The progressive farmer. [volume], June 09, 1891, Image 1

About The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904

Image provided by: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Chapel Hill, NC

                
1
J
THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OF OUR PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY.
Vol. 6.
RALEIGH, N. C JUNE 9, 1891.
No. 16
r
"PSOGBESSiYE
FA1IEE.
"A
,
CIRCULATION.
y iisgraceful trial was crowded with
The actual circulation of Volume V,V$xger spectators, who came to see the
which closed with the issue of Febru
ary 17th, 1891, was as follows':
February 18, 1890, 12,840
August
it
Sept.
hi
tt
4
tt
October
tt
tt
tt
Nov.
tt
tt
tt
19,1890, 16,680
25,
12,240
12,000
26, 16,680
2, " 16,800
9, " 16,800
-16, " 17,040
23, " 16,800
30, " 17,280
7, " 17,040
14, " 17,280
21, " 17,280
2S, " 17,280
4. " 17,280
11, " 17,760
18, " 17,760
March
it
18,
25,
1,
8,
15.
10,560
10,560
10,800
10,800
10,800
10,800
10,800
11,040
11,040
11,160
11,160
11,400
11,280
11,280
11,400
11,400
11,400
11,520
11,640
12,360
13,800
16,320
16,680
April
25.
May-
6,
13,
an,
' 1
3,
24,
1,
8,
IS,
a
5,
12,
June
Decemb'r
2, " 18,230
9. " 18,240
16, " 18,240
tt tt
January 6, 1891, 18240
" 13, " 18,240
20, " 18,240
tt 0 " 18 240
February V, " 18240
. " 10, " 18,240
17, " 18,240
July
August,
First 6 months. 307,0S0 Second 6 months, 4o8,lbO
Making a total circulation for the
year of 765,240; averaging for 52 suc
cessive issues, per issue, 14,716, and
showing a net increase for the year of
5,400, or more than 113 per week.
The above statement is taken from
the records kept in the office of The
Progressive Farmer, and U correct to
the best of my knowledge and belief.
J. W. Denmark,
Business Manager.
1 am Book-keeper for Edwards &
Broughton, Printers and Bindery, Ral
eigh, N. C. The press-work on The
Progressive Farmer has been done
for the past three years by Edwards &
Broughton, and I have kept account of
the same. I have compared the above
statement with the account I have
kept, and find it tallies throughout,
and is correct. T. J. Bashford.
Personally appeared before me, W.
T. Womble, Notary Public, J. W. Den
mark, Business Manager of The Pro
gressive Farmer, also T. J. Bashford,
Book-keeper for Edwards & Broughton,
and make oath that the statements
contained above are correct to the best
of their knowledge and belief.
In witness whereof,, I have hereunto
set my hand and affixed my notarial
seal of office this day, February 26th,
1891. W. T. Womble,
Notarial Seal Notary Public.
EDITORIAL NOTES.
The Philadelphia Inquirer announces
the gratifying fact that President Har
rison is growing. We hope it may
turn out to be true. We think the
President had grown very little, if
any, up to the time his last message to
Congress was written.
Mr. Blaine has gone to Bar Harbor,
in Maine, to recruit his shattered
health. There seems to be no doubt at
all that Mr. Blaine's old enemy, the
gout, has worsted him badly this time.
We hope the Secretary may find the
health and strength he is seeking.
We understand that Mr. Russell
Harrison has said his father will not be
a candidate for re election in 1892 un
less the people want him to run. If
the folks hereabout are a part of the
people, we are very certain Mr. Har
rison will not be a candidate in 1892.
A man, aged eighty-six, and his
wife, aged seventy-one, took Hy
drocyanic acid in New York the other
day, and died in a few minutes. They
were too aged and ill to work and
they were too great-souled to beg. So
they took poison and died together.
There are churches in New York ; and
the pastors of some of them will take
vacations to Europe this summer.
Owing to inattention, or to our na
tive stupidity, or to something else,
we have thus far failed to notice the
appearance of the Farmers' Adcocvte,
published by our versatile young
friends, James B. Lloyd and Paul
Jones. These young men are making
a splendid paper, and our welcome to
it shall be hearty if it is late. We
welcome The Farmers' Advocate to the
field of reform journalism.
