The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-09-17
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE
FARMER9


FARMERe
The sixth article of the invaluable
series prepared by Prot. Laughlin,
which appears this morning, deals with
the question of the relation between
free silver and the condition of the
American farmer. In discussing this,
Prof. LaughIin follows much the same
line as that pursued by the Hon. David
A. Wells in his magnificent article dis
cussed in these columns on Monday
last He shows that there is an &C.
knowledged cause sufficient to account
for the depreciation in farm products
entirely aside from anything that has
happened to silver. 1t is therefore as
gratuitous as it is illogical to attrfb-
ute to decentralization effects which
are traceable Immediately and unmis-
takably to economic causes. Thus the
enormous extension of agricultural
agricultural products during the last
twenty years is ample to account for
the fall in agricultural prices. The
whole story is in one sentence of Prof.
Laughlin's article: while the worlds
supply of wheat increased between 1889
and 1894 by 429, 100000 bushels, the de-
mand for wheat increased annually by
only u, 900, O00to 100000 bushels" This
great addition to supply came from
the Argentine, from India, from Aus
tralia and from the newly opened felds
of our own Northwest. There is no
commodity known to the use of man
whose market price would not have
tumbled as far as that of wheat has
done, if the supply had been CORE
spondingly increased without a COM
pensating increase in demand. what
folly, therefore, to attribute this move
ment to an entirely foreign and unre-
lated cause. The indirect disproof OF
the assumption that wheat prices have
fallen because of the decline of silver
is no weaker than the direct, as Prof.
Laughlin shows Corn was 10 per cent
higher in 1894 than in 1873, oats were
the same price in those years, and
mess pork was 90 per cent higher in
1893 than twenty years before.
Is it not a most extraordinary men
tai operation to declare that the fall
Of silver has produced a fall in wheat
at the same time that it maintained
the prices of other agricultural prod
ucts. or even sent them up grade?
The truth is that the agricultural in
dustry has experienced the same vicis-
STUDIES as all others. That which has
been produced in manufacturing by
the progress of invention and the dis
covery of labor-saving processes has
been produced in farming by the vast
extension of the area of titled arabic
land, together with the cheapening of
cultivation and of transportation. In
each case there has been an unheard-
of increase in the volume of the prod
uct In each case, the demand not
keeping pace with this increase, prices
have fallen. AS Mr. Wells pointed out,
the necessary consequence Of this is
suffering during the adjustment to
new conditions. 1t is no new thing. 1t
is an experience through which labor
has passed every time that a machine
was invented by which one man could
do the work of from two to 100 But
the last thing to do about it is to
tamper with our monetary system. So
great point has been made of the
assertion that farmer would have to
give twice as many bushels of wheat
or bales of cotton to pay given debt
now as away back during the war
lect what Prof. Laughlin says, that it
takes only about one-haf as many
bushels of wheat to buy given assert
ment of farming implements as it did
in 1873. In the meantime, clothing
has fallen 1928 per cent, fuel 29.7 per
cent, lumber nearly 20 per cent, drugs
81 per cent, and house furnishing
goods 81 per cent"
1t is the progress of all industry
that we are contemplating, and not
one little area of it. What has hap
pened to the farmer has happened to
everybody else, and the natural result,
though brought about through temper
airy hardship, is certain to bring with
in the reach of all higher
average of comfort at the cost
of less eXertion than at any
other period in the history Of
the world. This is the condition of
things, constantly working toward bet
understood, and people get into har-
mony with them, which Mr. Bryan,
Mr.. Tillman and Mr.. AItgeld say must
be turned upside down at the cost of
revolution, if necessary.
COMPETENCE REQUIRES PREPA-