Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1906-11-09
FREE seed
IS A Farce.
The Government Spends Hundreds Of
Thousands USeleSSIy.
when Will IT CEAsEl

/
When will congress put an end
to that pitiful farce known as the
congressional free seed distribu.
tionl The position of members
of the great house of representa-
tives who vote these gratuities to
their constituents is becoming
more and more humiliating every
year. Now that the state and
local oranges and other associa-
lions of farmers in all parts of
the country have taken up the
matter and are adopting resolu.
tons repudiating these paltry
gifts. the congressman are begin.
ming to realize that they can no
longer hope to fool the hay
seeds"
A farmer who sends his sons to
Yale and Harvard, who travels
around the country in his auto.
mobile, who has a telepbone in
his house and probably in his
barn. with an acetylene gas plant,
hot and cold water and his mail
delivered at his door, is not the
kind of farmer to be fooled by a
ive-cent package of Mothers
Delight Cucumber Seed" into be.
lieying that his representative in
congress lies awake at night
thinking of him and his interests.
He is shrewd enough to realize
that the seed costs the congress
man nothing, that he does not pay
any postage on it, and that as it
is sent out by his clerk the con-
gresham does not know nine
Ia
times out of ten to whom it is
sent. But even if they we're in
clined to swallow these gifts as a
personal remembrance. they are
insutled that their intelligence
should be so moderated as to lead
to the sending out of such yarie.
ties of seeds as are distributed un.
der the guise of rare and valu.
able" seeds. Congress does no,
dare to label these gifts for what
they are, a cheap device fol-
catching votes" but makes the
S25O,OOO appropriation annually
for rare and valuable" seeds.
What these seeds are and what
disposition is made of them i!
well illustrated by the following
incident, which will be presented
to congress next winter supported
by the proper exhibits anC
affidavits: A few days. ago
Long Island florist was passing tn,
home of a neighbor when be saw
a pile of packages of government
seeds several feet high and a.
many feet square at the base, be
ing burned. On inquiry he foun,
his neighbor was destroying tn,
seed to get rid of them, and fol-
half a dollar he purchased a bushe
bag full. the remainder bein!
burned. The seeds we're taken tt
New York City and are now il
the possession of a prominen
seed firm of that city. 1t is es
timated that about ten thousan,
packages were burned and on
thousand saved. Examination o
these packages showed that they
were not old seed and therefor
necessarily worthless. A larg
part of them were under the fran
of a member of congress iron
New York who is serving his frs
term and Therefore they are par
of the forty million packets sen
out this year. The others Dor
the frank of an ex.member fror
New York, so were probably
: year or two old. Evidently the
had accumulated until it was de
5 cided to get rid of them all at on
S time by burning.
81 1t was naturally a question a
S to why such rare and valuable
S seeds should have been so ruth
S lessly destroyed, so an inquir,
! was made as to just how ''rsr
land valuable" the seeds were tbs