The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-03-03
North Carolina Farmers Prote ctive
Association.

To the Editor: Col. John S. Cunningham
in a recent interview is reported in part
as saying: The North Caroline Farm
ers' Protective Association, recently
chartered by the General Assembly OF
cur State, affords an opportunity to the
farmers of North Carolina to organize
just as the farmers are organized in
France, where agriculture has attained
a high state of perfection; and just here
| will say that our best men in every
county in the State should align them
selves with this organization. In every
part Of Europe as we'll as the United
States, where the farmers are prosper
Gus, you will see spring up towns and
cities which will build and flourish as
never before
will now quote from Essays Moral Po-
litical and Aesthetic pages $50, by
Herbert Spencer, 'In the first place,
strange as it may seen in a country in
which two-thirds of the population are
agriculturists, agriculture is a very I'M
honored occupation. Develop in the
slighteAe degree a ~Frenchman's mental
faculties, and he flies to a town as surely
as steel filings fly to a loadstone. + = =
All who have, or think they have, heads
on their shouldes, struggle into towns to
ISL IN GLAiA VAN NS
deemed by themselves or others. too
stupid for anything else, are left at home
to till the fields, and breed the cattle,
and prune the vines, as their ancestors
did for generations before them. Thus
there is ctua1ly 40 intelligence left i'll
the country. The whole energy, and
knowledge and resource of the land are
barrelled up in the towns. You leave
one city, and in many cases you will not
meet an educated or cultivated individual
until you arrive at another-al1 between
is utter intellectual barrenness."
If Col. Cunningham is not mistaken,
there has been in a short time, the
greatest revolution in France since
Charles Martel saved it from the Sara
Gems. According to Herbert Spencer, the
farmers Of France bear about the same
relation to the town politicians that the
negroes here formerly did to the carpet
baggers and scalawags. Is not the con-
ditiOn of our farmers gradually approach
ing the condition in France described by
Spencer? How many educated men will
one meet among the farmers in going
from town to town.? Will they be young
men, Or will they be gray-headed? Are
not our ambitious, smart, young men
and women, flying rom the country to the
y uS, llko steer ullIS ~ d lOduStOIC,
leaving the uneducated and ha~lf-educatad
to vex the soil Is not farming becom-
ing an unhonored occupation? Is it not
a fact that, with very few exceptions,
the Legislature is as high as a farmer
can get-with a salary of $240 for the
term of two years. $120 per year, without
bOard-lesS than the wages received by a
cornfield hand. The county people con-
.stitute eighty-two per cent, and the
people eighteen per cent of our pop |
%ulation; yet the eighteen per cent vir-
tually governs the eighty-two per cent.
Is it any wonder that the active, smart,
ambitious offspring of the e~ighty-two
per cent desire to flock with the eighteen
per cent? ,
If the Farmers Protective Association
can stop this down grade movement, and
farming so that it will rank with
the other professions, its founders will
deserve the gratitude Of all mankind.
I will join it if it comes within my
reach. I beg Colonel Cuningham's par
don for calling his attention to a couple
of submerged rocks in his charter-stores
manufacturing The tendency to the
towns is so great that there are num-
bers in the country who believe they
understand "the store game and if the
brothers will ante UP the cash and en-
dorse notes they will prove it. In some
counties the Farmers Alliance had stores,
and it was not long before they proved
to be "~sores," losing many thousands of
dollars. In some counties contracts were
made with merchants and, if the tales
that were told are to be believed, some
of the merchants could hoo-doo a China
man, and you know
ways that are dark and tricks that
are vain.
The heather Chinee Is peculiar"
In regard to manufacturing, I will ask
Colonel Cunningham when passing tie
ancient town of Hillsboro to look at the
Farmers Alliance Shoe Factory and Tan |
merry, hold up both hands, and say. Good
Lord. deliver u.s." Success to you Col
onel.
S. B. ALEXANDER |