The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1899-02-25
cradles, no longer threshes his grain
with fail ~

since gone, no more makes butter, no
more spins and ,veaves, no longer
braids hats, makes sausage, dips
candles or makes soap.
All is changed. The life and hustle,
the happy laughter of merry people
the dozen men and boys in haying
and harvesting are all gone. The
farm with it's buildings going to de-
cay is as silent as IL church yard. No
body is left but the father, the hired
man and the youngest boy, who is
impatiently waiting to get to the city.
The father ought to oe a happy
man. He rides when he plants, he
rides when he c,ltivates, he rides
when he harvests. : Machinery has
taken work from his hands, but it has
failed to give him prosperity. 1t has
driven his children away from him, it
has desolated the 1eighborhood.
The farmer may sigh for the good
old days when he built his home, when
he planned the improvements, when
his children were growing up with a
prospect of settling about him, but
those times will never come back I'M
der present conditions.
What is the. trouble? Machinery,
for the past fifty years, has been driv-
ing the mechanics from the shops of
the entire world. Unable to find en-
ployment elsewhere these worlzmen
have gone upon land in such numbers
as to depress prices of all farm pro-
!! duets to point that there is no
profit. e.
There could be but one remedy for
this. As machinery comes into the
factory the hours should be shorten
ed to, allow the workmen to remain
with the machine. That would give
the workmen the benefit of the ma
chine. But instead Of shortening the
hours manufacturers have uniformly
put in the machine for their own
benefit and discharged the workman
who has been compelled to resort to
the land as a meansFOf obtaining a
living.
| In times of financial panic also,
when factories shut down generally,
| the idle workmen have taken to the
farm and thus such a vast product of
cotton and corn and potatoes have
been raised as to glut the market and
leave the farmer no money after pay
ing for his seed and his help.
A person would suppose from read
ling the glowing reports Of Dunn rt a and nd
!; Bradstreet that. the mers Of the
icountry would he rolling in wealth,
but the facts are that the farmers
have had so much competition to con-
tend with, the crop has been so enor-
nous and freights SO big as to leave
him nothing but debt after he closes
the seasons work.
For proof of this ride out through
the country districts. Ask the farm
err as to the prospects and watch for
a new home, new fence, or newly
planted orchard. Do you see any?
Not one. In ride of 100 miles you
win see nothing of the kind.
| The facts are that the farms are
generally 'nmortgaged. The farmer
cannot clear off the mortgage. It is
sold, under foreclosure and passes in
to the possession of the money 1oaner.
The money lender is thus accumulat-
ing thousands of acres-often times
three, five or ten Thousand acres to-
gether in the immediate vicinity.
These great farms are put in charge
of superintendent who have capacity
for driving workmen early and late,
i'll the season for planting and harvest
ing. The laborers themselves are the
idle men picked up at cheap price,
they are fed cheaply on a wholesale
plan, they are turned adrift as soon
as the harvest is over, and the cOnse-
quence is that the capitalist with
great facilities for raising and har-
vesting grain thus, with rebates on
shipments, with passes over the roads
because of doing a large business,
with every opportunity at command,
can raise grain at a cost several cents
Il bushel less than his neighbor can on
the small farm.
The result is that the large farmer
lis as certain to crush ont the small
| farmer as that the large factory will
destroy the little shop or the depart
! ment store annihilate the small mer-
chant.
| What is to be the outcome of all
this? The individual farmers of to-
day will all become tenants of the
large capitalist who owns many thou
sands of acres.
| What next? A desperate effort will
be made very soon in all the legisla-
lures to give the voting power only to
those men having certain amount of
property. That may not win. If it
does not then the voting population
will demand the single tax. That is,
that all tax be placed on land. That
| will so increase the tax Of the large
! land holder that he cannot pay it. In
that event it will revert to the govern
ment. The government will cut the
land up into small holdings and let it
to the individual farmer in suclaquan-
tity and under such conditions as will
enable him to make profit, or will
conduct farming comparatively Oh a
large scale. n IT,.
As the country blacksmith is no
longer found at the cross-road, as the
! shoemaker has disappeared, as the
small merchant is yielding up his
business. so the small farmer is des-
| tined to go. . ~.