The Farmer

The accompanying illustrations are from New York newspapers of recent date. They are published to show the popular idea of the personality of the American farmer in the gold stronghold of the country. I will invite your attention to two pictures. Twenty-five years ago the American farmer was a king. Poets sang about hira. Orators praised hiin. Edward Everett held up an ear of golden corn beforo his audieuce aud eulogized the grower in s ti c h eloquent words th at storms of applause shook the hall. We loved to read and quote t he old stirring liues telling how "the erabattled farmers stood" at Lexington and Concord, and it was universally agreod that they were the salvatión of the land. They were the hardy yeonianry, the free and independent workers, and even snch foreign visitors as De Tocqueville went out of their way to describe the happy condirion of' the landowning farmer in this country. Washington gloried in being a farmer. Our greatest statesrnen passed their vacations on their own farms, arnong their horses and cattle. They delighted in rural pleasure, they worked and personally directed their employees, and from a seasou of this kiud of life and close contact with the people they came back to Washington wonderfully froshened by haviug lived close to the heart of natnre, more American and more democratie and more in love with their own land. Their names were coupled iu the popular lore , with the names of their estates. It was Washington of Mount Vernon, Jefferson of Monticello, Clay of Ashland, Webster of Marshfleld and Jackson of The Hermitage. Where is that farmer now? The Villflcatlon. He is the gibe and the sneer of every clown who can set on the city stage in spotted breeches. He is the butt of vile jokes iu the city saloons. He shaies with the mule and the niother - in - law, the plantation darky, the rusty stovepipe and the tramp as the stock material f or cheap paragraphers. Heisbrought on the stage of every low theater as the stock tim of all tho stale old practical jokes. "Hayseed" and "Wayback" and " Jay" are his regular titles, even amone cultivated people, and in the slums ' 'farmer" is one of the vile epithets -which provoke ft fight. He figures in the illustrated comics as a half savage. Look at the pictures of the typical farmer in the New York papers and see something like this : A long, loan, laukmonstrosity, with bones showing horribly prominent through his clothes, a face like a pointed Gothic front, a nose that describes an irregular are from the lowest point between the eyes down over the mouth, and on his chin what is supposed to be a r. bnt la wisp of weuthei hay. This is the farmer of toclay as the pecple of the cities are taught to conöider him. And why this chauge? It is because he has been systeinatically robbed for 80 ycars and has aubnntted to the robbery and voted for more of it. He is despised becanse he has conseuted to his own degradation. His veiy virtuos have beeu made the meausof his degradatiou. The farmers, and especially the men who till their own acres, are our great conservative class. The? dread revolutiou. They love their country with an impassioned ardor born of close contact with the soil - au ardor of patriotism whieh s o m e writera have thonght impossible in men reared in cities. Naturally, tberefore, the uorthern farmers stood by their govornment iu the great civil war. The Ropublicau party was in power and acquired an immense prestige by tbr successful issue of the conflict. Naturally agam, therefore, the great majority of farmers credited all good thiugs to that party. They could uot believe that the party of Lincoln and Sumner and other friends of hnmanity wonld do aught of iujiisticc. The Kobbery. Tho war tariff was prolonged in time of peaco despite solemn promises to the oontrary. Empires t' land and hnndreds of millions nl nioney were given to great oorporationa Credit Mobilier, the Indian ring, the whisky riug, the star route ring and scores of others followed inrapid sncoossion, but though the farmers mur mured they did not revolt. They looked the fact that parties are composed of men and therefore subject to change. They were slow to believe that the grand old party could eontain schemers. On top of all the rest comes a flnancial system which has added 80 per cent to the value of mouey and depreciated the price of the farmer's produnts in like proportiou, and at the least signa of a revolt on his part be is denounced as a traitor. It is assumed as a matter of course that Wall strect should strive for a rise