Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-01-14
IN ECONOMIC
large Crops and Less Profit for the
Farmers-Trusts Eating Their
Substance.

Notwithstanding good crops and an
Increased price for them there is evil
kence that both Iowa and Kansas are
not as prosperous as they should be.
The records of the school ensus of
Iowa for 1898 show a falling off of pu-
pills enrolled, the number in 1898 be-
ing 550,202 as against $50, 173 for 1902,
while in 1900 the number was 566, 900.
That shows the extraordinary loss of
population in three years, when there
should be a normal increase of nearly
$4,000. If the farmers of Iowa are
prosperous, what makes them leave the
state and seek homes elsewhere? Then
the surprising statement is made by the
bank commissioner of Kansas that the
banks of Kansas have So, 800, 900 less on
deposit to-day than they had in Sep
TENDER. By all the ordinary rules of
business the farmers and merchants of
Kansas should have more money on
deposit when they are selling their
crops than when they have just har-
vested them, and the storekeepers
should be in the same condition at the
same time, for debts are being paid and
the money brought into the state for
the crops should find its way into the
banks.
Is it the extraordinary increase in
the cost of living that is impoverishing
the people of Kansas and forcing emf
grafton from Iowa? These two states
have been noted as the banner crop
producers of the west, and yet those
signs OF lack OF prosperity would indi-
cate that something is preying upon
their vitals. No wonder the Iowa state
grange at it's last meeting denounced the
extortion of the trusts and the railroads,
especially the packers trust, which not
only robs the farmers but the consum-
ers by reducing the price of cattle and
hogs and increasing the price of meat.
Nor is it extraordinary that the Iowa
idea" that the tariff fosters the trusts
and does not stimulate agriculture, has
become the issue in that state, and al
though smothered for a time by the
manipulations of the republican lead
ers will be more difficult to suppress at
the coming national election.
The farmers of the western states are
discovering that good crops and large
incomes are offset by the enlarged ex-
actions of the trusts through the mo-
nopoly they enjoy under protection, and
is forcing them to examine the tariff is
sue for their own salvation. All the
buoyant talk of President Roosevelt of
the suppression of bad trusts has
produced no results. No trust has re-
duced prices and the railroads have ad-
vanced rates under his administration,
and in his message to the new congress
there is no word of recommendation for
tariff reform. The members of his cab
met are all noted pr~otectionists, and
some of them are VIGOROUSLY friends of
the corporations that have been shown
to be the most exacting and pernicious
extortionists that have been developed
in this extraordinary trust era.
If President Roosevelt was sincerely
trying to tighten the burdens of the
people of Iowa and Kansas and else
where of some of the same conditions
in every state, he would certainly urge
congress to reform the tariff, which a
high republican has assured us is "the
:lother of all trusts"