Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1900-11-02
FACTS FOR FARMERS.
HOW GREAT ROADS MIGHT BE
BUILT
With tho Money Now Being Expended
In the Philippines for Governing Peo-
pie Against Their Consent-Philippine
Market.


900 mile, on the average, in the
United States. The present cost OF the
operations in the Philippine islands
intended for the subjugation of a race
that never harmed this country until
our president ordered his generals to
make them subjects against their Will,
is at least $4,000, 900 year. The in
crease in the army appropriations in
dicates a much larger sum. For the
money so used to no profit, except that
of few favored contractors and CAPT.
talists, the general government, acting
under authority expressly given by the
clause of the constitution respecting
post-roads, might build 1900 miles OF
splendid highways in single year.
That would make road from Maine
to California and two from Canada to
the Gulf, with several side branches
left over. Ten years of such use of the
people smoney would give this country
rs, 900 miles of fine roads to be OF
incalculable benefit and comfort to the
inhabitants of the United States, es-
pecially to the farming population
which gets the smallest share OF the
bounty of the nation.
The annexation of the Philippine is
lands and their development by Am
erican capitalists will be accompanied
by the cutting down of trade barriers
between the islands and this country
to low limit. Business instincts and
all precedents prove that. Philippine
products will come into very close
competition with similar products of
this country. Those products are
nearly all agricultural. They include
tobacco, sugar and fruits. The more
We cling to the Philippine islands the
more reason American farmers will
have for anticipating the competition
of Chinese and Malay labor producing,
for American capitalists, sugar to
handicap our young beet sugar indus
try, fruits to narrow the market for the
orchard crops of California, Oregon,
Washington, Florida and, indeed, all
other states, for oranges may displace
apples, to a great extent, and tobacco
to hurt all American tobacco interests
except those of big companies owning
lands in the Philippines and using the
cheap labor of that region.
The fancied and much-boasted mar
ket developed in the Philippines for
American beef, canned vegetables, ba-
con, beer, flour and other products rep
resenting agricultural staples in some
form is really the evidence of loss
which American farmers are even now
enduring. These American products
are being sent to the Philippines for
the use of the $4,000 American soldiers
and officials employed there and paid
and fed at the expense of the Ameri-
can people. 1t is simply part of the
home market transferred to distant
islands, as any one can see. But in
the transfer portion of the market is
lost. American beef has to meet the
competition of cargOes of Australian
cattle in Manila. Part Of the food of
our soldiers in the Philippines comes
from the islands. Much of 1t is OBJ
tanned In the British colonies which
are nearer than the United States. If
the same men who eat the American
farm and ranch products which are
being disposed of in the Philippines
were at home they would not live on a
diet of mixed American, Australian
and Asiatic food. All of it would come
from this country. And the men who
do the eating would be adding to the
wealth of their country, if they were
at home and doing such work as they
would do if it were not for the war.
Now they are being paid out of the
public treasury.
To appreciate the cost Of the mill
tary operations in the Philippines it is
necessary to show what the expendi-
ture of $75,O00O00 year means when
reckoned in other things than lump
sum of money too big to be compre-
hended. 1t is equivalent to the wiping
out of all the wheat that can be grown
on $4,000 farms, with 100 acres OF
wheat to every farm and the high av-
erage yield of 20 bushels to the acre
The price of the wheat is calculated at
rs cents bushel.
Looked at from another point OF
view. tho waste of American money in
the islands which are to be sources OF
fresh competition for American farm
ers, if the plans of the syndicates
which are being formed to exploit
them can be carried out, is equal to
per cent a year on the value of 25,O00,-
900 acres of land worth $50 an acre
That means 100000 farms of 100 acres
apiece.
Again, the money annually poured
into the islands which must ever be a
threat to American agriculture and a
burden to American farmers II held
under the government Of the United
States, would buy 100000 good work
horses. 1t is like taking from the peo-
pie every year 100000 hogs large and
fat enough to be worth SIS apiece. And
the ends sought by the investment OF
these vast sums include the develop
ment of new competition for American
agriculture.