in stocks, that manufacturera should lobby for a hjgher tariff, that the Pacific Railway compauies should evade payment of their debt. All other men can vote and lobby to raise the price of what they own and be good (Jhristians, but at the bare hiut that the farmer is to vote for restoring silver to get a little better price for his crops, the country rings with frantic cries of rage and denunc i at ion. The farmer has submitted too long. He has lost the respect of those who have robbed him, and it is much to be f eared that in great part he has lost his own self respect. His poverty has become is reproach. The Affllction of Abundance. "But there has been so great an increase in production. Now, why shonld the farmer complain that prices go down aa the size of the erop goes up? And how can you prove that elevating the condition of the farmer will elévate that of other laborers?" Itis impossible to raiso the agricultural class of any country without raising all the other classes who depend on labor for a living. It is not absolutely ímpossible to press down the agricultural laborer and yet leave the city laborer unaffected, but it is very tmlikely. The farmer, however, does not complain that he gets less per pound or per bushel when the erop is big than when it is small. What he does complain of, and what he has a richt to complain of, (Continuad on Third Pase.) THE MIER Contlnued from First Page. is that.prioes have i he gets veryniuch i ■ - '.r a very big erop than he fcvinul f; ; for ;i mail one. Tlnis the bounties cJf PrOvi;ence are turned into curses aud I omius; to look npon abuudance as an affliction. Let me cali your atteution to omo figurea. In 1SS1 the farmers produwd 41 ■,48 1,000 bushels of oats and eceivnd tiierefor $198,198,970; in 883 they produced 571,302,400 bushels n.1 reoeived for it 1187,040,264; in 889 they produced 751,515,000 bushels and received $171,781,008, and so on own, the amouut rising as the money eceived foï it ell, till 1895, ■when they pro duced 824,443,37 bushels of ata and received herefor $163,55,068. And the )opulatiou has ncreased 70 per ent. In 1870 we prodxiced 1,094,25,000 bushels of corn, worth $601,839,030; in 893 1,619,496,31 bushels, vorth $591,625,627, and in 1895 2,15 1, 138,580 jushels, -worth S56 7, 5 0 9,106. O v erproduction, yon say, but divide the bushels by the wpulatioii oach year, and you will fiud Jbat per capita the increase was quite mail, and in such years as 1890 and 894, when the erop was very short and ;he number of bushels per capita very much less than the average of several ears ago, the price per bushei was still ow. The Decline In Valne. Since 1870 the producten of hay in :he United States has increased in almost exact parallelism with the increase of population, and yet the average valué per ton has declined from S13.82 to $8.35. This last is the farm )rice as reported by the agricultural department for July; nevertheless, on he day I write this hay is selling in íew York city by retail at $18 per ton, which is a beautiful illustration of how your city consumer "profits" by the loss of the farmer. Wheat is supposed to be an exception because our rivals in other countries are producing so inuch, and yet the figures are significant. In 1881, for instance, 388,280,090 busbela were valued at $456,880,427, and in 1895, 467, 102,947 bushels at 1237,938,998. And yet the world has not as much wheat as it wants, and not mnch more than half as much as it would buy if it had the wherewith. There is evidently something the matter that cannot be explained by that handy phrase "overproduction. " Has there been any overproduction of fathogs? Every f armer knows that there is just now a great scarcity, almost a hog faniine. And yet fat bogs in the central región of the west are Eelling at 3 cents a pound or less, when but a few years ago they sold at 6. Has there been any o ver production in milk oows? The census will show you they are less numerous in proportion to population than the were, and yet the price is going steadily downward. I s there an duction of laúd? In two-thirds of the country east of Illinois you eau today buy thousands of splendid farms at what they were assessed for in 1870, and in some of the fluest parts of New York state they will sell you goocï farnis &t the assessment of 1860. Farmers do not complain at reduced prices for prodnets of which there has been a very great production, but the figures show a decline, though not so great, in articles of which there is an adniitted scarcity and that the general decline is