Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1896 — Page 8
fanifirraiti FBIDAT. SEPTEMBER 4 1896. Bafered at U« potftoffic at Rensselaer. Ind aa second-class matter.)
3 Km lie j* 11 li "Si rsFi iQ*" t 9 S wfeiz U.WAYS its patrons >cFull Worth of ELp voXl o} "heir Money by f Xing Them i- - - M tanty and Quickly la EJZ.ii* < j between J LW I Chicago ip • Lafayette nfianapolis; Miicuinati- • PULLMAN SLEEPING CARS ELEGANT PARLOR CARS 111 TRAINS RUN THROUGH SOLID rickets So/d and Bagg? ’e Checked to Destination . Maps and Time Tables if you war acre fully inform id--all Ticket Amenta *tOcu x Betinns b ave them—or address Frank J. Reed, G. P. A.
MONON'ROUTE. Table BOUTH-BOUND. NORTH-BOUND Mo. 81 4:48 am No. 4 4:48 am ( 10:58 40 7:41 88 1.09 pm 3!! 10:07 89 8:05 6 3:30 PM 8 11:18 30 7:03 45 2:40 74 8:08 48 9:30 AM No. 31 does not stop at ensselaer. No. 32 stops al Rens elaer only when they have passengers to let off. No. 74 carries passeng r» between Monon and Lowell. A naw trOin, No. 12, has been put on between Monon and L.favette. Paslengers can tow 1 ave Lafbyette at 5:38 p. m , arrive at Rensse aer 7:03 p m I his tra n does not run on Buudays.
Church Directory. PBESBTTEBIAN. Rev. M. B. Paradis, Pastor. Sabbath School, 9*30 a. m. Public Worship, 10:45 a. m. Junior Endeavor, 3:00 p.m. Y. P. 8. 0. E., 6:30 p..m. Public Worship, 7:30 p. m. Prayer Meeting, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. METHODIST EPISCOPAL. Bev. B. D. Utter, Pastor. Sabbath School, 9:30 a. m. Public Worship, 10:45 a. m. Class Meeting, 11:45 a. m. a.pworth League, Junior, 2:30 p.m. Epworth League, Senior, 6:30 p. m. Public Worship, 7:30 p. m. Epworth League, Tuesday, 7:80 p. m. Prayer Meeting, Thursday, 7:30 p. m. CHRISTIAN. Bible School, 9:30 a. m. Public Worship, 11:45 a, m. Junior Endeavor, 2:30 p. m. I . P. 8. 0. E., 6:30 p. m. Public Worship, 7,30 p. m. Prayer Meeting, Thursday, 7:30 p. m.
•Judge’ Healy will hereafter keep on hand a e elect stock of ready made boots and shoes, and will also continue to manufacture to order work entrusted to him. — The judge’s well known good judgment of quality, workmanship and prices in his line will be a drawing card for patronage. HOLLISTER & HOPKINS. The new partners but old millers, are now in full charge of the Nowels mill, and prepared io do custom grinding promptly, in the best manner, and all other busi* ness in their line. Give them a call. Judge Healy’s is the place for shoes—Genes', Ladies’ and Child., ren’s. Don’t forget it.
Farm Loans. Wa are prepared to make farm loans at a lower rate of interest than any other firm in Jasper county. The expenses will be as low as the lowest. Call and see us. Office in Odd Fellows’ Temple, near the Court House. WARREN & IRWIN. ‘Judge’ Healy visited Chicago this week and purchased an additional supply for his stock of boots and shoes. The judge’s judgm ?nt of a good article, will soon make his establishment a popular resort for that line of goods. The Garden South. The South is destined to be, and is rapidly becoming, the garden of the United States. Here life is easier to live, the rigorous winters do not eat up the fruits of the toil of summer, nor are the summers so trying as many'northern people have supposed. “I used to live only half the year, ” said a northern farmer recently settled in the south, “and 1 used to work all the time then. Now I work half the time and live all the y°ar thro’.” Home seekers’ excursion tickets will be sold over the Monon Route to nearly all points in the south at the rate of oie first class fare (one way); tickets good returning on any Tuesday or Friday within 31 days from date of sale. Liberal stop-overs are allowed. These excursions start (and tickets are sold) August 17,18 and 31; Sept. 1,14 and 15; Oct. 5, 6,19 and 20. Cal) on W. H.JBeam, Agent of the Monon Route, for further information.
THE FARMER.
