The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-09-14

United states iJO,OIo Tree men ana
women, classified by the Census as
"farm laborers." But the Census
authorities tell us that many "farm
laborers" were reported and classified
as "laborers." Hence the number of
free farm laborers, in 1860, must have
approximated one million. There
were also, allowing three-fourths of
the slaves of workable age to agricul-
ture, 100000 agricultural slave toll
ers. This would make total of men
and women toiling on farms, either
as slaves or as wage earners, of about
100000. Thirty years later, in 1890,
the number of farm laborers was no
greater, although the farms had
more than doubled in number and
acreage and the population of the ma
ton had also doubled. Farm tenants
had, it is true, unquestionably in
creased in number, although of that
increase, prior to 1880, we have no re-
liable figures. But for every family
added since 1860 to our farm tenants,
two others were added to the ranks
of farm owners. That is one cause
for congratulation; but the greatest
cause is found in the figures for the
slaves and laborers. In thirty years
many millions of the poorest and
humblest toilers have come to our
shores from Europe and from Asia.
They have poured steady stream on
to the farms of the nation. But in
spite of these unnumbered additions
to the ranks of the humble toilers in
our midst, the number of farm labor
ers in 1890 was actually no greater
than in 1860 The number of farm
owning families had nearly doubted,
but those working as slaves, or for
wages for others, had absolutely de-
creased. Counting the members of
the tenant families, with farm slaves
and wage earners as constituting one
class and the farm owning classs as
another. and tits found that the own
ing class had increased twice as much
in the aggregate as the three others.
Who, in that year, 1860, among the
friends of the Southern negro dared
hope for such an outcome within one
generations What friend of the
lowly would have been considered
sane in 1860 who had predicted such
benefcent revolution as is here re-
corded? "Slaves have" indeed "risen
up men," and have pressed forward
through the open door of farm ten
ancy toward the goal of independ-
ency as farm owners.
The steady movement forward and
upward among the American farmers,
this hopeful and encouraging signifi-
canoe of American farm tenancy as it
exists almost everywhere today, can
be traced in multitude of ways. At
tention will be called to but one of
these. The Minnesota Bureau of
Labor in 1898 investigated the condi-
ton of 1,798 farmers in eleven typical
townships in different parts of the
State. 1t found 1855 farm owners
and 243 farm tenants. OF the owners
237 had once been tenants, and most
of them had once been farm laborers.
This was a number practically the
same as the number of tenants found.
The farm owners, once tenants, had
toiled as tenants an average of four
years. That length of time thus suf-
feed to promote man from the low
er to a higher position. Of the ten
ants only two had ever lost farm
by mortgage foreclosure, and only
seventeen had ever been farm owners.
The greater number of these were
merely working as tenants while look
ing about to purchase farm wisely
after selling their old one.
Tenancy in Minnesota and for our
nation as whole is not then sign
of degradation; but it is part of an
upward social revolution that is
touching the lot of the former slave
of the South, the old farm laborer of
the North and the poor immigrant
from Europe with the wand of hope
and blessing, and changing it into
the likeness of something better and
grander and more desirable. Where
in the long history of man is there
social revolution more fraught with
present good and promise of future
acknowledgement.