Decatur Democrat, Volume 35, Number 25, Decatur, Adams County, 11 September 1891 — Page 4

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Used in Millions of Homes— 40 Years the Standara

©he gemxxrrai JT. BIXCO URN, Proprietor. I. SEPT. 11. ISO 1. If the Republican party holds to to the high protection theory next campaign there will be but little left afterwards to kick. Where do the Republican leaders stand on the issue of free coinage? That is what some people are trying to find out, but the utterances of McKinley, Sherman or President Harrison give nd certain signs. There is an evident weakening among Republican managers as to the McKinley tariff. They are begin" ning to damn it with faint praise. The appalling increase of business failures throughout the country is having its effect. .g' 11 1 Whoever has the petition for the gravel road on the north side of the river, will confer :i favor on the public if they will put the same in view of some of the property owner? alon" thg< proposed line. Let tin same\}e pushed this fall, so that work can be commenced early in the spring. Germany has raised the embargo on American pork so that we can ship our pork there, but to off set our high protection they charge ua tariff of twenty-five per cent. While this will give an outlet foi some of our excess of pork, tin twenty-five per cent tariff will havt a tendency to make shippers buy at the very lowest prices. Our Republican friends still s:i\ the tariff is not a tax, yet they sa' see how we the price of sugar by taking off the tariff ami the government paying to the man ufacturer the sum of two cents a pound on all they manufacture. The bounty thus paid by the government is thus paid by the people in an increase of tariff on some other articles, thus robbing the consumer on the one article, to pay the bounty on another. People who are buying schoolbook outfit this week for just onethird the price they paid two years ago should thank the Democratic reform legislature for the new “law that has made the change. Do you remember the howl that was made at the time by the Republicans and the school book trust monopolists? These are the same people who make the same howl whenever a reduction of the tariff is suggested. Few nations, perhaps none produce so much wealth as ours, and this fact is sounded long and loud by the Republican tariff robbers. Yet while we are a prosperous nation we are not prosperous people. It is not in the amount of wealth created, so much as it is in the nature of its distribution that prosperity or its opposite can be determined. I! the larger portion of the wealth pasi into the hands of a few at the expense pense of the many, then the rich become richer and the poor poorer. When millionaires and mortgagi indebtedness grow with acccleartcd Ratio, then indeed are the peoph nearing a revolution either by thi peaceful ballot or the death-dealing bullet. While New’ York City aloni has over one thousand millionaires, which to say the least represent §2,000,000,000, equal to the income of 5,000,000 men at §4OO per annum, it is safe to say that no legitimate accumulation of wealth has been secured to justify such an abnormal condition of affairs. Wheiq nearly 30,000 millionaires have been made in this country within the lasi thirty years, it is very evident that the party in power has not adminis tered the government in the Intere»t« of the people, by the people and for the people. That it has been in the interests -of those who have defrauded labor of her just dues to swell the piles of their unjust accumulations, their can be no «<uubt. Not until those who have wrought this unjust spoliation have been driven from power. Can there be the least hope of improvement in this condition of the poorer clMMrf

ADDRESS DELIVERED Before the Van Wert and Mercer Counties Farmers Alliance, Grange r. M. B. A., of Ohio by J. Thos. W. Luckey. There is no denial of the fact that the farmers of America are restless, nor is this restlessness confined to apportion or section of the country. The complaints are going up from hillside and valley, and it would be as hard to find a farmer who was not complaining as to find an honest man running a gin mill. The farmers, all with one accord are beginning to make complaint. I shall lay no soothing unaction to your souls by telling you that you are the most miserable people on the earth. I shall not comfort you by saying that you don’t get bread enough to eat, nor clothes enough to wear—and that it is but a little while till you will go over the hill to the poor house. You look like a tolerable well-fed, well-clothed body of men and women. No, gentleman, if I were seeking for cases of hopeless want and desperate poverty I should not go to the fertile fields and the green hillsides of Ohio. I would go to the slums and back alleys, to the garrets and cellars o -our great, vines. I would go to the dens, where wretched chile ren, from fix to twelve years old, work from ( a. m. to 10 p. m. sewing on buttons, and such other work that a child