As He Was and as He Is. HOW HE IS ROBBED. .Stupendous Decline in Farm Products. A PERNICIOUS FINANCIAL POLICE. Evils of Contraction—The Concentration of Wealth—Rise and Fall of Gold—The Effect of the Free Coinage of Silver. What Gold Monometallism Stands For. An Honest Payment of Debts—The Help Offered by the Ballot.
By JOHN H. BEADLE.
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 him. Orators praised him. Edward Everett held up an ear of golden corn before his audience and eulogized
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were the salvation of the land. They were the hardy yeomanry, the free and independent workers, and even such foreign visitors as De Tocqueville went out of their way to describe the happy condition of the landowning farmer in this country. Washington gloried in being a farmer. Our greatest statesmen passed their
vacations on their own farms, among their horses and cattle. They delighted in rural pleasure, they worked and personally directed their employees, and from a season of this kind of life and close contact with the people they oame back to Washington wonderfully freshened by having lived close to the heart of nature, more American and more democratic and more in love< with their own land. Their
names were coupled in the popular lore with the names of their estates. It was Washington of Mount Vernon, Jefferson of Monticello, Clay of Ashland. Webster of Marshfield and Jackson of The Hermitage. Where is that farmer now? The Vilification. He is the gibe and the sneer of every clown who can get on the city stage in
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tim of all the stale old practical jokes. “Hayseed” and “Wayback” and “Jay” are his regular titles, even among cultivated people, and in the slums * ‘farmer” is one of the vile epithets which provoke a 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
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like this: A long, lean, lank monstrosity, with bones showing horribly prominent through his clothes, a face like a pointed Gothic front, a nose that describes an Irregular arc from the lowest point between the eyes down over the mouth, and on his chin what is sunnosed to be a
If we must part company with those who believe in a government of syndicates, by syndicates and for syndicates, may we not appeal with confidence to those who believe that a government of the people, by the people and for the people should not perish from the earth? (Applause.) If these men who pride themselves upon their prominence in the business world and who glory in the title of
whisker, but looks like a wisp of weather beaten hay. This is the farmer of today as the people of the cities are taught to consider him. And why this change? It is because he has been systematically robbed for 30
years and has submitted to the robbery and voted for more of it He is despised because he has consented to his own degradation. His very virtues have been made the means of his degradation. The farmers, and especially the men who till their own acres, are our great conservative class. They dread revolution. They love their country with an impassioned ardor born of close contact with the soil
—an ardor of patriotism which some writers have thought impossible in men reared in cities. Naturally, therefore, the northern farmers stood by their government in the great civil war. The Republican party was in power and acquired an immense prestige by the successful issue of the conflict Naturally
the grower in such eloquent words that storms of applause shook the hall. We loved to read and quote the old stirring lines telling how “the embattled farmers stood" at Lexington and Concord, and it was universally agreed that they
again, therefore, the great majority of farmers-credited all good things to that party. They could not believe that the party of Lincoln and Sumner and other friends of humanity would do aught of injustice. The Robbery. The war tariff was prolonged in time of peace despite solemn promises to the
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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 contain schemers. On top of all the rest comes a financial system which has added 80 per cent to the value of money and depreciated the price of the farmer’s products in like proportion, and at the least signs of a revolt on his part ho is denounced as a traitor. It is assumed as a matter of
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course that Wall street should strive for a rise in stocks, that manufacturers should lobby for a higher i tariff, that the Pacific Railway companies should evade payment of their debt. All other men can
spotted breeches. He is the butt of vile jokes in the city saloons. He shares with the mule and the mother - in - law, the plantation darky, the rusty stovepipe and the tramp as the stock material for cheap paragraphers. He is brought on the stage of every low theater as the stock vic-
vote and lobby to raise the price of what they own and be good Christians, but at the bare hint that the farmer is to vote for restoring silver to get a little better price for his
that in great part he has lost his own self respect. His poverty has become is reproach. The Affliction of Abundance. “But there has been so great an increase in production. Now, why should
the farmer complain that prices go down as the size of the crop goes up? And how can you prove that elevating the condition of the farmer will elevate that of other laborers?” It is impossible to raise the agricultural class of any country without raising all the other classes who depend on labor for
a living. It is not absolutely impossible to press down the agricultural laborer and yet leave the city laborer unaffected, but it is very unlikely. The farmer, however, does not complain that he gets less per pound or per bushel when the crop is big than when it is small. What he does complain of, and what he has a risht to comnlain of.
business men are going to make a business out of politics, and are going to use the ir ballots to increase their incomes, 1 beg yoti to consider wl ether the great tuiling masses of this nation have not a to make a business out of politics once and protect their homes and families from disaster(Applause.)—W. J. Bryan at Tivoli.
