The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-08-15
Dollar wheat in the Campaign.

Proceeding apparently upon the assump-
ton that the American farmer is fool
because for so many years he was unable
to figure out the simple sum that the
tariff is a tax and that the consumer pays
it, the Republican managers are now pre-
pairing to profit by what they conceive to
be the. credulity of -the agricultural ele-
ment. by claiming credit for the prospect
of dollar wheat-an always alluring cam
paign cry. But the farmer has BAL his
thinking cap on for several years. AID has
been doing some particularly heavy cogi-
tating during the past quadrennial period.
For example. he recalls that during the
tremendous heat and fury of the last cam
paign, when the chances were about even
between the two parties. there was an up
ward furry in the wheat market and. be-
fore the prices Of this cereal>stopped ris-
ing, they reached a figure which brought
profitable return to the producer. Grover
Cleveland, mighty poor sort of Demo-
era was then President Nobody, not
even the crazy-horse organs that supported
him, claimed that any act of the Presi-
dent or the Administration had started
wheat prices on the upgrade. II such
claim had been made we dare say the far
mer would have led the nation in a merry
caehination of scorn.
A similar condition in the wheat mar
ket confronts the farmer today. 1t seems
entirely probable that If he hold his wheat
long enough, he will realize for it nearly
or quite one dollar bushel But he has
learned too much to listen with patience
to the exultant boasts of the campaign
orator that the party in power is entitled
to credit for the price of wheat. However,
even if by some hocus pocus he could be
fooled ON this point what is he to think
of the party in power when he is brought
face to face with the hard fact that his
dollar wheat purchases no more at present
than his sixty-cent wheat purchased a few
years ago? When he begins to search for
the cause of this he viii discover that Re-
publican legislation and administration
are directly responsible.
During the past two years war and fam
inc have about exhausted the cereal sur
plus. and the granaries of the world to-
day are empty. Naturally rising prices in
all food markets are to be expected. The
law of supply and demand has free and
natural scope in this condition. But this
law is arrested and perverted in its re-
lations to the markets of other commodi-
ties No plan has yet been devised under
which the trusts can control outright the
cereal markets. But the trusts can and do
control the markets TO which the farmer
carries his wheat, his corn, and his RE for
exchange. Having this control. the trusts
deliberately, artfully, and greediiy have
put up the prices of all commodities which
the farmer must buy with his cereals
Eyeryta ing that goes upon his table or
upon his back costs him more at this mo-
ment than il has cost since the pro-
ductive energies of this nation were para
lyzed and its industrial machinery was
dlranged by the blight OF a four years
civil war. The Administration at Wash
ington or the Republican party in any se--
ton of the country has done nothing to
curb the power or rapacity of the trusts
On the contrary the Administration and
the party have strengthened the trusts and
are confidently relying upon q continuance
!; power through the aid extended by the
trusts The trusts mulct the people and
divide the profits with the party in power
by contributing to its campaign fund.
The farmer who sells his wheat crop
this year for approximately one dollar a
bushd would be happy. indeed, if he did
not bave to pay nearly twice as much for
sugar as he paid before the Mckinley Ad-
ministration allied itself with the Sugar
Trust.