very much greater than can be accounted for by the amount produced. Starving Midst Plenty. But as a matter of fact is there any overproduction? Have mankind more breadstuffs than they can eat and rnore cottou thau they eau wear and more pork and beef than they want or more shoes than theyneed? Why, the largest wheat erop ever raised only amounted to three bushels per capita for the people of the civilized world, and, deducting seed and that made into whisky, little ' over two bushels per capita was left for bread. It has been repeatedly shown that the world's cotton erop is still 8,000, 00C bales short of the world's cousumptive demand. Our own agrioultural department has shovrn that the American people are eating considerably less wheat per capita than they dil a few years ago, and if you will (ate the annani reporte for 20 years and deduct that used for export and seed from the erop of eaoh yearand that fed to stock in late years yon will findthat 70,000,000 people are eating only aboxit the same auiovmt of wheat flour that 55,000,000 people did. In Europe also it hs been shown that nearly 100,000,000 people cannot afford te eat wheat bread. They are usiug olieap Bubsti tutes like rye and potatoes. Are we to suppose that they do that for fun? EnormoOH Losses to Agricalture. If you want to realizewhat enormous loases American farmera have sustained becanse of the increased purchasingpower 'of gold, look over the files of the gold papers before this beeanie a politioal issue, before they had any interest in denying the truth. In the New York Sun of Sept. 10, 1893, for instance, was an editorial of which this is an extract : For more than 15 years, 1878 to 1893, all the great primary agricultural staplos havo been declining In price, although there have been periods when the price of some one was high for a lhnited time. This is more notably true as respects secondary products, especially meafcs and lard, but the trend of the %s-hulu scale has been constantly downward, and tho general prioe level at the end of each year was lower than at its beginning. In the meantimo there had been no material reduction in the cost of production, the self binder, the gang plow, mower, hay tedder and hay loader and all other great improvements in agricultural machinery having come into uso prior to 1878. Subsequent modiöcations and improvements have been in the direction of greater facility ín operation rather than of lessened cost. While it is true that there has been a material reduction in the cost of farming implements, such reduction has not always resulted in lessening the cost of production on the farm, as new machines have often displaced those which were but partially worn and which were quite as efficiënt. It is probable that upon farms large enough to warrant the purchase of full lines of improved machinery the cost of production has thereby been lessened 10 per cent, but such farms constituting loss than 5 per cent of the whole area uhder cultivation the aggregate eaving from such economies has been slight and bas probably been fully offset by the progressively increasing use of commercial fertilizers which has been found nocessary in all the región east of the Mississippi, not to ineroase the fertility of the land, but simply to prevent f urther deterioration. The Yield of an Acre. While the cost of production cannot have been lessened as much as 5 per cent since 1875, prices Lor the staple products of tho farm averagcd 82 per cent greater during the fivo years ending with 1875 than now. This is espeoially true as respecta the five ataples-, corn. wheat. oats, hay and cot-' ton- whlch employ 195,01)0,000 out of 206,000,000 acres now dovotod to staple crops. ( The following table shows-i in five year averages the gold' value por acre (in the local farm markets) of the product of the five Staples named for quinquennial periods since 1866 and an estímate of the valué with average yields of an acre under each such staple in 1893 at present prices: VAX.UE OF AN ACRE'S PRODUCT. 66-70. '71-5. '76-80. '81-5. '86-Í10. '93. Com....$12 84 $11 80 $9 f.2 $10 25 $8 81 $8 35 Wheat .. 13 16 11 60 12 00 1U 20 9 07 6 00 Oats. ... 10 92 9 81 8 68 9 17 7 50 5 75 Hay.... 13 28 14 L3 1157 1115 10 19 10 00 Cotton.. 28 01 2S 55 17 65 15 d 13 84 10 05 Total . .