The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1918-02-08

1t is probably useless to admonish
farmers to beware OF the glib tongued
fellows who approach them in the guise
of friends, imbued with an irrepress-
ible desire to organize politics so as to
put the farmer in control of govern
ment to the end that he may secure
legislation favorable to himself. North
Dakota has but recently entered upon
a scheme of class distinction and class
legislation which will do more to keep
investors out of that state than an end
less chain of personal cyclones and cpl
denies, coupled with seven year
plague of grasshoppers. A fellow with
a genius for making easy money goes
through the state soliciting member
ship in some kind of political organ
ization confined to farmers at the lib
eral rate of SIG per head. He makes
the farmer believe that there is glo-
rious opportunity for him to become a
shining mark in politics. He will tell
how the farmer is ground down and
made to carry the worlds burdens
without ray of hope anywhere that
he may share in the worlds benefits.
The fellow is after the sixteen plunks
which the oppressed farmer received
for hundred pounds of pork. If the
farmer who may be thus approached
will sit down and carefully reason what
1t has cost him in dollars and cents to
follow the advice of these glib tongued
fellows, and the many adventures he
has engaged in, and spent money upon,
that have turned out to be bankrupt
institutions in few years, he will keep
his pork money and let the glib tongued
!, in, or on
way There is no doubt but that the
farmer should be in politics; that he
should be accorded all honors that are
Justly due him. and that he should be
recognized as being engaged in one of
the most useful industries in the coun
try. He should not be in politics as
ing office for the sole purpose of help
ing himself. No doubt when the farm
er prospers all others prosper, provided
the pores in the farmers prosperity
are not all closed with the pigment of
greed so that no part of his prosperity
is permitted to seep down through to
the less favored stratas of society.
There should be no class legislation in
a country which boasts ofits equal OPP
portunities. The new organization,
at p1O ucdts ID OSiLiS GU
by men of political ambition. Its prime
movers kept constantly before their
eyes the lure of office 1t is claimed
that the farmers have now gathered
together, through this organization in
this state alone, approximately $780,
600. What this vast sum of money is
to be used for is purely conjectural
One thing is certain and that IS that IN
the present state Of legislation there is
absolutely no need of the farmers Sc
curing a vast sum of money in order to
further their interests before any Leg
islative measure the farmer now stands
in need of which he cannot obtain for
the asking from any legislature that is
likely to convene in this or any other
state in the Union. Of course he can
not hope to secure the enactment of
laws permitting him to bludgeon
the public into submissiveness to ex-
tortionate demands. No good, intelli-
gent farmer will ask for such legisla-,
ton The farmer will be satisfied if
they are accorded the same privileges
under the law that are guaranteed to
other persons The farmer who is not
satisfied with the same kind of treat
ment the state accords to every other
industry and those engaged in it, is not
a farmer. bat political demagogue. =
MadisOnian.