St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-27
WHY ALWAYS THE "HAYsEEDs 2"

| SIldll leel SOTfy LOT the pOOI uldu
when he sees such gatherings.
! WHY ALWAYS THE EHAYSEEDe"
The cartoonist pokes fun at every
one. No position is so honorable that
! he spares it, no cloth SO sacred as to
dull the point Of his pencil, no vocation
so elevated that it's members are eX-
empt from his lampoons. 1t is his
business to do this: doing it is his
bread winning. But between the car
icaturist and the reporter and the ed
itor there is d very broad and deep
line Truth and fact form no indis-
pensable part of the equipment of the
| former, but are the shield and buckler
of the latter. So when the banderillero
of the comic paper is moved to depict
the farmer he pictures him as a seedy
individual in dilapidated and neglected
attire, with beard like the yellow stub
BILE of his grain fields, a corn-cob pipe
in his mouth and pervading air of
verdancy; picture which he invariably
labels, ''Old Hayseed."
Now and then, and here and there,
Is fiippant, sprightly reporter who is
assigned to write up some gathering of
farmers, such, for instance, as met in
Minneapolis the other day, and he tells,
or makes his paper tell, how the Hay
seeds got together, and he may refer
to the hayseed in their hair and in
dulge himself in other equally mirthfuI
witticisms Such a gathering predis-
poses him to humor; it taps whatever
fountain of that quality he may have,
and he proceeds to write up the pro
ceedings of the meeting as if it had no
other purpose than to afford the public
a passing amusement. To regard the
men from the farms as serious fellows
dealing with serious matters relating
either to their calling or to the politics
of parties that touch and affect their
Iifes work, is a point of view he never
gets around to. So he treats the seri-
Gus matter with mock gravity, where
he does not drop into leVity.
There are several reasons why this
is Objectionable. and why the news
papers should Danish the word from
their columns. In the first place, but
not first because best it is slang. The
English of people is formed more by
their reading than by their schooling,
and there is nothing so much read as
| the newspaper. AS an educator it
should rot allow anything but good
English to be used. Slang is not good
| English. Another reason is that it serves
to bring into Or keep in contempt
very respectable and numerous class of
our fellow citizens; breeds a habit in
town folk of looking down on the farm
err as an uncouth and inferior person,
useful as provider Of eggs and but
ter, and to be patronized when occa-
sion brings cantact, but a low-bred
and ignorant man, whose acquaintance
is to be avoided. Now it is not good
thing in republic for any class. Of
people to hold such views of another
class: the word ''class" being used
merely to separate people by residence
or vocations. There is quite enough Of
this now. and it should not be encour-
aged.
Another reason is that it is not true
The farmer is not a "hayseed." That
means that he is a rustic, verdant, I'M
read, uneducated simple; the easy prey
of the bunco steerer, and the ready
|
couth. coarse. ill-mannered fellow.
Doubtless among the farmers such may
be found, just as you can find in the
cities his counterpart worsened by vice:
but he is no more the rule than is the
low brutal, sensual hoodlum of the
city the rule there. More than one
callow orator Of the city has gone
buoyantly out into the country to
flesh his eloquence on country wits,
reckless in his tatements in reliance on
the ignorance Of his hearers, to come
back mortified by being endorsed in de-
bate by what he terms 'hayseed 4"
There are few Of our people who read
as much as do our farmers. Their lives
Cnem the leisure TO read, All
great public questions, state or nation
al, are studied by them in the light of
| the newspapers that come to them.
! Men who have come in contact with
them are surprised at the range and
| accuracy of their information. They
may draw wrong conclusions, and now
| and then some demagogue whom they
| have Lot yet learned to distrust may
mislead them; but, what is Of first i'm
portance, they want to be right.
Take the present currency question,
for Illustration. Surely no recent ques-
ton has appealed so strongly to men
as this has to the farmers. Low prices,
debt, pinching frugality enforced. money
needed, and here policy proposing to
raise prices. provide money and re-