$78 21 $75 04 S59 42 $56 40 W) 44 $40 75 Average 15 64 15 19 11 88 11 28 9 49 8 15 You can find all that denied or skillfnlly evaded in The Sun nowadays, but that cuts no figure. Nobody denied it bcfore this became a political qneation, The decline still continúes, and tbere is every indigatkra that it will continue. And now the great tion is, What is the farmer giug t0 do about it? On him depends the solution of thia all important issue. The fate of bimetallism is in his hands. A Simple Fact. "But is not the money questiou too compliciitecl for farmers to raaster it, in the brief time between tbis and the electicn?" Not at all. Iu its present shape indeed it is singularly simple. It can be redneed to two or three plain questions. perhaps to oiie, and tnat is, Has silver depreciated or gold appreciated since 1873? On their answer to that depend the vetes of a million honest farmers. Monometallists say gold has stood atill while all other things have cheapened. We say that silver has stood almost unchanged while gold has advanced enormously in value, and, what is more, we prove it by every line of reasoniugwhich can be applied to the subject. That sil: (Con"inul on ya.ze 6.) TEE FÜÜB . - - - iConlinued frona page o.) ver is by natural law far more stable in valué than gold has been proved from geology, f rom niiueralogy, from metallurgy and still more by eomparing the fluctuatious of prices in different oountries having the different standards or in the same country at different times. Every one of these tests bas yielded exactly the sanie result. The fluctuations sirce the principal nadons adopted titer iuu. .- ..una na-vc ixceeded all prenonsly kuown. But ere is a simple test whioh the farmer can easily apply for himself: Take the average of prioes in your neighborhood for the five years ending in 1875 (it is not fair to take one year) and the average gold or greenback value of a ten onnce bar of süver at that time. Divide and see what that silver ■woxild have bought. Do the same for the five years ending with 1895, and yon will find that the silver will buy more. Is it uot arrogant and insulting noneense to say that silver has depreciated ■when it will buy more of the products of your labor? Here is a table to heip yon in the calculation : Prioe of Price of Priee of wheat, cotton, silver. perbushel. per pound. per aunce. 1872 47 10.3 H 32 1673. 131 18.8 129 1874 1 43 15.4 1 2. 1875 1 12 15.0 1 24 1876 1 24 12.9 1 lo 1877 117 11.8 120 1878 1 84 11.1 1 lo 1879 1 07 8.9 1 12 1880 1 25 11.5 1 14 1881 1 11 11-4 1 13 1882 1 19 11.4 1 13 1883 1 13 10.8 1 11 1884 1 U7 10.5 1 01 1885 86 10.6 100 1886 87 9.9 PO 1887 89 9.5 1888 85 9.8 03 1889 B0 9.9 93 1890 J 10.1 104 1801 85 10. SK 1892 80 8.7 86 1803 65 7. 75 The Conoentration of Wealth. "Many cite the concentrad on of wealth in a few hands as one cause of the farmer'spoverty, but is not that worse in other couiitries with different systems?" There is no country of high civilizatioii in which it is so bad, except haps in one or two wbere the prooess bas been going on for 1,000 years, but in no country, aucieut or modern, has the process been so rapid as in this. In 1860 there were alleged to be in this nation a dozen millionaires. Today there are at least 5,000 and probably many mora On this point we have nnimp eachable testimony and from an unwilliug wituess. Early m 1892 Hon. Roswell G. Horr, tariff editor of the New York Tribune, started out to prove that protection did not create ruilliouaires. Under bis directiou a very careful census was takeu in every part of the Uuited States by The Tribnne's agents. The lista were published weeldy in The Tribune for correction and then cjompiled in a pamphlet. The nmuber esceeded 4,000 and was Boon proved to be entirely too "mijalL Mr. Horr succeeded ia proving to h i s own satisíaction that only l.aoo were manufacturera. "And how were the rest made?" The enormous land grants and subsidies to railroads made a few dozens like Stanford, Crocker and Huntington. The sndden growth of western cities due to the hothouse system of forcing development made a few hundreds. Dozens like Jay Gould aud his fellows were made by the system of railroad wrecking. Many were made by speculation in gold and goverument bonds, by the national banking system and many other schemes fostered by government. A few - very few, it must be adniitted - were honestly made by legitímate enterprises in whioh the government was not a partner, and many by the advanoe in real estáte in onr great cities. Many others have carried the investiga tion much f a r t h e r. Thomas G. Shearman, Esq. , the great lawyer, has conclusively shown that soine 30, 000 mea ownor absolutely control one-half the property of the United States; that 100,000 men own half the remainder, and that the great mass of laboring