Omaha daily bee., 1896-07-04
low MneEs ON run rAnM.
Analysis OF noies' Appeal for Cheap
and bundn Money.

new noTk sun.
Hon. Horace Boies Of Iowa Is a promi-
ncnt candidate for the nomination for the
presidency. on a free silver platform, by the
approaching Chicago democratic convention.
Governor Boies processes that his advocacy
of silver istbastd upon the sufrerfngs. under
the present gold standard, of the farmers of
his section OF the country, and in a recently
published interview he expresses himself
thus:
THE condition Of the farmers in the north.
western states is absolutely uncomfortable. I
say this, knowing the facts. l have myself
In this state two farms paid for largely with
money I have earned as a lawyer. One is a
farm of $500 acres OF land, and the other
contains 1000 acres. With the present price
of labor and the present price paid for farm
products, no man In the world could take
either of these farms, even If | should pre-
sent him with the ground, and make a dollar
out Of 1t. | mean, of course, that he could
not equip the farm and pay interest on the
money invested in the equipment and wages
for labor out of the income he would get by
selling the products. A farmer who works
himself, and is assisted by the labor of sons
and daughters, could make a small farm pay.
But no farm is profitable when conducted
on the basis of a manufacturing business.
Cheap and abundant money is the only rem
edy for this intolerable state of things"
Governor Boies here makes some very
damaging admissions. He describes himself
as the owner of $500 acres OF land, or about
twenty times as much as any one man can
cultivate properly. He has to hire his labor,
and he complains that the wages he has to
pay for it are so high that they consume all
the products of his land. which is in direct
conflict with the repeated declarations of
men like Altgeld, that the price of labor out
west has been reduced by the gold standard
to a starvation point. HE also comedies that
the farmer who works himself, and is as
sisted by his family, can make a living even
now off a small farm. and that 1t is only a
farm conducted 'as a manufacturing bust
ness that does not pay.
1t will be interesting to our eastern work
ingnlon to hear from one of the chief apos-
ties of free silver that it is IAN intolerable
state of things" in which a great land owner
like Governor Boies cannot make money by
cultivating with hired labor 1900 acres of
land. while at the same time a small farmer.
| working himself, can. Few of our working
men do much more than make a living by
working at their trades, and If the small
western farmer does as much as Governor
Boies comedies he does, he will not receive
much pity from them,
Testimony Corroborating that of Governor
Boies as to the prontableness of small
farms in his state is found in a letter, re-
Gently published in the London Economist,
from an Englishman who has been specu-
lating in land there. He says:
out of the first 80, 600 acres bought in
northwestern Iowa in 1881, nearly all are
now sold. Last year in that locality there
was a bumper crop. and lower prices, es-
pecially for oats and barley. Our return
from 500 acres still on hand and let to
nine tenants amounted to $500 gross per
acre, which is a record in our experience.
Most of this was paid in kind, and seeing
that such rent is one-third of the crop. it
follows that the tenant farmers gross re-
turn, exclusive Of profits on live stock, was
approximately 500 per acre.
Prices also of land in that locality are
the highest we have known. For $50 acres,
costing $3.50 per acre. of prairie and standing
in, with improvements, at sl3.94 per acre,
purchasing farmers paid last year $27,32
per acre"
Nine tenants, occupying among them $50
and the return that each one got for his
years labor, after paying for the use of the
land, was. at $6.4O per acre, S614.4O. In
addition. he had his home, his profit on his
live stock and Something from his garden
toward supplying him with food. If there
are any eastern workingmen doing better
than this. we should like to hear from them.
If, too, land in Iowa brings in these times
$2T.32 per acre. tits not so worthless as Gov
ernor BoiesAsays II is.
1t may safely-be assumed, therefore, that
the distressed Iowa farmers for whom Gov
ornor Boies is so much concerned are great
landed proprietors like himself, who do not
put their own hands to the pillow, but hire
their work done for them and grumble at the
wages they have to pay for it. Is it worth
while, in order to give them relief by Cheap
and abundant money" to rob every creditor
and wage Garner in the country, small and
large, of half what is due him?