Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1907 — THE FARMERS SHOULD THINK ABOUT IT. [ARTICLE]

THE FARMERS SHOULD THINK ABOUT IT.

As the packers do uot want to pay for cattle until they have been inspected after slaughter, it is suggested that purchasers of can--11 ed meats should uot pay for them until ho finds what they are made of,

The profits of the steel trust last year amounted to more than the wages paid to its employes. The tariff “protects” the trust, but it does not protect laboL The old myth that the tariff induces the “infant industries” to pay higher wages to their employes was long ago exploded.

When you see it in the Indianapolis News or in the Indianapolis Star, it is not a bad idea to remember that Collier’s Weekly says that Chides W. Fairbanks owns the former and holds (or did hold) the bonds of the latter. Of coarse the News and Star, under .such conditions, are “fer him.”

Two years ago there were 150 federal inspectors, costing $1,300000 a year. Now there is an army of them, spendings9,ooo,ooo a year. This army will increase, if present centralizing policies prevail, until the country will swarm with officials who are responsible only, to the authorities at the national capital. When t hat time comes local eelf-govren-ment will be only a recollection.

Jt is said to be the Republican program to do nothiug toward revising the tariff next winter, but to put a revision plank in the next national platform. But suppose this is done, then wbst? A tariff "reformed” by “its friends,” for its friends —the trusts —is not reformed at all. The present tariff must be reformed by its enemies, just as other iniqnitus things must be reformed by their opposers. In no other wuy can real jnstice be done.

Mr. Roosevelt does not Bay that he wants the government to own the railroads. All he wants is that the states shall be stripped of all power to interfere with them and that the general government will get possession without cost. It is really a happy thought. It beats any form of government ownership by direct, honest buying all hollow. Besides, it will knock another big bole in the constitution that Mr. Roosevelt finds so much in the way.

~ """ . A Washington dispatch to a Republican paper says: attorney General Purdy, who has charge of the government's trust prosecutions, said

today after a talk with the president that the recent newspaper stories that several big trusts are soon to be attacked in the courts are guess-work. Probably additional suits will be begun, be said, but nothing definite has yet been decided upon. It will be remembered, of course, that the trusts are to be bu|ted, just like the tariff is to be reformed—by "their friends.”

When asked the other day in Richmond, Va., regarding his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mr. Bryan is reported to have eaid: “I have not felt it was time to decide that yet. The only condition upon whioh I would consider the candidacy would be whether I could advance the cause of Democracy by being a candidate. No man’s ambition should be considered on any other condition.” Has anyone heard of any Republican candidate taking such an unselfish view of this important matter?

Oxford Tribune (Rep): A few conscientious newspaper men in Indiana are willing to accord all praise to President Roosevelt and the great movements of which he has been the instrument, but are uot willing to give him the privilege of expressing his preference as to the man who will follow him. These conscientious newspaper men entertain the opinion,expressing in big words und dignified sentences, that they have sufficient mentality to resent the suggestion that they shall hand their right of free choice over to any guardian, big or little. These righteous guardians of their own sacred rights object to the suggestions of Theodore Roosevelt, but cringe and fawn at the command of the Fairbanks machine: The machine has control of the Republican press of the state and those who read no other do not know the true condition of the political situation.

The beef trust is not “busted.” It is not even cracked and shows scarcely a scratch. It is doing business with as high a hand aB it did before it was “investigated.” The government is paying out several million dollars more a year for inspectors than it formerly did, but the public does not feel the benefit. The beef trust magnates still meet and fix prices of cattle on the hoof and of meat on the block, just as before. The retail meat dealer is not to blame. He is at the mercy of the trust, for it is the trust that sets the prices. But the retailer will be hurt by the increased prices, because many of his customers will either eat less meat or quit eating it altogether until it gets within reasonable reach. -The cattle raiser is not to blame, because the trust fixes the price of his stock. The trust is the responsible pirate, and it never fails to come out with a balance on the profit side of the ledger. .

In a speech at the celebration of the semi-centennial of an agricultural college at Lansing, Michigan, May 31, President Roosevelt said: The people of our farming regions must be able to combine among themselves, as the most efficient means of protecting their industry from the highly organized interests which now surround them on every side. A vast field is open for work by 00-operative associations of farmers in dealing with the relation of the farm to transportation and to the distribution and manufacture of raw materials. It is only through suoh combination that American farmers can develop to the full their economic and social power. This declaration is an admission by Mr. Roosevelt that the farmers must organize for self-protection against the trusts and monopolies that have grown up under Republican rule. The “protective” tariff has not given the farmers the slightest protection. On the contrary, it has filched money from their pockets in every oonoeivable way and poured it into the coffers

of the “other highly organized interests which now surround them on every side,” to use the president’s own words. Republican policies produced the very conditions that now threaten the ultimate ruin of the farmers unless the latter combine or vote to ohange the conditions.