producers actually own very little if any more than they did in 1860. The resul ts are simply awful. Ten men in New York city today hold the credit of the United States absolutely at their mercy. If it were to their interest, they could tomorrow Bweep away the gold basis and precipitate a panic in Wall. street But_the farmer is told that all this is none of tiis msiness and is expected to be controlled n his vote by the gold superstition. The Gold Superstitioo. ' 'How eau there be a gold snperstition? What do you mean by such a phrase?" I mean just what the words imply - that a large portion of the human race las become posBQseed witfa the uotion that gold .8 iufallible, a notiou as degradíng iu its way as the A f r i o a n suake worship. Nine-teutbs of the gold rnouornetallists in this sountey boldly proclaim that, while all other coiuinodities change in valué, gold does uot. "We kuow," the sa v ages say, "that Mumbo Jumbo is ugly and we believe fhat he is great. " We langh al the jjöur heathen, bnt the argument is on their side, for it never has been mathematically proved, and it cannot be proved, that Munibo Jumbo bas not great power in the unseeu ; but it has repeatedly been proved in every way open to the human intellect that gold is a shifting and unstable standard of value, far more unstable than silver, and that twice vpithin the meniory of men not very old it has changed in value so suddenly as to vitiate all long time contract and dislócate all industrial coaditious. The Fact About Gold. Every economist worthy of the name had said again and again that gold fluctnates in value. No economie writer has ever denied ik In his " Wealth o f Nations" Adam Sraith says: "Gold and silver, like every other commodity, vary in their valué. The discovery of the abundaut mines of America reduced in the flfteenth century the valué of gold and silver in Europe to about a third of what it had been before. This revolution in their valué, though perhaps the greatest, is by no means the only one of which history gives some aooount. " Professor Jevons, in his work upou "Money and the Mechanism of change, " chapter 6, says, "In respect to steadiuess of value the rnetals are probably less satisfactory, regarded as a standard of value, than rnany other commodities, such as coru. " By "corn" Professor Jevons raeans wheat aud all other cereals. Ricardo, in his paper on the "High Price of Bulliou," says, "If we dirninish the quantity of currency, we give an additional value to it. " By "curreucy" Ricardo meant money of every character, inclading gold. Mr. Macleod, in his able work on tbe "Elements of Banking," says, "The actual alteration in the qtiantitics of the precious metáis has material ly altered their valué at different periods of history. ' ' Professor Francis A. Walker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in his able work on mouey, says: "Gold aud silver do over long per i o d s undergo great changes of value and become in a high degree deceptive as a measure of the objigation of the debtor, of the claim oí the creditor. Thus Professor Jevons estimatesthatthevalueof gold feil Vetween 1789 and 1809 46 per cent, and frota 1809 to 1849 it rose 145 per cent" When Gold Was Ctaeap. It is a point well worth noting, however, that in the seven or ejght years - 1849-56 - that gold, according to the best authorities, lost 25 pêr cent of its value, the world accommodated itself very easily to the changa The only outcry was froni the hclders of fixed iudebtedness, and they wanted to demouetize gold because it -as too cheap. We heard very little about that in this country and the niasses of our people did not even know it, because we had then no permanent creditor class, no great bondholders ; but the literature of Europe at the time was full of coraplaints, AND AUSTRIA, GERMANY AND BELGIUM ACTUALLY DEMONETIZED GOLD. On the other hand, the rapid increase in the value of gold ■svithin the last 20 years has wrought worldwide bankruptcy, has brought a wail of distress from producers in all lands, has again and again shaken the very foundations of credit throughout the British empire, and right dow, according to Dr. Eduard Suess, threatens a redivision of the earth. In short, contraction is very many times more destructive than inflation. "But the monometallists deny that there has been any contraction, or that gold cheapened in 1849-56, or that it has really appreciated in value since 1870." Oh, yes, they'll deny anything now. Macaulay has well said that if a property interest were affected by it