There has been a sensational trial in
an English court, in which a nobleman
an ignobleman) was tried for cheating
in a game, and in which His Royal
Highness (lowness), the Prince of
Wales, was a witness. Albert got into
the court as a witness through having
been the banker for the game. The
outlook does not seem to be good for
the future government of England
when we reflect that har future ruler
.
Vis a gambler. The court room at the
endant of a long line of kings in the
ss box at the trial of a gambling
sui
OV c-Vi omo txtViotT ia t.Vi tt Vklllfih ?
Vr'
The news comes to us that the wheat
crop in Russia is a failure, and that
the Czar still stands to his purpose to
expel the Jews from his dominions.
We do not say there is any connection
between these things, for one is the act
of God and the other is the act of a
very wicked man. But the conjunc
tion of these two things looks wonder
fully like some of the things recorded
in the ancient Hebrew Scriptures.
-m m
One of our New York contemporaries
makes a very earnest plea for the mul
tiplication of public baths in that city.
It gives us pleasure to earnestly sup
port our contemporary's contention in
this case. We think there is. nothing
else so much needed in the American
metropolis as baths, both public and
private. It always seemed to us that
the very waters of Gotham needed
washing. We hope some genius will
invent a bath that will enable New
York politicians to wash their con
sciences occasionally.
The Louisburg Female College, Prof.
S. D. Bagley, President, held its com
mencement exercises on Sunday, Mon
day, Tuesday and Wednesday of last
week. These services were very in
teresting and creditable. The sermon
to the graduating class was preached
hy Rev. Dr. Cunninggim, Presiding
Elder of the Warrenton District. The
Literary Address was delivered by
Rev. Hall, of ' Goldsboro. This school
sent out ten young ladies this year to
ennoble and bless human life with their
culture and goodness.
The papers declare that secret cir
culars are being sent all over the
country defamatory of the Rev. Dr.
Phillips Brooks, Protestant Episcopal
Bishop-elect of Massachusetts. This is
religious (?) intolerance with a ven
geance. There is no pretense made by
the writers of these slanders that Dr.
Brooks is immoral. He is assailed be
cause he is a liberal-minded, broad
gauge, great-hearted minister of Jesus;
and the narrow little fellows take this
means of showing their hatred of every
body not built upon their own small
model. There is nothing on earth
more cruel than religious (irreligious)
bigotry. We hope this great-hearted
servant of God may triumph over all
his enemies.
We agree with our neighbor, the
News and Observer, when it calls the
tariff an ''incubus;" and we hold our
self in readiness to promptly agree
with our neighbor if it shall call the
tariff any other hard name it may
select. But we do not agree with our
neighbor when it says the farmers at
tributed their depressed condition to
the "lawyers," and, at another time,
to the "merchants." We think no
considerable number of farmers were
ever simple enough to believe that the
"lawyers" had anything to do with
bringing about the depressed condition
of agriculture. Nor do we think the
farmers have ever attributed their in
ability to make both ends meet to the
actions of the "merchants." There has
been something in the financial condi
tion of the country which has put the
small farmers within the power of the
merchants. But we think the farmers
have seen, all along, that the financial
system, and not the merchants, was
to be blamed. The News and Ob
server's argument is: The farmers
have been twice mistaken in the diag
nosis of their case, and they may be
mistaken again. We think the farmers
have mind enough and insight enough
and intelligence enough to enable them
to see that when the government gives
a banker ninety per centum of -his bond
to use in business, and pays him in
terest twice a year in gold, upon the
face of his bond, that the government
is a party to an infamous compact of
plain robbery. We think farmers
have mind enough to enable them to
see that the dishonoring of silver
money has worked untold harm to the
farming interests of the country. We
understand that the reform of the
tariff is in issue just now; and we
understand that the essential reform
of our financial policy is in issue also.
We shall be glad to have our neighbor
help us in getting both these reforms.
