Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1902-12-23
A PLEA FOR THE FARMER.
A CHRISTMAS HoMILY.

In these times when the calling of the
farmer is so generally derided and ridi-
culed, and the important part he plays
in the economics of life is so little ap-
preciated by the millions who subsist by
his hard and poorly requited labors,
through summers heat and winters cold,
it is refreshing to note now and then in
reading the newspapers not specially de-
voted to agriculture paragraph evincing
so much magnanimity and fairness toward
one of the most, if not the most impor-
tant Of the worlds useful factors, as that
among your editorials of a late issue
of the Gazette.
You say in closing your article
CATER all, the world lives off
the labors of the farmer, and any
thing which tends to degrade or
reduce the standard of farming, seriously
affects all mankind Let everything
possible be done to ennoble the farmers
condition and alleviate his lot. There
can be too many lawyers, or doctors or
preachers, but there can nsver be too
many farmers" thank you, Mr. Editor,
for stating the matter so plainly and
truthfully.
George Washington who was plain,
practical man and a sensible thinker
and who fully comprehended the true
relations between the worlds industries,
was a farmer by choice and elevated and
ennobled the vocation by intimate cou-
tract with it, and by lifelong study
OF its resources and far reaching in
huences; and he never was ashamed
to be found busying himself
with the details of farming operation
on his large plantations of Mount Yer
non, If his visitors, no matter what
their stations or dignities, whether gov
ernors, senators, generals of his own
land, or potentates from abroad, found
him making survey for road, or field.
or showing his laborers how to make
fence, dig drains and bitches, or giving
directions for blowing, planting, or
gathering the products of the burrows,
it mattered not to him.
To friend, he wrote: agriculture
is the most healthful, the most useful,
and the noblest employment Of man,"
aud no utterance was ever more truthful.
The farmer, no matter how coarse and
questionable his raiment, how sim
pie and unostentatious his manners
and ways, stands nevertheless
at the gates whence issue day by
and year by year without cease or stint,
the supplies which sustain the life and
existence of the millions. What he
produces from his acres, whether in the
shape of the cereals, vegetables, fruits or
meats, creates every force of mind and
brain-indeed every energy that oper-
ates in any of the multifarious industries
of the world, and without his labors
there could not be any Of them.
Our people have just had distress
ing and deplorable illustration of the
calamities resulting from the cessation of
labors in another industry. We allude
to the coal mining industry. The fear
full consequences of the wanton and un-
necessary strike of the miners, incited
and protracted by unprincipled and law
less leaders have been felt in every city,
town and hamlet. But in one way or
another our communities could manage
to get along for long while, though
with great inconvenience and much in
cdental suffering, if no coal were mined
at all; for in the great extremi-
ties, invention and discovery would
be stimulated to their utmost
reaches to contrive new sources
of heat and motive power to alleviate
the calamity; and so it would be with
the cessation Of other like industries.
But not so would it be if the men behind
the pIows, the hoes, the reapers and
threshers were to cooperate and say 1--WE
have toiled hard, we have been poorly
paid for the good we have been doing
for the world. AS a class we are not
properly appreciated, but derided and
ridiculed. Henceforth we will toll for
ourselves and families only, and will
shut our gates that no life supplies may
90 out for the hungering millions. :" Were
such a movement possible, how long
would it be before famine and pestilence
would lay waste and depopulate the
earth? That would be an object lesson
more convincing than any amount of rea-
soning that "old hayseeds," alias ''clod-
hoppers, was something more than a
mere fgure-head to be the butt OF every
Joke or humorous epithet of such as be-
lieve fine tailor's clothes and living IN a
town or city is the measure of dignity
and worth. But imagine that ere the
happening of that great calamity, the
army of the United States would per
emptorily take possession Of the farming
lands, and by force of arms set other
workers to tilling the fields. No COM
mission wonld be appointed by the
President to hold parley with the strik-
ing farmers and settle the matter by ar
bitration while millions were dying, mol
would they have sympathy meted out tc
them from every quarter as has been the
case with the miners.
While all other industries have COM
bined under solemn compacts and pledg
es for self protection and the genera
II. r.