The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1899-09-15
Friday. Sept. 15, 1889.
Farmers Problems.

All SuOSGIlOCl "IltSS " hhS 1 "a Ia
Journal as follows:
Farmers Problems on "Monopolies
and Trusts" lin the April number), was
the best thing have seen i'll the Farm
Journal for long time. It's plain expo
sition and statement of facts.
One of our county papers has been Civ
ing the farmers good advice, las they
called it), telling them to keep still on
politics, and keep at work on the farm,
that they would look after politics and
matters of government
Now, while the farmers have been keep
ing still on this line, the settlers and suck
ers, manipulators and Office holders, have
been making hay all the time; are forming
trusts on almost every product of the soil,
so that hereafter when the farmer gets
anything back after it has been through
the hands of trust, and manufactured
over, he will be compelled to pay from
100 to 500 per cent advance over what he
received in its raw state.
To illustrate, the average farmer gets
less than one cent pound for wheat; it
is worth now in Chicago, after it has been
through the hands of middlemen or spec
ulators, from seventy five to seventy-six
cents, railroad charges or transportation
out, so that if farmer purchase pound
of crackers from the cracker or biscuit
trust, he must pay eight or nine cents a
pound, or, 500 to 600 per cent advance; if
he purchase tobacco, cigars or the like, it
would be at an advance of 1000 per cent
or over, and so on in other lines.
And while he has been keeping still,
official salaries have been advancing sew
eral hundred per cent, while during the
same time farm products and farms have
been going down. While salaries have
advanced several hundred per cent i'll
actual dollars, they have had still
greater advance in the purchasing power
of their money OH account of low prices
Of all products land it is what money buys
that counts); this is what the farmer has
been getting for keeping still until they
have got him fenced in, as it were, with a
barbed wire fence.
want further to call your attention to
the difference or inequality i'll the distri-
button of money between the producing
classes and non producing classes, or
Office holders. Ever since the war of the
rebellion, official salaries have been going
up higher and higher, while products and
commodities of all kinds, both agrieul-
tural and manufactured, have been going
down, getting lower and lower, to nearly
the present time.
Before the war of the rebellion Con-
gressmen received eight dollars per day,
while products and commodities were
, high; after the war when products and
commodities commenced to fall in price,
official salaries were put up from time to
time and have been advancing ever since
After the war Congressmen's salaries
were advanced to S., 900 for a single ses-
sion of three months, or at the rate of
sixty-four dollars per day for working
days, or 500 per cent more than was paid
to Clay and Webster, and men of the
time. When products and commodities
were high, and you count the purchasing
power of the money now received. on
account of the low-priced products and
commodities and small profits, if one
dollar will purchase three times more
than in former times, then three times
500 per cent is 1900 per cent that office
holders have been getting over Clay and
Webster and men of their time
-Four official salaries have just been
raised in my nearest large city, from
twenty-five to forty per cent at one bound,
the four salaries aggregating $IS,Soo.
Now the larger number of farmers in my
township and in this part of the country
do not see over one hundred dollars each
a year in ready cash for farm products
sold from their farms, and are compelled
to trade the balance of their products at
the country stores for whatever price they
can obtain in the deal. We have 17s
farmers in this township. so that these
four men whose official salaries have lust
been advanced, receive more ready money
than all the farmers in this township
combined
Now, after the official salaries have
eaten up the lions share of the states
money they claim that the hospitals and
other charities and public schools may
close for want of funds; as is always the
case they put ii on to the people instead
of the salary grabber.
If a farmer plant potatoes and the crop
fail, he loses all, time and potatoes; if
there be large crop the country over,
these is no sale for them at any price. l
have known hundreds of bushels to be
lost in this way. So the farmer is handi-
capped at both ends of the line. Office
holders and farmers must all live out Of
products of the soil, everything comes
from the earth; but official salaries must
be paid at all hazards whether the FARM
er's crops fail or not. or whether he have
an over crop and there is no market at a
living price. Official salaries come in
first, even if it take the farm, the work
shop or The manufacturing plant.
Can this go on and the country prosper
with pension pay roll of $I45, ooo, 600
and nearly 6oo,o 900 new applicants, and
more coming every day, all to be paid
out of low-priced produc and small
profits, and so far as many farmers are
concerned no profits at all? They are
hunting the earth with a fine tooth
comb, as it were for something to tax,
to line the pockets of Office holders. Why
not tax franchises, such as are possessed
the Standard Oil monopoly, with its
hundreds of miles of pipe lines in four or
five states. transporting millions of dol
lars worth oil and oil-prodncts to sea-
board and other points, at small cost, and
paying comparatively no taxes for these
great privileges. while they are dividing
forty per cent dividends on the par yalae
of their stock, now quoted at $40 per
share. or over?
- I,s .Ig.