Evening star., 1896-10-28
The Farmers and Free Silver
Figures Concerning
the Rise of Prices---
Points in the
Great Debate.
To the Editor of The Evening Star:


among them. and for that reason special
appeal is being made to them by the advo-
Gates Of free silver in the present cam
paign, it being asserted that free silver will
increase the price of their products.
Having shown, as I think, concIusively,
that there is no truth in that assertion, 1
now propose to show that the condition Of
our farmers Is not near as bad as has been
represented; and on that point l will let
them and others speak for themselves.
OF course, the farmers, in common with
all others, feel the effects of hard times or
a stagnation Of business. With the closing
of our factories and the general falling off
in all kinds of business. at least a million,
and some estimates say two millions, OF
persons have been thrown out of employ
ment. thereby greatly lessening their abil-
ity to buy much Of farm and other
products when employed. That, with
the decreased foreign demand, fully ac-
counts for the falling off in the price of
farm products, and they have no more
ground for complaint than other classes OF
the community, for all suffer alike from
the hard times.
But, Notwithstanding the fact that wheat,
which is the staple farm product of the
great northwest has sold for less of late
years, 1t Is not at all certain that our
farmers have realized greatly reduced
profit.
The cost of producing wheat has been
largely reduced of late years. One only
needs to compare the methods of the pres
ent day with those of former times to be
convinced of that fact.
When l was boy on the farm such
things as gang plows, cultirators, grain
drills, mowers harvesters and automatic
binders We're unknown Then everything
had to be done by hand. Now nearly ev-
q hV hinarV-Sn
so, in fact that as one writer has recently
said: 1t is more proper to say that we
manufacture wheat than to say that We
raise it,"
the House, in 1892, that inventive genius,
which has multiplied thousand times in
many instances the strength of single
arm. and enabled us to do today with one
years ago." and that that is what has
brought the price down in this country
and everywhere" instead of the demon
citation of silver, as he now asserts. he
but reiterated what more prominent demo-
Gratis had better said years before.
Said Senator Beck, in discussing this
matter in the Senate:
Look at the great harvesting mac hines
of the present day, the reaper the mower
the hay rake and the thousand things that
have been invented since the Senator and
l We're boys, when cradle was the best
implement we had to cut wheat with, and
we could then perhaps cut an acre a day ;
now with a machine we can cut ten. The
Senator perhaps may have had to do it, as
1 hau, and never have been clearly recon-
ciled to the fact that those things were not
invented twenty years sooner. When 1 see
a fellow riding on a mower and another
boy on rake. one cutting down ten acres
day and the other gathering 1t up. when
l had to sweat from morning until night
to NOV an acre, 1 still feel aggrieved that
these inventions were not made little
sooner.
But, Mr.. President the compensation is
that these are cheapening processes they
apply to all branches of manufacturing in
dustry; they are not confined to any partic-
ular country. International patent laws
equalize all that. They are bringing down
the price Of things all over the world and
are adding to their production. So with
nearly all other things, the cheapening
processes of new inventions everywhere
are progressing now until everything is
cheapened. Human inventions. new modes.
new devices, intelligent skill in producing
everything brought down prices every
where"
Said Senator Vance:
Our vast and fertile plains are the
granary as well as the wonder Of the world
In addition to all these advantages, which
are the gift of nature, our population, un-
der the stimulus of free institutions, has
developed more industrial energy and more
inventive genius than any other peopIe
upon earth. Their labor-saving inventions
form an epoch in the history of our race
and have multiplied the productions of
human labor beyond the dreams of the
poet. The statistics show and candid men
everywhere admit, that the best-trained la
Dor to be found in Christendom cannot
equal our skilled workmen, measured by
the amount and quality Of their work"
A writer in the North American Review
of October. 1891, in speaking of our agri-
cultural capacity, &C.; says:
We use implements that cheaper the
cost OF production and make the labor of
harvesting seem like the sport of the
fairies in the story book"
one only needs to visit the great wheat
neldS OF the west and the Pacific coast to
be convinced of this
During the worlds fair at Chicago a del
eSat1on OF the foreign judges visited Da-
kota to witness and report upon our meth
DDS of producing wheat and they were
greatly astonished at what they there wit
messed.
1t was harvest time and they found on
A. X. Dalrymple's farm 13O automatic har-
vesters and binders at work; on Oliver
Dalrymple's farm 40 and OF the smaller
farms all the way from nine to fifty of
wheat. each cutting and binding twenty
acres per day.
In an address to them by ex-Gov. Short
lidge he said that
by the adoption of improved farm ma
chinery he had reduced the cost of rails
ing wheat to from $3.50 to IS per acre. and
the cost Of harvesting to half a cent per
buShel."
1t must be obvious to any one that when
this IS compared with the cost by former
methods, wheat costs much less to produce,
and. therefore, can be sold at q less price
than when produced by the more costly
methods, and still pay fair profit. The
same Is true of all other farm products.
oats, corn and even potatoes, all of which
are planted, cultivated and harvested on
all large and medium sized farms, by ma
chinery. Even hay is now cut, loaded and
unloaded by machinery.
The trouble is that people think only of
the present. They do not stop to compare
the present with the past, and see how
much easier and cheaper they can produce
things than formerly. If they cid there
would be far less discomfort
Another important fact that is ov .rlooked
is that everything the farmer uses or buys
has been reduced in price much more than
his wheat or other products have BEEN
For instance, take the reduction in price
from 1850 to 1890 of the following articles
as given by Senator Wilson of Iowa Who
represented an agricultural constituency:
Price Price
in 1880. in 1880
Self-hinder .......... 1915 90 $13O 90
CDfn-pinhter anu check-rower.. so 90 40 90
14-in steel beam walking plow % 90 Ii OO
Walking cultivator. .......... 30 % %, Nl
Moving machlhe. 80 % so 90
Wool Jumps. ................. 10 90 q OO
Farm wagon. .........;....... S5 90 so OO