The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-09

To the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
In your issue of Dec IS you notice at con-
siderable length what you call the decline
of agriculture but you do not seem to see
either the cause or the remedy. The writer
has lived a farm since childhood except
about four years spent in the army, during
the civil war. and though sixty-two he is
still there, discouraged, but determined
Agriculture declines because all natural right
to natural opportunities is denied Our
theory of government is that all men "are
endowed by their Creator with an inalenable
right TO life, liberty and the pursuit of hap
piness," or 1.-THE gains Of their honest in
dustry," but our practice is the reverse
men are endowed by the almighty dollar
with a purchasabe right to life liberty and
the pursuit of more dollars. Happiness, in
general, is impossible under such practice
One of the simplest, yet most indisputable.
truths has too long been overlooked: IF
we make either of the prime factors of pro-
duction subject of barter and sale, slavery
is the inevitable result, chattel in one case,
industrial in the other" Simple and indis-
putabe as this proposition is, see how it
has evaded the notice of the masses! If
we buy and sell labor, the active factor of
production, we have chatte slavery, but if
we buy and sell land natural opportunities,
the passive factor of production we have
industrial slavery, a deeper and more dam
nable form of slavery than chattel slavery
ever was because so insidiouS, because men
may be or seem politically free. yet bound
body and soul in a SerVitude where necessity
is even stronger than the lash: because he
must give his lord more of the products of
his labor than he would have to do if his
master owned him and his family, and be-
cause there IS not in industrial slavery even
that modicum of parental feeling that so
often amellorated the condition of the chat
tel slave.
In connection with this mistake is another:
That the majority of American farmers are
landowners While the census of 1890
showed that our population had largely in
creased, it showed that the increase was
nearly all in our urban population and had
the calculation been carried below towns of
500 II would have shown a positive and
alarming decrease of rural population. 1t did
show a slight decrease in the number of
farms, and IN spite of our large immigration
or land workers from the old world, II could
have truthfully shown very large decrease
of farmers, and especially farmers of native
birth. Why wonder this when we consider
that the mistake we are making is funda-
mental2 VIM not such a grievOus error,
lying at the very foundation of society if
persisted in, necessarily make the super
structure totter and fall? You cannot say,
in this dispute, that farm life makes men
shftless and worthless, and hence the de-
crease of landowners and the increase of
rent slaves; for are too often reminded
that nearly all the successful men in our
cities in every calling, came from the farm.
tillS who alone pays rent; every working
farmer must pay rent though he owns the
land he tills, and owes no man dollar. The
rents paid in the cities and towns where
a square foot is often worth more than
square acre of farm land. or a square
league of pastoral land. must be taken out
of the products of the farm, the range and
the mine. Consequent upon this tunda-
mental error we have a state of society in
which the big FISH not only eat the little
ones, but bigger fish eat the big ones, so
that the farmer who owns his own land
must serve the man who owns more valu-
able land. Most farmers see and say that
there is something radically wrong. though
they generally, as yet, overlook the wrong,
but they know there is no chance for their
children here and though he knows the
trades and professions are overcrowded,
any sensible fathers boy will risk his
chances there rather than remain in hope
less servitude on the farm.
But we are not only losing farmers; we
are losing farms. The landlord skins the
tenant and the tenant must skin the land
hence il is not surprising TO ind our rocky
and rolling lands Impoverished, washed and
quilted into worthlessness and turned out TO
"old field" Even here. on the black. fiat
prairies of Illinois. we can easily observe
the lessening producuveness. The clover
puzzle is now solved and those who know
most about clover have the least faith in H.
Still further and worse you cannot change