Dakota farmers' leader., June 04, 1891, Image 1

About Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
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VOL.1. NUMBER 50.
statement.
i.
the rankof clothing.
the ladder.
time houses.
4
One Prim
We have just received the finest line of
ready made clothing, that you ever put you
eyes on, and our goods are sold at the
We get the cash.
Closest Margin Possible.
Every man can convince himself of the
benefit of our system, and the truth of our
amination of our good.
we are anxious to convince you and
do so with a trial, or a personal ex-
We are not occupying a small place in
We areJwide awake and at the TOP of
like the sun irresistibe.
•VV*
tional Bank,
S*
Our bargains are striking hard, and our
prices cutting deep in the flesh, of long
styles the latest, coupled with our
cut prices will peal the scales from the eyes
of the people, till our bargains will shine
Christopher & Olson,
—Proprietors of—
One Price
cash clotting house,
Main Street, one door South of "First Na­
Canton, South Dakota.
:y-y
'A
The Kaweah Case.
In 1885 a number of persons started a
cooperative colony in Tulare county,
Cal., on government land that had been
opened to settlement. They intended to
bnild a civilized settlement on the plan
of share and share alike, and vote and
vote alike, men and women. They
meant simply to try the co-operative in
stead of the competitive plan of civiliza
tion. They had no "views," either long
haired or short haired, beyond this.
They were decent, law abiding people,
mostly married, who paid their taxes
and took care of their families.
The able bodied men of the colony
went first, and after complying with the
government requirements for settlers
proceeded to bnild a road and otherwise
improve the property they had signified
their intention of purchasing from the
United States. When they offered pay
ment for the land they had settled on,
however, it was refused by the land of
fice at Visalia. A telegram had been re
ceived from Washington that their lands
had been withdrawn from entry, after
they had been permitted to enter them,
that is, on the ground that there were
fraudulent entries and erroneous surveys
in that locality. The colonists say in
their own behalf that they knew there
was no fraud in the land they had en
tered, for they had satisfied themselves
on that point before locating. They pro
ceeded, therefore, with their co-operative
colony, relying on the good faith of the
government that in due time the lands
would be theirs by clear title.
Time went on. The colonists im
proved their lands, planted orchards and
vineyards, erected a sawmill, started a
school, library and gymnasium, and
looked forward to prosperity after some
years of such hardship as pioneers must
necessarily endure. The Tulare County
Times, which has no connection with
the Kaweans in any shape, says of them
in a recent number:
The citizens of Visalia and of Tulare county
look upon tlie colonists as a desirable class of
emigrants, as tliey behave themselves and
have shown by the work already done under
such difficulties that they aro industrious,
hard working people. Thoy settled on the land
in good faith, and the government ought to
fulfill the promise mado when it invited them
to take up the land, and issue patents to them.
It is very likely that if the matter was left to
the authorities of Tulare county the colonists
would get a title to their lands within twenty
four hours. The people here do not look upon
it as a crime for a man to file upon government
lan^, pay his debts and live soberly. What
other crimes the colonists have committed we
are not informed. (.
The particular charges brought against
the Kaweans at present are that they
have been cutting timber on government
lands that they have been destroying
the big redwoods in the government
Sequoia park, and that they have set
tled on lands within the limits of the
Sequoia park. To every one of these
charges the colonists offer a flat denial,
and avow the falsity thereof can be
proved. So far from destroying the red
woods, they have repeatedly, by night
and day, extinguished forest fires kin
dled by careless hunters. Moreover, can
a man with an ax cut down and handle
a tree sixty feet in circumference? Furth
ermore, their road has not yet been built
nearer than within five miles of the gov
ernment park where the redwoods are,
.and the lands they have settled and made
valuable are not anywhere included in
the park. The preservation of the red
woods is as dear to them as it can be to
anybody else. For every tree of any
kind that they cut down they plant an
other. This is one of their rules.
Secretary Noble has rendered a de
cision adverse to the Kaweans recently.
They believe that he has been misin
formed by a combination that has an in
terest in prejudicing him against them,
namely, a great lumber trust that de
sires to crush them, first, because they
can furnish lumber to the trade cheaper
than the trust is willing to do, second,
because it hopes in time to get their
lands itself. For this reason they earn
estly pray the honorable secretary of the
interior to suspend his judgment until
he further investigates the case.
If the Kaweans are in the right it will
be a pity and a shame to destroy their
colony. Co-operation in its various
fonns is looked on as the solution of
many of the terrific economic problems
that now confront society. If the Ka
weans by their experiment can throw
any light on co-operative methods, and
as long as they are honorable, law abid
ing citizens, by all means they should be
permitted to go on with their colony to
the end. They ought to be helped in
stead of hindered.
About tlw
President Francis A. Walker, super
intendent of the tenth census, writes for
The Forum a paper on United States
officia1 ^tfes. He calls attention to
the United States was the
firs' world to institute a
per the people. This
was i.i-, owing to our ad
vance^. .. i' social science, but it was
because such a census was absolutely
necessary to our representative form of
government. How could we know how
inany congressmen to put into the house
oirepresentatives without such an enu­
IPP
'tf£
A Faithful LEADER In the Cause of Economy and Reform, the Defender of Truth and Justice, the Foe of Fiaud and Corruption.
