Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1896-08-27
FOR THE FARMER AND FARM HAND.


Baltimore sun.
There is one question which we appre-
bend. the farmer who has been caught, or
is in danger of being caught, by the gilt
tering bait held out by the .free-silverites
of higher prices for all products of the
farm to. follow from the free coinage of
silver has not sufficiently considered. Free
coinage, it is claimed, is to put up prices
the priccsof wheat and corn and cotton and
potatoes, and of everything that the earth
yields and the farmer has to sell. We
say that the claim is that free coinage
is to do this when and after Congress
shall have passed and the President APP
proved the legislation necessary to make
free coinage fact and not a theory. The
mere success of the free-silver ticket IN
November, 1t is not expected. will imme-
diately produce any such result. That,
on the contrary, 1t is conceded, may in all
probability be followed by period of
contradiction, of panic and disaster, of
lower prices, of suspended credit. of en-
forced collections, of the foreclosure of
farm mortgages and sale of farm proper
ties under the hammer. II is only after
that, when the storm has passed, that
the farmers who survive these immediate
results of "free-silver victory" and have
enough left to enable them to continue
farming will reap the benefit of that grad
ual but inevitable rise in prices which is
to result from cutting the gold dollar in
two and requiring two dollars to do the
work of one.
Conceding that the farmers ultimate an
ticipation of higher prices for all the pro
duets of his industry may then be graft
fed. the question which it is still well
worth his while to consider is what will
he the effect upon the price of farm labor?
This is 4 very matcrial-it may be said II
vital-question to two distinct classes of
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES farmer who owns or
rents the land and who receives the price
of the crops aud the farm hand who
drives the plow and wields the hoe and
lIarvestS the crop and who gets nothing for
his labor hut his days or his weeks wages.
Mr. Bryan. we have noticed in those fls-
cinating rear-platform speeches of his
which he addresses especially TO the farm
er, is in the habit of speaking as If all
who titled the soil had precisely the same
interest in the soil and made the same
profit out Of the soil.
Consciously or unconsciously. this is just
the same sort of mistake that the Republi-
can advocates Of a high protective tariff.
make when they treat the interest of the
mill-owner and of the factory hand in n
higher rate of duties and consequently
higher price for commodities as identical.
The mill-owner makes the profit and bene-
fits by the advance. The factory hand
gets his wages, and all experience shows
That these never advance in the ratio of
the profits of the employer.
Now, how will it he with better prices
for wheat and corn and cotton with the
farm hand with the wages of the agri-
cultural lahorer? Will these advance in
the same proportion that the price of
wheat or of cotton is expected TO advanced
III the farmer is to get a dollar bushcl
for the grain which now he is forced to
sell for half that price, does he expect
| on saturday nights or on pay days to pay
his hands, by whose labor his crops Were
made and saved, double the wages he nays
them now? If he does, where does his
| proht from the free coinage of silver and
the advance of prices come in? If he
does not, where does the profit of the
lah0rer come inl Mr.. Bryan ought to OK
PLAIN. Some millions of voters are inter
| ested in having this point cleared up.
According to the census of 1890 there
were then in the whole United States
some 1.564Gll farms of all sizes, from
three acres up. yielding at least $500
worth OF product in year. OF these
-FOUR million and half land over) of farms
enumerated and classified according tn
acreage and tenure in the census 3, 2ti.D 72S
We're cultivated by the owner, I5I 800 by
persons who rented them for money and
oio'2a4 were worked by tenants on shares.
| ne persons engaged in the tillage of these
| farms are classified under three hends.
omlttlng certain limited and exclusive
| tafins of agricultural industry, such as
florists, npiarists and the .'turpentipe
| farmers and laborers" found in some
southern States. Farmers. planters and
| oNerseers, including farmers wives, sons
ana daughters, working in common and
Witnout stated remuneration, are mt
down MS numbering 5,2Sl ,557. A dis.
| iihct class of agricultural laborars "
hired hands working on farms for woecs
number '',ha.Wi1. Then under the head.
ing OF laborers not specified" numbcrins
l,"i"'ni5, II Is explained in n note tbnt
| hasricuitural districts agricultural In
| porers IRE often reported simply as la
| The farmer who owns or rents his farm
| anu owns the crop does not need to be told
mat to offset the benefit which free sill
. yer is supposed to bring to him in the
shape OF better prices for his crops he
must take into account the higher prices
ne VIII have to pay for everything he buys
IN the general advance of prices all around,
consequent upon IN initiation of the c,Ir-
rency and the diminished purchasing now
er OF cleapenetl dollars. The answer which
the farmer is ordinarily supposed to make
TO this suggestion is that he is so much
more of producer than a consumer. that
he has so much more to sell than he has
need to buy, that the balance of gain re-
sulting from general rise in prices cun-
not fail to operate in his favor.
But does he include labor among those
things for which he will have to nav moro
than he pays now? Is the farm hand IN
share with the farm-owner in the benefits
of free coinage? Are wages to be doubled
along with the price of wheat and corn
and cotton and everything else? If not
how is the farm hand benefited If he is IA,
work ms long and as hard to make his
employers crop, get no more for his labor
and have to pay twice as much out of his
slender wages for everything he buys
VIII he not he, in fact, II loser, lust In
proportion as his employer is gamer?
The high prices that are expected to nut
money in the farmers pocket, will they
not operate to impoverish still further If
not to starve, the farm laborer?
II, on the contrary, n rise in agricul-