thousands of intelligent men wonld deny the law of gravitation. Only a few years ago some of the greatest scholars in this country denied that a man whose skin was black and his hair woolly had a natural right fo the fruits of his labor or that a married woman had a right to her own earnings. A Danseroua Basis. Iu no speech or book pnblished before 1890 will you flnd ít denied that the 'olume of money and its proportiou to eeneral trade are the niain factors iu ermiuing t h e general tevel of rices, it was ;aken f or granted hat the amount of mouey of uitiiuate redemption letermiued the n'ice level. It va-; the foundaiou upou which 1 1 1 disptitants built their ;irgumeuts. Bat ntnv you eau hear it lenied every day. nd why? cause it does not nt ene arguinenrs if those who have selflsh interests to serve. They now maintain that all 'orms of curreney, iucluding checks and every other kind of representativo money, must be counted the same as the coin basis, though every sound financier knows thafc, by thé method of the administration in construing the laws, silver now perforrns no function that greenbacks would not, a2d that silver, silver certificatos and greenbacks are mere token money, all resting on the dangerously narrw basis of that metal whicii is the mofcy of ultimate redemption. "You admit, however, that the f ree coinage of sil'TPT would produce some inflation. Suppqse it were but 10 or 20 per cent, as Swator Jones thinks. Would not even that nrach inflation do great harm in dislocating existing business conditions?" History has answered that question so conclusively that argument is unnecessarv. In 1849-56 the specie tion thrcraghout the world is alleged to have been some 25 per cent, and in this country there was a general currency mflation of 40 per cent. Was anybody badly hurt? Look over the papers of that time and see if you can flnd any complaiuts froin the farmiug regions. Do not economist s of all schools a gr e e that the 12 years immediately preceding our civil war were tbe golden age of the American farmer, if he ever had one? Again, from early in 1862 to early in 1865 the currency of this country was inflated at least 150 per cent. Some harm was done, of course, because the inflation was rapid and tremendous. It was six times as great as any inflation now possible from the free coinage of silver, trat the only serions evil in it was that it gave occasion for a subsequent contraction. The Beneflts of Expanslpn. I might quote all the economie venters, from Adam Sniith down, to the effect that the volume of inoney is the main factor in fixing the general price level. You will find the doctrine ably set forth in the works of Adam Smith, John Locke, David Hume, John Stuart Mili, David Ricardo, William Stanley Jevons and by all the-French and American economists. The appalling effects of long continued contraction and the almost marvelous benefits resulting from a liberal increase in the coin supply are tbtts beautifully set forth by Sir Archibald Alison in his history of Europe: "THE TWO GREATEST EVENTS THAT HAVE OCCURRED IN .THE HISTORY OF MANKIND HAVE BEEN DIRECTLY BROÜGHT ABOÜT BY A CONTRACTION AND, ON THE OTHER HAND, AN EXPANSIÓN OF THE CIRCULATING MEDIUM OF SOCIETY. THE FALL OF_ THE ROMAN EMPIRE, SO LONG AS0EIB3D IN IGKOBAÏTCE TO SLA VER Y, EGOTIÜÍ AND MORAL CORRUPTION.WAS iy REALITY EEOüüflT ABOUT BY A JDIZCLiIiCE ll t: : ilver A?TD ; LD mines op e?.:;t aí-.d o ■ i AND, AS IF PBC"-; EN'! !3 ! LI) INTENDED TO ' _r_: CLEAREST MLL'.Y.ZZ: TH3 IK"FLUENCE Cv' THIS MIGHTY AGENÏ OX HUMAN AFFAIRS, THE RESÜRRECTION OF MANKIND FLO:.I THE RUIN V;;íCH THOfíü CAUál'S HAD PRODÜCED WAS ÓWING TO A DIRECTLY OPPOSXTE SET OF AGENCIES BEING PUT ÍN OPERATION. COLUMBUo LED THE WAY IN THE CAREEROF IÏENOVAT10N. WHEN HE SPREAD EIS SAILS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, HE BORE MANKIND AND ITS FORTUNES IN HI3 BARK. THE ANNFAL 3ÜPPLY OP THE PP-i:CIOUS METALS F Cl: THE USE Oí? TÜH WORLD WAS TRIPLED. BEFOEB A CENTURY HAD EXPI ".: T! THE PRICC8 OF LVERY SPECIES OPPP.ODUCEVVEEE QüADüPLEÜ. THTi WE OF DEBT AND INSENSÍBLY N ■ - ,' ÜNDSE THE INPLUENCE IZAT PliODIGTOUS INC3EASE." The Warjcs ■'( Lribor, He miglií ! vi' ac .. !, ; ad thi= pnint eems to vo ." . :.)