Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1892 — FARMER STATESMEN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARMER STATESMEN.

THE AGRICULTURIST IN THIS CONGRESS. July S 3 Farmers Against 270 Lawyers In Congress—lnterviews with the Farmers —What They Are Trying to Do—Holman's Clearing Casey's 300,000-Acre Ranch. The Plow In Politics. Washington correspondence:

THE revolt which brought this Congress to the front was understood as being largely in the interest of the plowman, the wheatlift grower, tho cottonBg picker, the lierdsman. It was announced that tho farmer was demandflfeing attention; that man who had .callosities on tho immia-inside of his fingfers rgr-- was about to superInl ll sede tho man w^° I U i B ot h’ B bread by tha U." sweat of his iqge-

„Dulty and had’ raised corns on tho convolutions .of his brain by overworking that organ. v Well, what Are the facts? Why, the facts are that the lawyer is jqst as dominant in this Congress as ever. There are a few more farmers than usual, but they have no more influence on legislation than they had in the Fifty-first Congress, and tlielr voicos are scarcely heard. As John Davis, one of the ablest farmers in Congress, said to me yesterday: ' i We„Boarcely expeot to got any of our important measures through this session, but shpjl oe satisfied with an educational campaign. We are going to make some speeches that will influence votes hereafter.” Another Congressman-farmer from the West permits me to publish his plaint thus; The lawyers always rule the States And all the rustic drudges; They crowd the bar as advocates, And fill the bench as judges; And no man understands the laws Till after he has paid them, For they aro tangled up, because The cunning lawyers made them! This is “the Farmers’ Congress," yet there arer only twenty-three members who really get their living by agriculture, and there are 270 lawyers, about three-fourths of the whole, and twenty mote belong to one of the so-called learned professions. In the Tennessee delegation both Senators and all ten Congressmen are lawyers. Both Senators from Virginia are lawyers, and ail the ten Congressmen, except a parson and an editor. Both Senators from Texas are also lawyers, and ten out of the eleven Congressmen, the odd man being “Parson Long,” who indicates In the Congressional Dlreotory that he Is virtually and sentimentally a Presbyterian farmer. Other Profession*. Among the other olergymen are Senator Kyle, of South Dakota (Congregratiooalist); McKinney, of New Hampshire (Baptist); Baker, of Kansas; and Posey Lester, of Virginia, who is an itinerant preacher in eighteen States. Among the doetore are Galllnger. of New Hampshire; Dockery, of Missouri; L. E. Atkinson, of Pennsylvania; and Thomas Dunn English, of New Jersey, far better known as a poet and author. It is noticeable that there is only one merchant in the House, but a number are “engaged in mercantile pursuits." So a lot of the lawyers are chromo farmers—tillers of the soil at long range. Thero half a dozen bankers, too, who are flat farmers—raising produce at a tremendous expense, the horny hands with which they toil being attaohed to somebody else’s shoulders. Some of the most extensive farmers end planters in this Congress are those Ahoee practice law as their chief interest. This is true of Senator Gibson of Maryland, a man of 50, who does not look his years. Gibson keeps a farmer, of course. Ho raises corn and wheat—-twenty-five to thirty bushels to the acre* of the latter. He has four or five thousand peach trees and sends the peaohes and much small fruit to New York and Baltimore. Holman is running a farm of three or four hundred acres in the southeastern corner of Indiana, and he can stand on his front doorsili and see court-houses in three States—lndiana, Ohio and Kentucky. His sightly home is on the Ohio Blver hills, and the house is the one he was born in, built by his father in the early pioneer days in the first quarter of this century. The kind of ability resulting from courage, sagacity and experience gives him a great deal of influence on the floor of the House. He has been a lawyer,, blit he now spends most of his time farming when he is not here. He raises hay, wheat, and corn, and “farmer” is written all over him. He is homelier than Lincoln. Nature made him when she was feeling reckless. He looks as if he had been rived out with a dull ax from a tough maple log. His gestures are all severely angular, and his voice sounds like a tinman’s cart on a corduroy road. His beard is always three times as long as It ought to be, and his head is' covered with cow licks, evidently bestowed when the animal was feeling mad. Notwithstanding his personal appearance, he has a kind heart, and will help anybody kill an appropriation with all the sifavity of Chesterfield. He isn’t aspoor as he looks, but in spite of his froverbial honesty is worth, they say, 150,000. The Northern Senators are mostly small farmers and the Southern mostly laree planters. Mr. Morrill spends all the time he can on his little Vermont farm of sixty-five acres, and never en* joys himself so well when he is there. He has been in Congress almost forty years. Senator Casey of Nortn Dakota was sent here as a farmer by tho farmers. He is one of the biggest farmers in the land, having the control of over 300,0110 acres and owning a good deal of it . himself. Irrigation is his continual text and he expects to make his State a garden by bringing to the surface the vast lake which underlies it. Mr. Vance is a Senatorial farmer. Around his country seat in the mountains of North Carolina, which he calls “Gombroon," ho owns several thousand acres of land, a little of it arable, but most of it covered with some of the best timber in the United States. Ho got it for a song and it has grown very valuable on his hands. He pines for his farm constantly when in .Washington, and he not only enjoys life there, but dispenses a large hospitality. George of Mississippi is probably the most extensive planter in the Senate, owning some thousands of acres. Ten of the Southern Senators were Major Generals in the Confederate army, and four of them surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. Winn,,. Farmers’ Alliance, of Georgia, tells me: “My opinion is that we shall all get back here again, unless some legislation is had in the farmers’ interests. ” Jerry Simpson is as lively on his feet and with his tongue in the House as if he were pulling slumps with an unbroken yoke of steers. He owns 1,000 acres, and when he is at home it keeps him busy to take care of the stock. Clover, another of the five men who