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contrary. Empires of land and hundreds of millions of money were given to great corporations. Credit Mobilier, the Indian ring, the whisky ring, the star route ring and scores of others followed in rapid succession, but though the farmers mu r m ured they did not revolt. They over-
crops, the country rings with frantic cries of rage and denunciation. The farmer has submitted too long. He has lost the respect of -those who have robbed him, and it is much to be feared
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is that prices have fallen so fast that he gets vtery much less money for a very big crop than he formerly got for a small one. Thus the bounties of Providence are turned into curses and he is coming to look upon abundance as an affliction. Let me call your attention to some figure®. In 1881 the farmers produced 418,481,000 bushels of oats and received therefor 1193,198,970; in 1883 they produced 571,302,400 bushels and received for it (187,040,264; in 1889 they produced 751,515,000 bushels and received (171,781,008, and so on down, the amount rising as the money
received for it fell, till 1895, when they produced 824,443,537 bushels of oats and received therefor $163,655,068. And the population has increased 70 per cent In 1870 we produced 1,094,225,000 bushels of corn, worth $601,889,080; in 1898 1,619,496,131 bushels, worth $591,625,627, and in 1895 2,15 1, 188,580 bushels, worth $5 6 7,5 0 9,106. O v erproduction.
you say, but divide the bushels by the population each year, and you will find that per capita the increase was quite small, and in such years as 1890 and 1894, when the crop was very short and the number of bushels per capita very much less than the average of several years ago, the price per bushel was still low. The Decline In Value. Since 1870 the production of hay in the United States has increased in almost exact parallelism with the increase of population, and yet the aver-
age value per ton has declined from $13.82 to $8.35. This last is the farm price as reported by the agricultural department for July; nevertheless, on the day I write this hay is selling in New York city by retail at $lB per ton, which is a beautiful illustration of how your city consumer “profits” by the loss of the fanner. Wheat is supposed to be an exception because our rivals in other countries are producing so much, and yet the figures are significant. In
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cannot be explained by that handy phrase “overproduction.” Has there been any overproduction of fat hogs? Every farmer knows that there is just now a great scarcity, almost a
hog famine. And yet fat hogs in the central region of the west are selling at 8 cents a pound or less, < when but a few years ago they sold at 6. Has there been any overproduction in milk cows? The census will show you they are less numerous in proportion to population than they were, and yet the price is going steadily downward. I s there an overpro-
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duction of land? In two-thirds of the country east of Illinois you can today buy thousands of splendid farms at what they were assessed for in 1870, and in some of the finest parts of New York state they will sell you good farms at the assessment of 1860. Farmers do not complain at reduced prices for products 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 admitted 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
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two bushels per capita was left for bread. It has been repeatedly shown that the world’s cotton crop is still 8,000,000 bales short of the world’s consumptive demand. Our own agrioul-
In his speech at Colorado springs recently Mr. Teller said: “Can we lav aside party lines and vote for Bryan ? I have never met a man in public or private life his supe perior, Mr. Blaine not excepted. Some say he has spoken disrespectfully of the Supreme Court 1 deny that. There is not a word of disrespect to the supremecourt. It is merely a statement of a Democratic principle. 1 remember
Judge.
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1881, for instance, 383,280,090 bushels were valued at 1456,880,427, and in 1895, 467,102,947 bushels at $237,988,998. And yet the world has not as much wheat as it wants, and not much more than half as much as it would buy if it had the wherewith. There is evidently something the matter that
THE NEW UNCLE SAM. N. Y. Herald.
breadstuffs than they can eat and more cotton than they can wear and more pork and beef than they want or more shoes than they need? Why, the largest wheat crop 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
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tural department has shown that the American people are eating ennui Awably less wheat per capita than they did a few years ago, and if you will take
the annual reports for 20 years and deduct that used for export and seed from the crop of each year and that fed to stock in late years you will find that 70,000,000 people are eating only about the same amount of wheat flour that 55,000,000 people did. In Europe also it has been shown that
nearly 100,000,000 people cannot afford to eat wheat bread. They are using cheap substitutes like rye and potatoes. Are we to suppose that they do that for fun? Enormous Losses to Agriculture. If you want to realize what enormous
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before they had any interest in denying the truth. In the New York Sun of Sept 10, 1898, for instance, was an editorial of which this is an extract: For more than 15 years. 1878 to 1883, all the great primary agricultural staples have been declining in price, although there have been periods when the price of some one was high for a limited time. This is more notably true as respects secondary products, especially meats and lard, but the trend of the whole scale has been constantly downward, and the general price level at the end of each year was lower than at its beginning. In the meantime 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 use prior to 1878. Subsequent modifications and improvements have been in the direction of greater facility in 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 efficient. 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 lees than 5 per cent of the whole area under cultivation the aggregate saving from such economies has been slight and has probably been fully offset by the progressively increasing use of commercial fertilizers which has been found necessary in all the region east of the Mississippi, not to Increase the fertility of the land, but simply to prevent further deterioration.
