Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1910 — CITY AND FARM LIFE [ARTICLE]

CITY AND FARM LIFE

It is always interesting and sometimes amusing to hear Republican statesmen pleading the cause of the farmer and suggesting ways to make farm life more attractive as Compared with life in the city. For more than a generation the farmers have been exploited in the interest of other classes. 1 hey have been heavily taxed for the avowed purpose of “building up 'a home market,” that is, for the purpose of developing the city. It was, we have been told, necessary to “bring farm and factory together,” and so we have laid taxes with that object in view. As a result, cities have grown at the expense of the country. Ihe farms have been drained of their young man who sought, and naturally. the larger rewards offered by citv life. With an abundance of cheap land to which men might resort when they were dissatisfied with the wages offered by the factories, we had a powerful factor operating to increase wages. So it was thought necessary to “equalize" . matters, that is, to lessen the advantage enjoyed by the farmer. This was done by taxing the farmer for the benefit of the manufacturer. • And now we see the result. Cities are growing tremendously, and becoming more and more attractive each year. We are told that the reason for the present high price of certain farm products is that there are not eriough farmers to supply the demand. Having done what they set on’ to do, the wise men are trying to turn the tide in the other direction. We must have, so it is >aid. more farmers and better farming. The boys and girls must be induced to stay on the farm. But no one will stay on the farm

if he can have a better time and make more money elsewhere. It is not surprising that our agricultural class has grown weary of being the burden-bearer of our civilization. That is what it has been for more than a generation. \\ e have taxed it in order to add to the profits of the woolen men, the cottoti men, the steel men, the shoe men. and of the great trusts which now control so many of our industries. We have given hundreds of millions of dollars to- the railroads. Through our high taxes on lumber we have promoted the destruction of those very forests which we are now trying to conserve. Having taxed the farms until they have ceased to be attractive, and having taxed the forests out of existence, we suddenly discover that something must be done to arrest the tendencies which we have, through our legislation, set in motion. , We suggest that it is not the farmers, but congress and -the Republican statesmen who need advice, Instead of legislating in favor of the farmer we ought to quit legislating in favor of those ■' r 1 . . ......... ,

who have prospered at his expense. What the farmer needs is not help from the federal government, but simply fair and just treatment. Men have rushed tp the cities because they have been invited to the cities.' Dissatisfied with our easy prima’cy in agriculture we have done what we could to' destroy that primacy by compelling, agriculture to support a lot of other industries which were jealous of the earnings of the farmer. Such has been our policy. It is not foreign competition but the competition of the farm against which we have been protecting men. And this protection has cost the farmer billions of dollars. It is well to seek for remedies, certainly w-ell to give some attention to agriculture. But let us never forget that the conditions which now seem so unsatisfactory to our reformers are the direct product of the legislation which those reformers have al wavs defended and still defend. We are suffering to-day from the natural consequences of our own acts. The surprising thing is that the farmers of t,he United States should have done so well, and they have done very well. But the best way to make the farm more attractive than it is would be to free it of the heavytaxes that are imposed on it in the interest of other and competing industries. When we think more of the farmer than of the half-dozen or so New England families that have grown rich out of taxes levied on the cotton goods used by the farmer we may find that it is not necessary to do much for the farmers of the United States. Agriculture in i this country never has been and iis not to-day a mendicant indus!trv. All that it asks at the present time is that it have the boasted “square deal"—which is something that it never has had in theJJnited States. What the farmers of the United States ask is not favoritism, but justice. They can get justice if they will only act together in their own interest and to be bamboozled by- politicans.—lndianapolis News. A .