cai do, with but half enough food to kee; them from starvation. Were I looking for hopeless, despairing poverty I would go to Nev York city where it is said on gooc authority forty thousand women arc working on wages so small that thex are left to choose between death b; starvation, death by suicide, or life, with the wages of oppression qfep out by the wages of sin. And I wish you farmers to remember that all this terrible suffering, this degrading poverty—this desperation of want which is making desperados and murderers out of men and womei made in the image of God, is due tc the same causes which are depressing your .business, and making it more difficult each year for you to make a living. So you may go on with this work, confident of the fact that whenevei you break the shackles from your own limbs, you will by the same blow break heavier, harder and more cruel shackles from the limbs of others. The farmers are not paupers; they are not generally on the verge of starvation, but I contend that with all others of the real workers of the country, the farmers are not receiving the reward for their labors to which they are entitled. It is popularly supposed that America is the land where farmers own their lands, and is a bright and glorious contrast to the “effete monarchies of the old world” where the lands are owned by capitalists and the farmers are tenants. The census of 1880 shows that at that time there were 1,024,601 farms in the United States worked by tenants—the largest number of tenant farmers in any nation in the world. Os the remaining 2,984,306 farms, occupied by the owners, it is probable that fully one-half are mortgaged, and the farmer practically a tenant of the mortgage holder, and if this be correct 62 percent of our farmers are occupying either rented or mortgaged farms. So rapidly is the work progressing that unless something is done to check it, by the time the boys and girls that are playing around your homes tonight, are ready to take up the battle of life, the land of this nation will have practically passed into the hands of capitalists and your children will be tenants at will in the country which you have made. The conservative element in any nation, its source of security in every struggle is its rural population. The permanency of this nation will depend to a large extent on a resident landownership. The destruction of small farms, the multiplication of large ones, the constant increase in the number of tenant farmers, threaten not only the future of agriculture but the future of the nation. A feature in connection with this matter of farm mortgages is the raw of interest as compared with the price of farm products. The latter has declined, the former has not. During the last decode from 1880 to 1890 the auerage decline thfi prices of all farm products was 26 per cent. But in this time rates of interest have not declined at all, * The average rate of interest paid on all mortgages on land In tracts nnp acre and upwards is to-night fully percent. But the reduction in the price of farm products makes it take as much of the products of the farm now to pay 8 percent Interest—and consequently the reduction ip the price of farm products, with no rediiptipn ip the rate of interest, is equivalent to an advance of interest to this extent. But the direct interest paid does not cover the cost to the farmer. The loan agent will have to have two per cent for securing the money, and also all expense of examining title, making out and recording mortgage, etc. This makes hie interest for that yew two ft *

per ent and expenses In sdvanae and 8 percent at the end of the year, making in a'l nearly 11 percent and at the end. *’ y-ar he finds that his taxes is raised in accordance with the amount of the loan; thus paying taxes on what he owes which makes all told (considering the decline in the price of farm products) about 15 percent. Another important fact is that other lines of business is increasing, while agriculture is decreasing. Then is it any wonder that farmers are complaining? They may not be starving, they may not be paupers, but it is very clear that they are not getting a reward for their services in proportion to the services they render to the country, and a man does not have to be starving in order that he may resent an injustice. "There is something wrong about the farmer. Some years since he was instructed that he must cultivate more carefully, fertilize his soil, increase the yield of his crops, make two blades of grass grow where one had grown before. And he heeded his advisers and dene all these things, and behold, the last state of the farmer is worse than the first, and he is told that overproduction is the trouble; that he has grown so much the people cannot buy it, and is sagely advised by one class to cut down nis crops as the road to prosperity, and by another to pay more for that he buys, in order that those from whom he purchases may be able to use a part of the extra price he pays them in buying at the old price something from