What Set The Farmer Thinking

A Western farmer went into the Enstern market with a food product for sale, but found no buyers. A laboring man came up to hira and Baid: "We are living on almost nothing at our home. We haven't had a bite of moat for months. I'd like to buy your stuff, but I have no money." "Why don't you work and earn soine money?" said the Western farmer. "I'm ready and willing to work," said the laboring man, "but I was thrown out of employment when the factory sluit down. I have tramped the strooi of this town for two years, but I can't get a job." "What's the matter with your town," asked the farmer. "Don't you have soma means of making a living and earning money besides being dependent on the will of some bloated monopolist factory owner who can shut down on you and turn you out of employment whenover he wants toï" "You may cali these factory ownors bloated if you like," said the laboring man, "but they are not as bloated as they used to be. Many of them are ruiueÜ Cnaneially and all of them have suü heavy losses since we got the 'change' in '92. I voted for a'change' thon, but I'm sorry for it, for I've had very iitüc change in my pocket since." "But ' you don't mean to teil me do you,' said the Western farmer, "tliat yoa laboring men lay around here year aftcr year idle, waiting on the will of some plutocrat to open up the industries and give you employment? Now we are more independent out west. In Nebraska, where I live we don't wait for the consent of any man or any nation on earth. When we want to do a thing we just cut loose and do it, without asking the consent of anybody. "I like your grit," said the laboring man, "and I think it must be pleasant to do just as you please. But we ure not so progressive here in the East. We are sort o' dependent on eaeh other. For instance, I need $2 now to buy some of your produce, but I can't get the monoy becaüse I nave no work. I suppose if I were out in Nebraska where you don't have to wait for the consent of anyone else when you want to do anything, I conld just compel some of these factories to open and give me a job. I suppose out West when you take produce to town you don't even wait for the consent of a purchaser. You just compel Mm to buy whether he wants to or not, and of course you fix your own price." "Now you're makin' fun of me," said the farmer. "I don't mean it quite as you put it. I mean that we are for free coinage without waiting for the consent of England, and we think free coinage will open up the industries and that will give you employment. You see, by taking politics into your own hands you laboring men of the East can put yourselves into employment. It always humiliates me to see an American dominated over in politics by some plutocrat." "Yes, it used to be humiliating for ua here in the East and in '92 we resented the advice and the dictation of the business men. We had a gay time marching up and down the streets with baaners, singing: Fonr yeara more of Grover Then we'll be In elover. But we're not gay any more, I can teil you that. We brought the plutocrat to his knees, but we also feil flat on oui backs. We have learned this: when the laboring men of the country take up arms against the business men and foree into the government a policy which the business men are afiaid of, it generally turns out that the business men and the employers of labor draw tïteir business into as narrove limits as possible and that shuts many of us out of employment. I suppose it would work the same way out West, only you are more progressive out in Nebraska, and you do things just as you please. The mili that I woiked in was a good mili and was owned by good men, who treated us well, but an orator came along one day and made a speech in which he said we needed a 'change.' We all voted for it, although the mili owners were afraid of it. We had then the same idea that you have now out West. We thought we knew better how to run the business of the country than the business men and we cut loose from their advice. We are waiting now to vote ourselves out of this Democratie elover field. We are not as fat, not as well fed, not as gay as we were in '92, but we've got a heap more sense. We've found out that we can't get work in a factory nnless it runs. And you can't run a factory if it'3 loein' money right along, because lts money soon runs out and then it's got to stop. I can't buy no Nebraska produce today, but if McKinley's elected the milis will all tart and then you can sell your stuff for spot cash and no badt talk." -One of William J. Bryan's Nebral ka constituents, a man who is well acquainted with the Popocratic candidate for President, describes him as "representing lawyers who have no clients, financiers who have no funds, and statesmanship which ie made up of siiteen parts elocution to one of study, experience and wiidom."- Lafayette (IncLJ Courier.