Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-12-16
The Home Market and the Farm.

aoauOOuGu IdIuiS VI NCH EG9 IdAu. u
company has been incorporated under
the laws of the state OF Maine for that
purpose, with a capital stock of five
hundred thousand dollars, and about
ten Thousand acres of these abandoned
farms have been secured in Eve of the
New England States upon which to
commence operations. When We saw
this article we were compelled to pause
and wipe our specks and re-read
Could it be possible that this is the
New England where the Home Market
hourishes in all It's pristine vigOr and
glory; the New England that has had
the advantage of the gold standard and
has been hedged about with protection
so completely that the people living on
its northern and eastern borders can
not sell an apple, an egg or d clock in
its territory, unless they consent to
forego the profits of the transaction?
We found there was no mistake about
it, as we at first surmised there was.
1t was our New England-the land
that the south and west have paid
tribute to for half century. Its peo-
pie have been protected off its soil, or
perhaps the Home-Market and the gold
standard in that region have made its
farmers so opulent that they have all
gone to Europe for holiday and will
never be compelled to work any more,
generously leaving their lands and
houses for the next conner to occupy
and grow as wealthy as they have be-
come. The twenty-eight thousand
factory hands in that section that re-
Gently accepted a reduction in their
wages, did so, no doubt, because they
were becoming possessed of too much
of the gold for which they shouted in
1896, and do not want to be troubled
further with so much old junk of that
nature.
The truth is, that the same causes
that have operated to depopulate the
farming lands of England are at work
here. 1t is but natural that the thin
lands of New England should be the
first to be cleared of men. Mr.. Wan
namaker and his company of capital
lists may get immigrants; they may in
duce men to occupy these lands at a
present profit to themselves; but if the
shrewd, keen-witteG Yankee, whose
name has become a synonym for thrift,
cannot make them support him, who
can? If the man of the wooden nut
meg admits failure, gives up the strug-
gle in despair, and moves away from
the home of his fathers without going
| through the formality of a sale to any
one, how can any one succeed where
he has failed, even though the cost of
living should be reduced to the mini
mum? A proposition to recolonize
New England, the earliest settled Sec
ton of this country, sounds queerly in
these closing days OF the nineteenth
century. Yet such a proposition is
made by men of ample means, and who
ard as we'll as the protective tariff;
whose names are a sufficient guarantee
that it is no fake Populistic scheme. 1t
sounds almost as queerly as the vari-
Gus schemes to re-people the abandoned
farms of the island of Great Britain
The rural Englishman says he is being
expatriated from the land of his fore
fathers by means of the gold standard.
Over there no one seriously attempts
to controvert this proposition. He is
told that England's financial policy
will not be changed, no matter what
happens to him. 1t remains to be
seen whether the plutocrat will be per-
mitted to depopulate our farms to any
greater extent than he has already
succeeded in doing. The yellow octo-
pus has devoured England's rural pop
ulation. Shall it be permitted to de-
stroy the people of our own land?
This is the issue and will continue
to be the issue until the evil is re-
moved. The plutocracy may cry out
that silver is dead, that no power on
earth or in heaven shall prevail against
the gold standard by which they have
been enabled to perpetrate highway
robbery upon the people so long.
They may purchase every newspaper
that is for sale; corrupt every politi-
clan that loves money better than his
kind; control every avenue of commu-
nication so that the people cannot GER
tainly know what is taking place.
Still, they will fail-fail as utterly as
the STAKEHOLDER failed. Fail as all
fraud, as all wrong and oppression
fails when confronted fully and fairly
by the right. The plutocratic policy
is always short-sighted. 1t never looks
to the future. Let us enjoy to-day,
for tomorrow we may be dead. What
if the depopulation of rural England
does lead to an explosion?-it will not
be in our day. Then the explosion
NAV never come; people will become