(i: ai tallist friciids, that the wages of látorers rose cousiderably faster than the prices of necessaries. Eveii so did they iu 184856. And why íiot asrain? Intruththe wages of more than half our laborera liave got to rise before there can be a rise in necessaries. Monometallists have oonveniently overlooked the faot that 60 per ceut of the laborera iu the United States do not work for flxed money wages ; they produce, aud what they sell the products for constitutes their wages. It is self evident, therefore. that a rise in the price of the product is itself a rise in wages. This class ineludes all the farmers, cotton, sugar and tobáceo growers, vegetable gardeners, men, growers of all kinds of live stock fcc food, and mnny others that I cannot detail. One of the worst errors of the nionometallist is in assuming that the great mass of our workers are hired laborers, and they getthat inipression f rom ijxch misleading documeuts is the Ai j.rioh report, about which so nmch hal been said. Examine that report carefully and you will find that the workingmen in all the trades ruentioned in it do not together number quite one-fourth as many as the farmers of the country. And their method óf treating this subject accounts for a very large part of the ill humor among farmers. In spite of the census and comnion sense, our alleged statesmen and economista insist on treating the subject as if the farmer were not a laboring man. A congressional committee is appointed to go out and prove that wages have risen, and of course they prove it But how? They take the highest wages paid to the most skillíul iaborers in the high est priced cities at the busiest season of the year. As a rule they take only t h o s e laborers who are in we]l organized trades unions, although they are but a tenth of the laborers of the country, and they are extremely carefnl not to take into the account the uumber who aro earning no wages at all, which is a pretty considerable item when you reflect that in Ohio, for instance, thecoal rniners only averaged 148 days of f uil work last year. If you will take all laborers, especially all who produce the neeessaries of life froni the soil, and count lost time, you -will find that since 1873, except in cases -where they have been abnormallj; kept up by__tra_des unión ruethods, wages have declined in the same ratio as coinrnodities. The Farmers' Meager Income. A rise in the price of necessarics then would of itseif be a rise in the wages of 60 per cent of the laboring producers. But would it stop there? Certainly not. The farmers would first pay their pressing debts and set the money in motion. They wonld then supply themselves with those things they ' have wauted so loug and been corapelled todo without. AJ 1 the country merchants aud all the country I artiaans iinmediately dependent on the farmers, such as blacksiniths, cobIblers, carpenters, painters "aud the like, would immediately share in the gain, aud all ofchers in the improvement due to a general gain in trade. Our agricultura! department bas shown that the farmers' iiicome has decJiued over 6 per cultivated acre. THAT MEANS TH AT FOR THE WHOLE COUNTRY THEY ARE RECEIVING ABOUT 1,800,000,000 (EIGHTEEN HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS) LESS THAN THEY DJD A FEW YEARS AGO. NOT RECEIVING IT, OF COURSE THEY CANNOT SPEND IT. HOW CAN THERE BE WORK FOR CITY LABOEERri OR PROSPERITY FOR ANYBODY WHE2Ï THE FARMERS ARE SPENDING 1,800,000,000 A YEAR LESS THAN THEY NATURALLY WOULD? THERE IS NO CONGRESS WISE ENOUGH TO DEVISE A TARIFF THAT WILL HELP WORKMEN IN MANUFACTORIES SO LONG AS THE FARMERS CANNOT BUY THE PRODUCTS. "Would free coinage raise prices to the oíd standard?" It would uot. Nor is it desirable that it shouid. As we have been ruiming down hiil for 20 years I shcrukl not complain if we were seven yeais in , tiug to tlie top igain. The great tliiup to de, and the oae thing thut must be done if we are to aveit g-T.eral paralysis, is to step the decline v. n re it now is and then chuLi-t( froni a f alling to a rising imirket. That will give us time to breatlie. It will stiruulate enterprise. No man will invest money now ■with even chances of having bis investrneut decline on his bands. Eut give a reasonable assurance even of a triñing ádvauce and everything will at once put on new life. I need cite no proof s of this. It is the universal cxperience of all countries and in all times. Honest Money. "But jou concede, if I understand you, that a part of the decline in farm produce prices has been due to greatly ncreased production?" ünquestionably. No intelligent man denies it. How much is due to that and iow much to ruonoruetallisrn we cannot figure out to a cent, but I think we can come much nearer to it than the monornetallists admit. All past experieiice has shown t h a t inoreased prodnctiou of the necessaries cf life does not of itself