him. There is surely something the matter with the farmer. He is working as hard as anyone; he rises up early and works late; he eats the bread of carefulness, and yet he sees himself at the end of each year a little poorer than he was at its beginning. And in the meantime he sees another class, who toil not neither spin, and yet verily I say unto you that Solomon, in all his glory, never had a bank account like one of these. Is it any wonder that such injustice stings ana rankles, and causes discontent? He labors, another enters into the fruit of his labor. He toils and has not, while others toil not, but have. He has been told that this is the land of the free, but he fiuds that he is working and others are getting the profit, and he can’t see any particular liberty in that. Now let us see what isjthe root of this trouble, and if, its cause, we cannot at least get the key to the romedy. Eut, to get at the root of the matter, ve must iirsu study with considerable ■are certain lunuamental principles >f social and political economy. Whatever tends to increase the cost )f production and limit the amoun. produced must necessarily reduce the otal wealth of the nation and conseinentlv the possible wealth of each individual. Our income, as a nation, and as iniividuals depend on what we produde, fur accumulation of wealth as-indi-viduals, and also as a nation, depend? onthe excess of production over cohmmption. If an individual consumes ivery year all that he produces that year, he will certainly not grow •vealthy, and the principal is as trui of the nation as it is of the individual. Whatever tends to limit production, or to increase the amount of labor required to secure a given amount ot production reduces "the total wealth of the nation, and hence the possible wealth of the individual. Everything that wastes and destroys that which has been produced must reduce the national wealth, and hence •lie possible individual income. Everything that wastes and destroys jnyst reduce the possible average income. Every lire, every cattle plague, every tornado, every Hood, every act of God orman, that destroys or wastes chat which has been produced, or reduces the capacity for production, must reduce the average income of at. individuals and the possible income of each individual. I am speaking of general principles, not of exceptions. A fire may destroy a city, and cause a temporary demand for labor, which will result in a temporary increase of prosperity to a few, because the accumulated wealth is for the time transferred from those who have not; but it is evident that the total wealth of the nation is decreased, and the total possible income of each individual is decreased. 4 In like manner, if a man hau a large supply of old wheat on hand, a total failure of the wheat crop might bring temporary gain to him, through the increased price he would get for his wheat, but it is evident the total wealth of the nation would be decreased, and hence the possible income of each individual would be decreased. The apparent gain in such cases is due simply to the temporary better distribution of the products of labor, but were that better distribution secured without the destruction, the gain would be greater. Lay this down as an economic principle: whatever reduces the producing capacity of the nation, wastes or destroys that which has been produced, or turns away labor from productive to unproductive channels, reduces the possible general prosperity, and hence the possible individual happiness. There never was a more absurd doctrine advanced by rational men than that the present depression is due to overproduction. It is astonishing that an intelligent man can stand before an intelligent audience with such a proposition and keep a straight face. According to this school of political economists—or political extravaganists I should call them —the people are crying for bread because we have too much wheat and flour; they go half clad because we have too much cotton and wool;’ they shiver over a fo'w miserable embers, because we have dug too much coal, and because natural "gas is too plenty and cheap; they are dwelling in hnv: els and sheds" because lumber and nails and shingles and paint are too plenty; they are going barefoot, because we have too many boots and shoes. Astonishing philosophy! Wonderful political scientists! The people tvp poor and hungry and cold because of tiu> bounty of God in bestowing his ap.d the wonderful ingenuity of man m making the most use of those blessings. f do not wonder that the people are growing (disgusted with such nonsense, which plpptv the chief causes of poverty, and labor-saying the chief cause of overwork, and ‘yhich would have them believe that tbe \yny tp be rich would be to burn down wwir barns and smash up their self-binders, and kilj blooded stock and go to work all ovw It is nonsense. Not mere labor, but productive labor as that which makes rich, and labor makes rich in proportion to its productiveness. According to thio modern school of political exwm trump w the most useful member of society, ami cpmElete crop failure the greatest bless-? igs of the Lord. Let us get down to the real princi. pies. Individual happiness is dependent

