have accumu-
lated some property, say they can now
sell only the very cheapest goods, and
on the smallest margins. One of the
leading business men of Redwood
Falls remarked to me quite recently,
"this is the worst fall for collections I
have ever seen, and expenses are eat
ing up the whole business" If we
turn to our large cities we find the
same conditions. The wholesale mer-
chants not being able to sell to coun-
try merchants, and being compelled
to do something, are advertising and
sending out peddlers in competition
with village merchants, retailing goods
at wholesale prices. If one might
Judge of the state of things by the ed
itorials in our large daily papers we
might be supposed to be living in the
millenial age, but if we turn to the
mercantile and news columns, read
Dunn's or Bradstreet's reports, and
the weekly number of failures of bust
ness men, banks and manufacturers,
the noise sounds more like walls from
the other place. Railroads, bond
holders, money loaners and county
sheriffs, appear to be the only pros
porous business at the present. What
ails us anyway
Everybody is trying to economize,
even to stopping their little country
papers. Farmers are losing their
farms, for I see in the last GAZETTE
there are notices of no less than six
mortgage sales to take place from
Redwood county court house steps.
On the whole our crops have been
good in the Northwest this year, but
what about the prices? 1t has long
been the custom for Fourth of July
orators to swing their arms pump
handle fashion, and declare this to be
the greatest aud best country under
the sun. and l used to believe it, but
if things keep this way until the next
Fourth we shall have to hang "Old
Glory" at half mast in mourning for
prosperity assassinated. Has the bot
tom fallen out of everything! Some
of us older men are looking back to
Nthe years Immediately following the
civil war '66, 81 and '68. I remem-
ber that in the winter of '677-'68 in IL
linois live hogs went as high as 12aa
cents per pound and corn "a to 90
cents per bushel, country COW hides
brought in by farmers we're eight to
nine cents, kip we're l2al cents, and
calf Is cents per pound, but now if
one takes hide to market the butcher
will hand you out bologna sausage
in exchange, and if there happens to
be cut in the hide he will want you
to chip in dime to help pay the
freight, yet boots and shoes are high
or, I suppose free hides is the cause.
Will some one rise and explain? Sure