CANTON, SOUTH DAKOTA, THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1891.
meration?
At first President Walker tells us th?
census was confined strictly to ascer
taining the number of people for the
purposes of representation or of direct
taxation. Then new subjects of investi
gation opened for the enumerator. Sta
tistics of Agriculture, mining, manufact
ures and fisheries were needed. Further,
in order to ascertain the natural militia
of a country, it is necessary to know not
only the number of men between eight
een and-forty-five, but also whether
they are physically and mentally sound.
This consideration led to the inquiry in
regard t& disease and permanent disa
bilities, such as blindness, deafness, etc.
The family history of the individual is
for the same reasons a matter of neces
sity. This' will explain to many the
reasons for what seem impertinent in
quiries into private matters. On this
point President Walker quotes from his
own words elsewhere:
It has become simply absurd to hold any
longer that a government which has a right to
tax any and all the products of agriculture and
manufactures, to supervise the selling and
malting of "butterine," to retaliate the agen
cies of transportation, to grant public moneys
to schools and colleges, to conduct agricultural
experiments and distribute seeds and plant
cuttings all oyer the United States, to institute
scientific surveys by land and deep soundings
at sea, has not full authority to pursue any
branch of statistical information which may
conduce to wise legislation, intelligent admin
istration, or equal taxation, or in any other
way promote the general welfare.
So many things are necessary now to
the census that it becomes an appalling
tax on the head of the bureau. The tax
killed outright Mr. Walker's successor
in the tenth census, Colonel Seaton.
Three successive chief clerks of that
census died in office. At the height of
the work of the eleventh census Super
intendent Porter was ordered away to
Europe by his physician to save his life.
Why is such amass of inquiry loaded
upon the census? President Walker an
swers:
The reason for loading upon tho decennial
census of the United States such amass of sta
tistics, relating to so many subjects, many of
them not necessarily connected with tho enum
eration of population, or even theoretically re
lated to it, has been twofold: First, tho sparse
nessof settlement over largo portions of tho
United States, making it exceedingly expen
sive to traverse tho ground
several times to ob
tain different classes of statistics, when, by
crowding the enumerator's portfolio and tho
enumerator's brain, these might be collected
in a single tour, though perhaps at some sacri
fice of quality'in tho results second, tho real
or. affeefci doubts of certain politicians as to
the "ooiaititutionality" of establishing agen
cies* aside from the consus, for conducting in
quiries ^anficr "federal" authority, purely in
tWinterost of statistics themselves—that is, in
the-interest- of public intelligence, social sci
ence ami political education.
What Social Power Is.
How did mankind fall from the state
of primitive perfection and the golden
age into degradation, ugliness and pov
erty? But there never was any primi
tive golden age, says Professor W. G.
Sumner, writing in The Independent.
Man's earliest state was one of degrada
tion, and the further back in his history
we go the more degraded he is. He has
risen to his present state, such as it is,
out of that degradation, by virtue of
something within him which makes him
strive on and strive on to better himself
materially.
No sooner does he gain one step than
he must fight and struggle to the next
higher one. If he stops he will fall back
so he dare not stop, but must climb on
from achievement to achievement. We
must throw aside the old and grasp the
new, forever and forever. It is the law.
It is never in t,ho quiet enjoyment of rest, or
in exhausting the enjoyment which comes
from consuming tho achievements of tho past,
that cither power or happiness is won. It is in
the work of achievement, in tho sense of gain
and progress, in tho movement and transition
from one plane to another. How then is it pos
sible to imagine that the human race will ever
get its work done?
Social power consists, declares Pro
fessor Sumner, in the power of an indi
vidual to produce more than the sub
sistence of that individual. If one can
produce subsistence for a number the
population rapidly increases and a so
ciety grows up. The person who can
produce this surplus is always in de
mand, and the more surplus he produces
the more social power he has. Here is
an idea worth thinking about:
In the case of the individual it is emphat
ically true that it is not tho man who is rich
who is happy it is the man who is growing
richer than he has been. Hence this great
happiness is possible to all, for it is just as in
tense for a man who has been used to 500 a
year and is now winning 800. as it is to the man
who has been having 20,000 and is now winning
25,000. Progress, therefore, means winning
more social power. It goes
along with increase
of power and is the proof and the realization
of such increase. The arts of life all contrib
ute to the increase.
Social power is especially increased by the
extension of the cultivated area of the globe
that is, by settling new countries. This last
mode of increasing social power is also the
easiest. From the increase of industrial power
there follows advance in science, fine arts, lit
erature and education, which react again on
the social power to stimulate it and accelerate
the rate of its activity,,thus increasing its effi
ciency. The point whichikere seems most im
portant is to keep the sequence and relation of
things distinct and clear.
The notion that progress proceeds in the first
nstance from intellectual or moral stimuli, or
that progress Is really something in tho world
of thought, and not of sense, lias led to the
most disappointing and abortive efforts to
teach and "elevate" inferior races or neglected
classes. The ancestors of the present civilized'
races did not win their civilization by any such
path. They built it up through centuries of
toil from a foundation of surplus material
lViBOjig, whioh t.hoywnn ilfwnigh impTATiTruiri^»
in tho industrial arts and in the economic or
gSBization.
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