on general pyospeW. General prosperity depends on the productions of the individual. In that notion where the larges proportion of the inhabitants are producers, and each producer produces most abundantly,"can there be the greatest general prosperity and hence the greatest individual happiness. All wealth is the product of labor. You may dispute that and quibble around it all you please, but you cannot make it otherwise that true. * The gold in the mine, the diamond in the sand, the stone in the quarry is worth nothing without labor. There is land to-night that cannot be bought for $lO a square foot, but that land, was not worth ten cents a square mile until labor had built a city there. The value of all things is the result of labor and whenever you find value you know that labor is the result of that value. Neither misunderstand me as to what is labor. None but a demagogue restricts labor to muscular exertion. The farmer when planning out his day’s work so that the most can be accomplished is laboring as truly and often more profitably than when followingihis plow or feeding his stock. The mother teaching her child, the physician healing the sick (provided he does heal them), the preacher who points the road to heaven, the artist who paints, the singer who makes our lives glad with his melody—everyone who by labor of hand or brain helps to make mankind better, happier or richer, is a useful laborer, and as such entitled to his share in the common fund. So every dollar of value of any kind existing in this country exists as the product of the labor of hand or brain of some man or woman. And] please remember that when I speak of a dollar, I do not mean a gold dollar, nor 412—» 8 grains of silver with a turkey buzzard stamped on it, nor a greenback, nor a national bank note, nor a gold or silver certificate. I mean that amount of general property that is represented by the measure of value we call a dollar. Now take another principle, and one beyond dispute. Not only is every dollar the product of somebody’s labor, but there is only three ways of getting a dollar. 1. Receiving, it from some one to whom it belongs, without giving anything in return, but with the consent of the person of whom you receive it. That is charity. When I was a child, I received from my father food and clothing and books and toys, and a great many other things—simply because he gave them to me. I receivec in this way a great many dollars before I knew what a dollar was, anc never made any return. 2. Taking it from some one to whom it belonges without giving any return, mt without the consent of the person from whom you took it. That is rotary. There are a great many ways oi doing this besides waylaying a man on the highway, or blowing open a safe. Doctoring a bunch of scrub sheep with a little lamp black and oil and .selling them to some greenhorn for black top merinos, is one way. Getting a man to sign an agreement, which turns out to be a note, is another. The way in which it is done is of no particular importance. It maj be done under forms of law. It may be done in ways that are considered perfectly respectable and even commendable. But the manner* in which iit is done, or the number of hands through which the dollar passes from the time it leaves the hands of the man who loses it, till it reaches the hands of the man who gains it, does not change the principle. The principle is the same, and the effect upon the man who loses it is the same. 3. The third way’ of getting a dollar ■ is to give a dollar’s worth of value, either in property you already have, or in labor of hand or brain. That is trade, exchange and labor. A dollar 1 obtained in this way is a dollar earned. If it is obtained by giving another dollar for it, that is fair exchange and no increase. If it is obtained by giving a dollar’s worth of labor, either of hand or brain, it is a dollar added to the wealth of the community. You have a dollar more, the man to whom 1 you gave the labor has no less. « It is perfectly clear that as there are but three ways in which any person can come into of a dollar, whenever a man has a dollar, if he did not get it by two of these ways, . he must have obtained it by the third. Here is a dollarj if it was not given to me, and if I did not steal it, I must have earned it. If I did not earn it and did not steal it, it must have been, given to me. If I did not earn it and it was not given to me, I must have stolen it. I can’t speak a dollar into existence. There is no hocus-pocus of twisting or exchanging by which I can create a dollar. The bona-fide merchant who buys goods in quantities divides them into convenient portions, and sells them to the consumer in quantities and at times as needed gives service to the community, anc adds to the wealth as truly as the man who tran,ports the goods from the manufacturer to the