reduce priccs in the exact proportion ot the increase, for increased deniand comes in and very frequcntly offsets all the gain in productiou. For convenience's sake I will state in the briefest possible form what ailverites believe on this subject We maintain : 1. Th at there is not enough gold in the world and cannot be enough produced to maintain the present level of prices. If inonometallism prevails, there mnst be a still further shrinkage. I dare not conjecture how far it will go, but I am certain that it will not stop short of 40 cent wheat and 4 cent cotton and other things in proportion. Gold will then be afar more "boneat money" than now, for it will buy much more. You see how neat and complete this honcst money argument is and how it rapidly grows strenger is prices go down, for, if a dollar which will buy 2 trashels of wlieat and 16 pouuds of cotton is more honest i -oich will buy 1 bushei of 'wheat aud 8 pounds of cottou, then a dollar which will buy 4 bushels of wheat or 82 ponnds of cottou will be twice as hcrest as the ono we now have. 2. That there is not enough of both gold and silver to restore the prices of 1870-3 or of 1880-3. A Real Gold Basis. 3. That i:i conseqnence of tüs mucfa greater increase of populatiou and production thau oí' fche metáis, if there had been uo dcinonetization, both gold and ailver would have gained greatly iu valué since 1873. The villainy of 1110110ruetallism lies iu the f act that nll the gaiu has beeu conceutrated in gold. By ■svay of general conclusión, I believe that monometallism fcr riie world is imposBible, aud that Europe oiily maintains it on theconciitiou that other uations do tot. In fact, if it is to be maintained in this couutiy and Enrope, we must prepare for another shrinkage so great that the people will not endure it. There is a spirit abroad in the country now that is uot very pleasaut to thiuk of, and if there is another turn of the screw - and there must bo several turns before we get down to a real gold basis - it ismnch to be feared that there will be something lite general ban kruptcy and repudiation. Justconsider this fact : The national, state, provincial, municipal and railroad debts of the world, those debts which are funded aud permanent, the interest only being paid, now amount to at least $40,000,000,000, and the interest ca it is over 2,000,000,000 per ye;ir. IT NOW TAKBS ALMOST EXACTL7 TWICE AS MUCH CORN, WHEAT, BEEF, PORK, COTTON AND OTHER EXPORT PRODUCTS TO PAY THAT INTEREST AS IT DÍT) WHEN THE DEBTS WEKE CONTRACTED. DOES HONESTY REQUIRE THAT THE LABORING PRODUCERS OF THE WORLD SHOULD PAY 100 PER CENT MORE THAN WAS ORIGINALLY CONTRACTED FOR? "Well, granting that many things have been done to the in jury of the farmer, what can we do at this late day to reinedy them?" A Word of Counsel. We can at least reverse the machine. We know what has hurt us, and we can put a step to it. One man just now stands for all that has hurt the farmer. Williaui MoKiiiley is the political incarnation of those enornious land granta a n d subsidies which made milliouaires by the hundreds ; of the war tari ff in time of peace, which transferred 12,000,000,000 in values froin the west to the east and from the country to the great cities ; of ithe national banking systeni, the demonetization of silver and the enormous increase in the power of gold ; of Credit Mobilier and force bilis, of vastly increased governrnent sxpenditures and every extravagant schenie for building up great covporafcions. He represents it all and glories in representing it. He tells youwith refreshing candor that if he can have his way you shall have a great deal more of that sort of thing. A vote for hiin is a vote to indorse it all and open tho way to a much greater advauce in the same direction. A vote for him is a vote for ïold monometallism and lower prices for farm produce. William Jennings Bryan, on the other hand, stands for a restoration of the metallisin of the constitution and against the things above mentioned. All other classes are striving to get more forwhat they sell, and why not you, the Earmers? Railroad mauagers meet in high clave toinakeprofitablerates onfreight; maiiufacturers do the same for tbeir profit; brokers labor to advance stocks. All these vote and use the governiuent to make mouey, and all denounce yon farmers as no bctter than thieves for doing the same thing. Vote, as justice rehuiros, to restore the old contract. Vote to help yourselves. Vote for Bryan, the money of the constitution and the uplii'ting of the agricultural interests.