found themselves elected to Congrats from the same State, has a ran oh of 1,600 acres and wastes a good deal of valuable time in chasing graded cattle around It. Baker has been renominated and says he will be re-elected. Otis, is a shy, timid, suspicious man, who feels very much away from home, and is not at all certain which way tho volatile feline Is going to jump.- John Davis continues to bite his iron-gray mustache off short, and put in a clip whenever monopoly carelessly drops its guard. . termers by Brevet. New York has three alleged farmers in the House—Ketcham, Curtis and Groeuleaf. They do not use the hoe or perspire much thenmeTves; they are professionals rather than amateurs. They love faming oven well enough to pul their money into it. They do not rely on it for support: it relies on them. The Umpire »t Texas. Almost all of the Texans hero are big ranchmen. Sayers owns 500 head of cattle and has sent cows to Chicago that weighed 3,200 pounds and had never had a bit of born or uny grain but cotton seed mebl. Tim Campbell, of New York City, Is not a farmer. There are not four rods of dirt in his district, except that borne upou tho surface of the oitlzens. His is the smallest district in the United States. He can walk in throe minutes from one end of It to the other and can almost throw his hat across it in plaoes. Mr. Lauham, of Western Texas, presents the sharpest contrast in this respect. The other day bo told mo of his empire. “My district is 500 miles wide and 600 miles long,” said Mr. Lanham. “It takes a fortnight to ride across it in a straight line. Well, no; J nevor 'stumped’ it, except fitfully and partially. I represent ninety-seven counties, and ono of them is larger than soveral of our smaller States. My district is about the same size as New York, Vermont, Nfew Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. I have made an estimate that it Is as large as tho oombined districts of sixty other members of the House. I am going to try to got acquainted with my people when a flying machine works, and when I oau buy a second-hand machine cheap." “You ought to spell your 'district* with a capital D,” I suggested. “Oh, no,” he said; “we Texans are modest—we always use lower case whon wo can." “Will Toxas ever be divided?" “No. Our act of admission entitled us to the right to divide into four States, but wo love the State so well that wo wouldn’t split up merely to obtain six Senators and the control of that body.”

W. A. CROFFUT.