Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1902-02-04
THAT IRRIGATION SCHEME.
GoyERNMENT-NADE FARMERS.

of any kind that comes into competition
with private enterprises. There is al
least one exception to this rule. The
government is in the business of making
farmers on a gigantic scale; it turns
them out by the tens of thousands every
year. This might not be so bad if, in
setting up these agriculturists, the gov.
ernment was able to produce good ones.
The majority of government-made
farmers are a disgrace to the calling, as
shall presently attempt to show.
About year ago, was standing in
the streets of Antwerp, Belgium, when
nv attention was called TO great pro-
cession coming down the street, headed
by a tall, well-dressed man. whats
the crowd?" l asked gentleman, as We
stepped aside to let them pass.
They are going to the ship" he re-
piled. Twelve hundred of them go
from here every Saturday."
Where are they going?" l asked.
'To America"
ITO America, The Lord have mercy
upon US! Cannot these people find work
az home?r
"Well, not much; we are very pleased
to see that class going away"
II should think you would be-" re-
piled, as we moved into the centre of the
road for better quality of air. A drove
of cattle would have been rOsewater in
comparison. l had been in Holland and
Belgium for three weeks, and so well
were the people dressed, so clean and
modern were all their streets, that the
emigrant question had not entered my
mind until this drove came tramping
along, with all their worldly goods in
sheets, pillow cases and red bandanas,
headed for the wharf-destination
America.
'who is that fellow" inquired,
that seems to be the leader?'
"Oh, that is the ships agent; he goes
out every week and collects cargo. He
gets about dollar per head for running
them in
What inducement does he offer
them?' l asked, thinking of the contract
labor law.
"Oh, he tells them that the United
States government will give them farm
of 100 acres out west, and that eastern
bank agents will give them money to
build house and barn on it; that agri-
cultural machine agents will let them
have all the tools they require, and take
their notes for them. He tells them
they only need money enough to get to
where the government has farm 10 give
them. Their passage TO New York costs
SIS, and for SO or SIS more they are
taken in special trains TO where Uncle
sam stands ready to keep his part OF the
contract, and give them l60 acres of land
as reward for coming to America and
an outlay of SIS or $50 TO get there.
Then he tells them of the wonders OF
the great West, exhibits photographs of
farms owned by enigrants who have
preceded them but few years, etc. In
this way, he and his assistants are able
to round up 1000 TO 1900 converts who
are willing to 80. This goes on week
after week the year round.
As he spoke felt the blood getting
hot within me, at the thought OF the
hundreds of formerly well-off American
farmers who had given up the struggle,
let their farms to foreigners, their chill
dren forsaking the homestead because it
could only be made to pay by the most
slavish toll. "Going to America to farm,
are they?"
s'Weil, that is the great inducement
the agent offers them," was the reply.
DO these men know anything about
farming" l inquired.
Not one in fifty" my informer said
''but that doesn't matter, you don't have
to know anything about farming TO farm
in America.
Don't haze 10 kaOr anything about
Turning 10 farm in america :" Fancy, il
you can, the state of my mind at hearing
this. Ii was the first time in my life that
| was ever ashamed TO confess that was
an American citizen and an American
| farmer Don't have TO know anything
about farming TO farm in America
That sentence was burnt into my very
soul | confess / was ashamed to let
that stranger know | was a citizen of a
country that was the dumping-grOund
for the human rubbish of every other
country in the world, China excepted,
and to think our country was coa1ing
tens of thousands of this class every
month to our shores. and as this gentle
man said, principally class that the
country whence they came "are very
pleased to see taking their departure, v
and the inducement that is used by ship
ping agents, which amounts to a govern
ment agency in collecting weekly cargo,
is the promise Of farm.
Under what obligation, / ask, is our
government to invite, yes, coax over to
this country the lowest classes from all
nation, and set them up in the farming
II trif in IN,
ers, who are already driven almost to
bankruptcy because of the competition
largely of this very class? The gentleman
told the truth. A man with thimble,
full of brains is quite good enough to be,
come An American farmer, at least in
the eyes of our government. Farmers
these immigrants are not. They do not
know the first principles of agriculture,
but that is no matter; that does moi
enter into the contract at all. They
need not know pitchfork from shovel
plow. All the government seems anxious
about is to get rid of 100 acres of land
As long as the fellow looks like an i'm
migrant, and smells like an immigrant
that is quite qualification enough for the
government, and if he will live like ar
immigrant and work like one, that is all
the money-lenders and machine agents
care to know.
OF course they will 60 on robbing the
soil of its fertility, for they have the
power to destroy without the knowledge
to redeem. Farmers they are not; they
are only lot of land-robbers. Many o.
them have looted the fertility of goot
100 acre farm the government has giver
them in one state and have gone on t
lanother-a lot of land pirates living ol
the fatness of the soil and leaving Il
posterity farm robbed of its fertility
"They don't have to know anything
about farming to farm in America" D
course these government farmers ar
mortgaged up to their eyes, but tha
makes them no less our competitors
The railroads carry their products pas
our doors to the seaboard about a
cheaply as we can deliver them Their
ourselves.
| Only few years ago, when there wa
little room abroad for the western whea
surplus, and these government farmer
were so numerous that competition wa
keen among themselves even on LAM
that had been given them, they jumpe'
eagerly at the idea of paying thei
mortgages with 50-cent dollars. Now
they couli induce the government to Il
rigate their lands for them, they woul
indeed be in clover.
"But how about eastern farmers!'
asked one of these westerners who va
! talking the irrigation scheme.
"Oh," he replied, farming has gon
, 60 The dav;l in the eastern states, any