The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-02-17
A REAL FARMERS ORGANIZATION.


The Farmers National Congress is not
an organization created for the purpose
Of being used by cast-out place-seekers
and political cranks to try to get office
by advocating all sorts of financial
heresies. but one which at it's meetings
discusses the needs of those engaged in
filling the soil to raise crops. 1t is not
political organization under false pre-
lenses. Mr.. B. F. Clayton, the president,
has an article in the North American
Review which such farmers" as SEN
ator PETER. Jerry Simpson, Ignatius
Donnelly and Chairman" Taubeneck
will not approve. He finds in the CEN
sus that the farm values of the United
States in 1890 were SIS, SOC, O00, oOO which
is about 80 per, cent. of the entire wealth
of the country, and represents the en-
ployment and interests of 10000, 900 Of
people. Agriculture is the friend of law
and order, for the reason, President
Clayton says, that it is the first to feel
the shock of financial disaster.
To show that the political revolution
of 1892, with its threatened change of
policy, was the cause Of the late bust
ness prostration, Mr.. Clayton quotes
from the message of General Harrison,
in December, 1892. as follows:
That the general conditions affecting the
commercial and Industrial interests or the
United States are in the highest degree fav-
orable; that there has never been time in
our history when work was abundant or
when wages were so high
This he follows by an extract from
President Clevelands message. eight
months after, which reads:
With plenteous crops, with abundant
promise of remunerative production and
manufacture, with unusual invitation to
safe investment. and with satisfactory as
surance to business enterprise, suddenly
financial fear and distrust have sprung up
on every side, values supposed to be fixed
are fast becoming conjectural, and loss and
ness.
These two pictures, Mr.. Clayton goes
on to say. were drawn by masters
and were true representations of the
condition of the country at the time. In
| spite of the fact that $4,000, 900. 900 were
!, spent in war. the wealth of the Nation
under the policy which closed with Cen
eral Harrisons administration had in
creased from SIS, 159, 616,06S in 1860 to
| $62 610, 000,0 900 in 1890. This condition
came with the threatened change in a
| established policy On this point
| he says:
AS soon as it was demonstrated that the
new administration was in position to
make good the promises of its So-called re-
4 form on certain lines. without waiting for
the actual repeal of existing laws. capital
| became uneasy, deposits were withdrawn
| from banks, money went into hiding places
| in lieu of investment, merchants purchased
| with caution. factories scaled in time and
| wages or put out their fires, railways
| brought TO bear the most rigid retrenchment
| in labor and in expenditure, mines were
closed, business houses suspended, banks
| ruined, laboring men thrown out of employ
ment, strikes ordered, and the home mar
ket for farm products was destroyed. Nor
/ has the substance of the foreshadowed re-
/ FORM revived the Frustrated Industries.
The farmer. Mr.. Clayton declares. is
chiefly responsible for this change. He
fails to attend the primary of the politi-
| cal party to which he belongs, but does
| not recognize the fact that when the pri-
| mary adjourns the case is closed unless
he bolts the nomination. If he had spent
| but little time the farmer might have
been influential in nominating and elect.
ing good farmes, merchant or profes.
| sional man to represent him in the high.
err councils of his party. By SO doing he
could make his power felt in a manner