consumer. But mear speculation, buying and selling, when unaccompanied with any gain in convenience or form to the consumer’eonnot produce a dollar. You can’t get a dollar that does not represent service of some kind rendered to the community by somebody. This dollar represents either the product of my labor pr the labor of some one else. If it represents the product of some one else’s labor, and some one else did not gpve it' to me (charity,) and I did not give him equal value, the prpffuct of my own labor for it, then J must have stolen |t. Please keep these two economic truths in mind. Every dollare is the product of labor. A dollar can only be obtained by charity, robbery or labor. Another principle, each individual in the community is entitled of right to as much of the common proceeds oi labqr as he fidfls to that common fund by his own labor pf haiid pr brain, and no more. I take no stock in the teachings of the Bellamy school of idealists who think that every man is entitled to a living in the world, irrespective of what he does for the world. The Bellamy idealists are only one step foolish than the over-production extra vageaußU>. It is too much in the lino pi the loafer’s argument, “The world owes me a living.” The world owes a man a living whenever the man has done something for the world. And the .world dPfl’t. own a copper to the man who has never done anj’thingto make the world better, or happier, or richer. And the limit of the amount a map does to make the world better, or happier, or richer is tho limit of the auiouni thg HlftU is entitled to from the world.' If I can do for the world every year : that which will make the world Better, or happier to the extent of five hundred ' dollars, I am entitled to receive from • the sum of the world’s productions ter, or happier, or richer to the extent of fifty thousand dollars, lam entitled 1 to receive from the sum of the world’s --a dfc?

rrcduetioHj fifty•thomal a year, I shall not stop to discuss the possibility or probability of any man bein. able to render " ' g the value of fifty thousand dollars a year. That is not the point at issue. It is the principle I wish to make clear. No matter what the sum is, large or small, each man is entitled to enjoy as his share an amount of the production of society equal in value to the services he renders to the world. No honest man, unless physically or mentally incapable of making a living, should ask to receive more than this. No free American citizen should be . willing to accept less. And I therefore reach these conclusions: 1.- The total amount of wealth produced each year is equal to the total amount of useful human industry of that year. 2. Os the total amount of wealth produced each year, each individual is entitled to a portion equal to the portion of industry he has contributed. To illustrate, suppose five men go to picking apples, and the result of their labor is as follows: Jones, 30 bushels; Smith. 25 bushels; Brown, 20 bushels; White, 15 bushels; Green, 10 bushels; Total, 100 bushels. Now it is evident that each one of these men will be entitled to just as many bushels as he picked, and if no one gets any more, and if none of the apples are wasted, each one will be able to get as many bushels as he picked. Do not smile at the simplicity of this illustration. I find that some of the most important problems in the world are both the simplest and the least understood. Follow me patiently and carefully, for I am not through with this matter yet. Suppose these men, instead of all picking apples, all work for a given length of time at producing different articles, their relative producing ability being the same, and that we measure the product with a dollar measure instead of a bushel measure. In the given time Jones produces coal worth S3O, Smith produces clothing worth $25, Brown produces hardware worth S2O, White produces breadstuff worth ! sls, Green produces building material worth $10; Total production SIOO. ( And it is clear that each would be entitled to as many dollars’ worth out . of this whole sum of the total products ' as he had contributed dollars’ worth to the total product, and no more. J There would be SIOO worth of coal, clothing, hardware, breadstuff and building material, and Jones would be jntitled to get from the whole lot ;vhat ho want of each kind to the value of S3O, and so on with each of the others. And if there w’ere no waste, and no one got any more than belonged to him, each one would be able to get as much as he had contributed. Phis principle will be true no matter how many times you multiply the number of men, nor how diversified are the various products of toil contributed. And this brings us to 3. If any one or more individuals secures more out of the common stock of wealth than he contributed, then one or more others will get less than they contributed. To go back illustration with the apples: Suppose that Green who only picket ten bushels, gets early to the pile and takes fifty-five bushels, the other four come and find