Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-02-09

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Oregon and sold for less money than
4 we have been securing for it the past
year right here at home. Other
farmers produced mainly butter and
| eggs in an early day amounted tc
but very little. as but little attention
was paid to that part of farming, and
what little we did have was almos,
unsuitable. Very often all you could
get was s5 cents for pail of eggs and
sometimes they could not be sold
with butter in about the same con
dition. Now while we think the
market very low most of the time
for this part OF our produce, we -can
always sell, and the lowest figures we
receive now is twice as much as the
low est in an early day. The mode Of
farming has also improved. To-day
a man sits on his pillow, rides over his
field and takes his ease. Then he
walked IN the furrow after his pillow
and often a poor one at that. To-day
a man gets on his binder and can cut
and bind as much as seven or, eight
men could with an old Mccormick
hand rake. Just imagine yourself
out in your field piowing corn with
an old single shovel pillow walking
forth and back three or four times to
clean one row of corn, or think how
it would seem cutting your grain
with an old hand rake reaper with
six or seven men to help accomplish
what you now do alone. And most
all other farm machinery has i'm
proved at about the same rate. If
this is nearly correct statement of
the conditions of farming now, and
in an early day, and the conditions
are SO much more favorable now
/ than then, the question arising at
once is this how is it We have SO
much trouble to get along now, aud
feel SO dissatisfied under such an i'm
proved condition of surroundings?
Well you know it is always easier to
find out something is wrong, and Of
ten easier to find out something is
wrong and state cause for it than it
is to propose a remedy. / think
can see something is wrong and can
also see what is tho cause of good
deal of the trouble, but perhaps like
lots of others am unable to offer q
cure, and may have to leave that
part for your own thoughtful consid-
GRAFTON. One cause | would offer for
our condition is the changed mode of
living and doing business, though we
are most all making great deal
more money than we did in an early
day, we most all seem to be spending
itat such rapid rate, that In some
respects we seem worse off now than
when we made but little. The fact
is, that in an early day, we raised or
made about everything we had to
eat, drink and wear, and felt pretty
we'll satisfied with but little. Since
then we have worked ourselves up to
want SO much, that our wants have
increased faster than our incomes.
In that respect we are about all alike
farmer, business man and all others.
Too many of us want to spend two
dollars for every one we get. An
other trouble is we are taxed high
and pay too many fat salaries. Rail
road companies pay high officials in
their employment five, ten, twenty,
and as high as forty thousand dollars
for the services of those who do the
least, and then cut down the pay of
their laborers who are only getting
81 to $3.50 day. Other great cor
pora :. ons follow in the same line,
nd the masses have to pay the mon
y. am one of the last who would
find fault with any company paying
men of integrity and unusual ability
we'll for their work, but many of the
fat salaries are an abomination, and,
all corporations paying such abomni-
BILE salaries are Unfortunately rob-
bling the people. can call to mind
an article I read in the Chicago Jour
nal years ago when they were prose-
cutting New York City Doodle alder
They had caught several of them
selling out the interest of the city
for $40, 600 each, in one case the city
employed as its attorney Roscoe
Conklin who charged $4,000 for his
services. The Journal said to pay
Conklin $4,000 for his service was
about as much robbing as the
boodlers they were trying. 1t was
both steal; there was only one diff
ference. Conklin's was legal and the
boodlers was illegal. That article
struck me very forcibly and I think
it applies with great deal of force
to the salaries and fees paid in many
cases of to-day, as the times now
compel most all of us in the .ordi-
nary walks of life to cut down, our
own living expense and the expense
OF our help to the lowest possible
limit; 30 the same conditions ought
to cut down large salaries, which are
almost robbery, which has to come
directly or indirectly out of the