The Yield of an Acre. While the cost of production cannot have
been lessened as much as 5 per prices for the staple products of the farm averaged 82 per cent greater during the five years ending with 1875 than now. This is especially true as respects the five corn, wheat, oats, hay and cot- 4 ton—which employ 105,000,000 ■ out of 206,000,000 acres now de- i voted to staple crops. fl The following table shows!] in five year averages the gold? value per acre (in the local! farm markets) of the product 1 of the five staples named for quinquennial periods since 1866 and an estimate of the
value with average yields of an acre under each such staple in 1893 at present prices: VALUE or AN ACKB’S PRODUCT. 66-70. ’7l-5. ’76-80. ’Bl-5. ’B6-90. ’9B. C0rn....512 84 sll 80 $9 62 $lO 25 $8 81 $8 85 Wheat.. 18 16 11 90 12 00 10 20 907 000 Gate.... 10 92 981 858 917 750 075 Hay .... 18 28 14 88 11 57 11 15 10 19 10 00 Cotton.. 28 01 28 55 17 65 15 68 18 84 10 65 Total.. .S7B 21 $75 94 $59 42 $56 40 $49 44 S4O 75 Average 15 64 15 19 11 88 11 28 949 815 You can find all that denied or skillfully evaded in The Sun nowadays, but that cuts no figure. Nobody denied it
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tion is, What is the farmer going to do about it? On him depends the solution of this all important issue. The fate of bimetallism is in his hands. A Simple Fact. “But is not the money question-tec complicated for farmers to master it in
the brief time between this and the election?” Not at all. In* its present shape indeed it is singularly simple. It can be reduced to two or three plain questions,
perhaps to one, and that is, Has silver depreciated or gold appreciated since 1873? On their answer to that depend the votes of a million honest farmers. Monometallists say gold has stood still 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 reasoning which can be applied to the subject. That sik
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has yielded exactly the same result. The fluctuations since the principal na-
how Abraham Lincoln criticised the supreme court on the Dred Set tt decision. The end of this government is near when we can* . ot criiicise that which we think wrong, even the supreme court.” The boltocratic movement is solely in the interest of millionaires. That class controlled the entire outfit the other day at In« dianapolis. I
tions adopted the gold standard have exceeded all previously known. But here is a simple test which the farmer can easily apply for himself: Take the average of prices 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 ounce bar of silver at that time. Divide and see what that silver would have bought. Do the same for the five years ending with 1895, and you will find that the silver will buy more. Is it not arrogant and insulting nonsense to say that silver has depreciated when it will buy more of the products of your labor? Here is a table to help you in the calculation <
N. Y. Recorder.
losses American farmers have sustained because of the increased purchasingpower 'of gold, lookover the files of the gold papers, before this became a political issue,
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before this became a political question. The-de-cline still continues, and there is every indication that it will continue. And now the great ques-
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ver is by natural law far more stable in value than gold has been proved from geology, from mineralogy, from metallurgy and still more by comparing the fluctuations of prices in different countries having the different standards or in the same country at different times. Every one of these tests
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Price of Price of Prices* wheat, cotton, silver. per bushel, per pound. per ounce. 187?11 47 ST 61 • 1873 1 31 18.8 1 9 1874 1 48 15.4 1 g 1875 1 12 15.0 IM 1876 1 34 12.8 1 » 1877 1 17 11.8 1 » 1878 1 84 11.1 1 15 1878 1 01 6.9 1 12 1880 1 25 115 1881 1 11 lit 1 » 1884_.. 10? 10.5 101 1886 86 10.6 1 06 1886 87 9.9 99 1887 80 9.5 W 1888 86 9.8 98 1880 90 9.9 98 1890 88 10.1 1 04 1891 85 15 90 1892 80 8.7 86 1898 86 7. 78
(Continued on First page.)