Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1901-07-26

Let us 60 back to the thought that soil needs
rest. Not only have we the law of Moses, but
th4 conclusion of all thoughtful agriculturists
Absolute rest or the rotation Of crops is the
law. At least, the teaching from experience
and observation calls for one or both.
How shall we meet the requirements of one
years rest? By saving the surplus of the six
years of cultivation. We now in measure,
at least, save the surplus of all the years, but
large number of the people who cultivate the
soil are without grain or money. They have
not the surplus or its equivalent. Is it the
fault of the agriculturist? Not so! 1t is the
fault of a system that forces poor people down
to one contiaual grind, from the cradle TO the
grave, and gives other men, who do not labor,
an opportunity to garner and hold. even to the
power of standing armies.
Last year, the year before and many other
years before that the agrfculturist titled the
soil with intelligence and incessant labor and
produced wonderful surplus
Nine farmers out of ten have not the surplus
on hand to meet one failure. This is not
vague assertion. There is absolute proof. Of
the tens of thousands of employees in mines and
manufactures and on railroads, how many men
have a surplus with which to meet lay-of or
a case of sickness? Not one in fifty. 1t is the
Rothschds, Morgans and Phillipses who have
the surplus; and yet, they toll not, and when
they spin they, spin as spin the spiders.
Working people must be fools to approve of
a system that creates only the two classes
millionaires and paupers.
man who will not work deserves to be
pauper. man who will and does work de-
serves to be prince in those things that make
life comfortable and desirable. Under the
present industrial system, the working man is
next door to pauperisln, yesterday, to-day and
tomorrow. Struggle with the wolf as we will,
the number of people who pass over the divis-
ion line that separates labor from pauperism
constantly increases, and strongly, too The
number of paupers increases with the product
i've capacity of the laborers.
AS have already intimated the Mckinley
prosperity bubble has bursted. I'll bet ten
dollar COW that the net average earnings of the
working men VINO have families, during the
fifty cents per member of families, per annum.
Fifty cents of prosperity and four hundred dol
lars of adversely is the footing-up of the ac-
count as it now stands through all this drouth-
stricken country.
pause to make a prediction. Under the
present reign of Mckinley prosperity, within
quarter OF a century, whole families will die of
starvation in America, as they do now in China
and India, if we have one.c crop failure.
Now, up jumps the orthodox preacher and
says that God sent this drouth for wise pur-
pose, or to punish the people for their sin.
Let the wisdom stand, and with it, mercy. If
God intends that earth shall continue to he
inhabited by men, He also intends that the soil
shall have rest also eleve that drouths are
in obedience to great natural laws. When
mankind was few in number, and there was
great abundance of wild food, drouth was not
serious matter.
We have no, yet learned that storing surplus
is just as much part of the work of building
our civilization as is the work of producing
not storing in the hands of mllionaires but in
places and in manner accessible to the people
who produce ne surplus.
dismiss the thought of God visiting the
people with drouth for their sirs with few
words: Who has sinned, and upon whom does
the punishment fall? Is it sin to labor? Is
it sin to be little boy or girl, or maybe an
infant at its mothers breast! Is tia sin to be
mother, with all the mothers tender love and
solicitude for her offspring? Is it sin to be
old and bent with labor and in6rmity? If so,
God is after the sinners with punishment that
will make the devils shout and clap their hands
! for low. II there is any such god as that 1