Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1888 — THE CITIES AND THE COUNTRY. [ARTICLE]

THE CITIES AND THE COUNTRY.

Why the Former Boom and the Agricultural Districts Grow Poor. Some Plain and Sensible Words by State Senator L. D. Whiting. [From the Amboy (Ill.) Journal.) Friend Loomis: May I be allowed space to say a few things? I read with much interest your comments on my talk to the Ford County farmers. You indorse me so much, and dissent so little, some explanations may tend to bring us more nearly of one mind in what we seem to differ. As I fully reciprocate the regard and friendship which you so kindly and gracefully express, we are in a proper frame of mind to compare views. “The Decline of Agricultural Prosperity —The Cause and Cure,” was the subject of my talk. Though lam a farmer and you an editor, we have a common interest in the question. It is not alone New England agriculture that is in ruins. I have it from good authority that the fine farming districts of New York and Pennsylvania show dilapidation and decay. I must now surprise you more by saying that after inquiry I am satisfied that lands in Bureau County have depreciated in price during the last ten years more than $lO an acre, aggregating a loss of about $6,000,000 to our farmers. Our great agricultural State of Illinois is growing poorer in agriculture, while the large cities and corporations are booming. When convinced of this you will be as ardent as myself to arrest this downward plunge of agricultural prosperity. Inquiry will convince you that my statements on this are very near the truth. YVorldwide competition with the cheapest of all cheap labor is a chief reason why agricultural products are cheap and declining. You will agree with me that farmers . should seek to offset this by buying their supplies as cheap as fair competition will permit. The Amboy Journal has stimulated me to believe that we are badly circumvented in this by combinations and trusts which envelop us like a network. They create a monopoly by shutting out competition, and then fixing prices according to their own greed. All this you condemn as severely as I do. Careful observation will convince you, as it has me, that our tariff laws in many cases constitute a wheel in this monopolistic machinery. The “trusts” now formed or forming by lumber, salt, coal, glass, sugar, barbed-wire, and dozens of other interests are protected in their selfish schemes by our tariff laws, and thus enabled to extort in their prices. The protected interests show signs of confederating in a war offensive and defensive to stand by these abuses. They are hatching schemes to squander the public money and dry up the more proper sources of revenue, so as to make it necessary to protect them by a high-tariff wall, while they run their comers. So the grotesque proposition is made to give the country relief by the generous offer of cheap whisky and tobacco. Kelley and Randall, State conventions in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and others, the Inter Ocean, Bureau County Republican, and others, advocate this vicious measure. The Amboy Journal, I believe, has not joined this foray against morals and the public interest. Farmers’ meetings everywhere demand that the taxes on tobacco and spirits shall remain, and that the reduction to be made shall be on the necessaries of life. But Mr. Blaine asks us to give the sanction of the nation that tobacco shall be classed as a necessary. My friend, can it be that any theory or doctrine is sound which leads to such straits? Cheap lumber, glass, salt, coal, and clothing are now obtainable, and are farmers to blame for demanding this, rather than cheap whisky and tobacco? We work in competition with the cheapest of all European and Asiatic labor—labor at less than half the price paid there by the manufacturers. Is it wrong for us to insist that some of these long-protected industries shall now go to the free list or be greatly reduced? I know they all plead “infancy.’’ Are they never to get bevond that tender age? Never, I fear, if left to themselves. Can we doubt that many of these can go alone much better than farmers can afford to carry them? Now, in closing, a few words and figures on this very point. You properly state that farm hands are paid S2O per month. Farmers, because they cannot afford it, employ as little as possible, merely to supplement their own labor. Mr. Hinton, an advocate of protection, says his class pays $2.24 to $2.34 per day. This is about S6O per month. Their men work eight, nine, or ten hours a day; farm hands more than twelve hours. Zinc, glass, iron, and steel are the chief protected industries of Illinois. The statistics now before me state that most of these operatives receive more than $4 a day. If you say “skilled laborers,” I reply that in these days of farm machinery and stock feeding a good farm laborer is also skilled. The extra hours on a farm amply pay board. So our farmers do not and cannot pay half the price or more than onethird the price paid by manufacturers. If the query is raised, Where goes the money of operatives? let statistics answer. Lockouts and strikes make long stops of work and machinery. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner, reports that during the six years ending Dec. 31, 1886, these cost the laborers a loss of $59,948,882. and the manufacturers $34,164,914, aggregating a loss of $94,113,796. Notwithstanding fair to large dividends were divided by the millowners and the laborers got through, and on an average for every twenty men they supported a thriving saloon, steadier work and less profits would be better. In view of these facts, should the agricultural interests be taxed to give bounties to the manufacturers? If we must help these “infants” a little longer, let us begin to teach them to walk, because there is a growing feeling that we should make our legislation for the general public interest

and not for classes.

L. D. WHITING.

Giants of Monopoly. The day of “infant industries” in this country has passed. Our industries are giants instead of infants. The infants are the farmers who work for these giants and pay them for doing it. -St. Paul'News.