Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1900-06-01
PROSPERITY OF FARMERS.
All over the Cost of Necesssries Goet
Into the Expanding
Tax Mill.

There is not single OccupatlOQ,
business or profession to which is not
attached by the republican organs the
label prosperity" Every individual
man knows better than the statisti-
clans whether he is prosperous or not,
and it is useless to expect an aggrega-
ton of individuals to loudly express
thanks for prosperity when they do
not come up to the label. The notion
has been going about that the farmers
are afflicted with astounding prosper
ity,' simply because prices of farm
produce have, in the last two or three
years, partly recovered from the low
level they reached in some previous
years. Now the farmer ought to know,
and the records of mortgagesin the va
roius county clerks and recorders Of
fees the fact, that adj these
increased receipts. if anybody can show
a bank account demonstrating any in
crease, are more than absorbed by the
increased price he must pay for every
thing for which the farmer exchanges
his produce. He must pay tribute to
the trust, and no better illustrator of
the truth of this can be made chan in
the case of the American Steel COM
pany. Six thousand men were thrown
out of employment because of the lack
of demand for implements which the
farmers could not purchase because
of their high price. If there was so
much prosperity, why could not the
farmer afford to purchase the neces-
sary implements? The fact is that a
heavy impost is laid upon nearly every
thing the farmer needs in his house
hold and in his business, while the
prices of His own products are at the
mercy of spectators, combines, cor
ners, etc. The farmer has to meet
the worlds price in disposing of his
product, but he encounters a different
state of things when he comes to pur-
chase for himself. The range of price
set up by the spectators is artificial,
and what they gain in the speculative
market they pocket-what they lose
they mercilessly force the farmer to
pay by an increase Of prices in manu-
features. This seeming prosperity
will be discovered the more you look
behind it to be a myth, and although
the misfortunes of the rest of the earth
have enabled the farmer to dispose of
more of his products than formerly,
still there are combinations to be
broken down, Trusts TO De aDOnSneO,
and the financial system eliminated be-
fore the farmer can really say that
a period of prosperity has been inaugu-
rated.
How much of the enormous balance
OF trade in our favor has reached the
farmer? Has he been enabled to reduce
his mortgages by payment of the prin-
cipal, or even to pay the interest in
full without securing an extension Of
time? Are his wife and children bet
ter dressed, is his farm in a more flour
ishing condition, has he purchased any
new carpets, curtains, furniture for his
household? Is he enabled to employ
more help to relieve his aching bones
and those of his wife and children from
the arduous labor they continually I'M
dergo to save their homes from the
nav of the mortgage?
We trow not and the proof Of it is
that beyond the mere means of exist
ence, whatever he makes or earns must
go into the ever expanding tax mill
which is grinding him into poverty
when he is not paying into the trusts
and combines.