that, though they picked ninety bushels, they only have forty-five to divide among them; and if this division is made in proportion to the amount each picked, they will each get but , one half as many bushels as they picked. The principle will be just as true in Gw second illustration of diversified industries as in the illustration of thd apples. If Green, who only contributed $lO worth of value to the total amount of diversified products, manages in some way to get the worth of $55, the other men will find that, though they contributed the measure of S9O to the accumulation, there is . only the measure of $45 left to divide; and if each of these men shared in proportion to what he had contributed, each one would receive but half as much as he contributed. And this must be true whenever any person takes more from the common fund than he contributed to it. You can no more create wealth by any process of trading, shifting, cornering, or speculating than you can create apples; and, therefore, if any one ■ lakes from the common fund afiy more than he has contributed to it, others must have less. In these simple illustrations you all see these facts, and at sight recognize their truth; but in the great world pf industry, the number of men engaged and multiplicity of products confuse the mind till men lose sight of these common, every-day truths. 4. If any part of the common product is wasted or distroyed, the contributors to the common fund will have to take a proportionately reduced share. To return to our apples. Suppose that when the four men return to their pile of apples and find that Green had taken 55 bushels, and only 45 are left, they get into a quarrel and trample under foot one-fourth of what is left. It is evident that instead of each being able to take as many bushels as he picked, as would have been the case had there been a fair distribution and no waste, or one-half as much as he picked, as would have been the case even after the unfair distribution had there been no waste, each will get at least but three-quar-ters—or three-eighths as much as he picked. And exactly the same would be true in the case where the product was measured* by dollars instead of bushels. Now with these fundamental principles firmly fixed in our minds, let us take np the question: Why are the farmers and others engaged in industry growing relatively poorer, though the country is growing richer? And we find our answer: Unequal distribution (waste) of that which is produced, There is no question that the distribution of wealth in this country is very unequal. There is a great accumulation of capital in the hands of men who did not produce it. I express it thus in preference to using the term “unearned fortunes. Stnctly speaking, there are no “unearned fortunes.” Such an expression is a con- 1 tradiction. It is equivalent to talking about an “uncreated creation.” I have said that every dollar in existance is the product of somebody’s industry, so every dollar in every for- | tune is an earned dollar, and has been earned by somebody. The difficulty n the present situation is that tod many earned dollars are in the hands of men who do not earn them. Mr. Thomas G. Sherman, in his fitatiscate says that one-seventieth of WP ?wn 70 percent of all the wealth. ” Now if this one-seventieth of the people have really produced 70 percent of this wealth of the nation, hey ought to have it, and no one has any reason to conplain. But havehpy? Ts it probable that there is such i a wonderful disproportion in the abil- I ity of men? j

1 SUCCESSFUL MAN Is a man that attends to his own business. Our Business is to Sell Clothing and Furnishing Goods I And our Study is to Buy Goqd Goods and Sell them at the Lowest Prices We have for the Season the Best and the Finest Line ot Goods ever Shown in the City. , . I Come in and see us. Everybody treated alike. One Price to all. Yours Respectfully, ■-e . . ' - t ?ete Holthouse, the One-Price Clothier. DONT .-. BUY Until You Have Seen our fall line OF Broadcloths & Flannels THE LATEST Fine Astrachan Plaids In Popular Colors. Ask to see them. We Guarantee to show you a Finer and Larger line than any other house in the city. Carpets and Draperies Just Received. JESSE NIBLICK Sc SON, Next Door to Adams County Bank.

PENSION THE DISABILITY BILD 18 A UAW. Soldiers Disabled Sloce the War are Entitled Dependent widows and parents now dependent whose sons died from effects of army service are Included. It you want your claims James Tannej Late Cow. of Pensions. Washington, 1». C. Srand Rapids I Indiana Railroad. Time card for Decatur station. In effect Sunday, June 81,1881. GOING NORTH rort Wayne and Grand Rapids 1:35a m ’ortlandaccommodation.... o:s7am GOING SOUTH. Lcoommodatton ..................... 8:80am Us-

Timber Wanted j I ■ Jn want .L 000 l?’ oet of *}®ber at once and i will pay the highest market prices for the ’ road e statiom utwy faotory OTat I For first-class Hickory logs $15.00 per thousand. Oak Butts, 9j feet long, the highest market price. At T. LYNCH* taattr, M,