But we are afraid our neighbor is too
much in love with a certain ex-President
to allow it to help us much in
securing currency reform. We shall
be delighted to find out we are. mis
taken in our conjecture.
MORE ABOUT TRUSTS.
Reply to Dr. J. V. Brooks.
Hyco, Va., April 20, 1891.
In our first paper on trusts, we en
deavored to show that wo were con
fronted by a condition not a theory ;
that there was a growing inequality
in the condition of the citizens of this
republic that augured no good to society
or government; that trusts were harm-,
f ul and ought to be suppressed or kept
by law within safe and harmless
bounds.
There have been many echoes in the
history of the world, variously styled
as the primitive age, the dark age, the
age of renaissance and the modern and
enlightened age. We read, too, of the
iron age, the golden age, the poetic age,
and the age of chivalry. We live in
the industrial age, an age of develop
ment and utilitarianism above all
others, and, as savants tell us, as par
excellance, the intensely egoistic or
selfish age.
The ruling dominating principle in
the ages of the world, inciting and
stimulating and governing man's activi
ties, is the love of power, "the desire
of the individual to impose his will, his
personality, his views, his individuality
in the wildest sense of the word upon
every one within the sphere of his ex
istence." The consequence of such
achievement of dominance and power
in the individual means arrogating to
himself something that belongs to
others, and just in proportion to the
deprivtaion of independence in others
will be the usurpers increase of power
to first subjugate and reduce others to
subserviency, to be followed afterward
by oppression and spoliation. On this
principle originated the nobility and
aristocracy of the old world, and on this
same principle has been built up a plu
tocracy in this country. The one a no
bility of blood, the other a snobocracy
of wealth, and just as the people found
it necessary to cuf tail the assumption
and power of the nobility and ruling
class of the old world, will they surely
find it imperatively necessary to cir
cumscribe the power and arrogance of
money under the control of plutocrats
in this republic. The safety, aye the
salvation of the republic demands it,
and it is only a question of time, and
to prove effectual must be of short
duration.
Some men may sneer at the impend
ing consequences of the unbridled lust
for power through the aggrandizement
of the wealth of this country into the
hands of a few designing and unscru
pulous individuals of the character of
one, who, when remonstrated with in
regard to his policy being hurtful to
the people replied, "the people be
damned." And this utterance of itself
demonstrates a cause for the low mut
tering thunder that is being heard from
time to time all over this land and
liable to burst forth like a volcano and
carry destruction and death before it.
Nero fiddling while Rome was
burning.
all see danger ahead.
The situation is evidently a grave
one, when we see the ablest defender
of the existing economic condition in
this country, Mr. Carnegie, finds it
necessary to write a long apology on
wealth and the methods of the wealthy
in this republic. Mr. Carnegie, it must
be remembered, is, to some extent, a
scion of nobility, financially at least
if not by blood. A Scotchman by
birth, an American nobleman by de
velopment, he views the question only
from one standpoint, and that per
sonal. He is assuredly an able, shrewd
man, and has amassed a fortune that
would have endowed the kings of old
Scotia for generations under the ancient
dynasties of her brave and chivalrous
race. But an able English humani
tarian. Dr. Hughes styles Mr. Car
negie an anti-Christian phenomenon, a
social monstrosity, a grave political
peril. Thanks to unrestricted compe
tition and the tariff, he has pocketed
much more than his equitable share
of the joint product of labor and capi
tal. If he thinks that he has made
this great pile, so to speak, on his own
bat let him set up business on a soli
tary island and see how much he can
net annually without the co-operation
of his 20,000 men and the ceaseless
bounties of the vanishing Republican
majorities in Congress." The toilers
of this country send grateful thanks to
the noble -hearted divine for his brave
true words, and to the Democratic
party that helped to mak'e them true !
Cardinal Gibbons, in his most able
and suggestive paper in the April
North American Review, "Wealth and
its Obligations," commenting on Dr.
Hughes' paper in the December
Nineteenth Century, "Irresponsible
Wealth, " says : "Written and published
a ew short weeks after the political
upheaval of November last, alluding
to the political cyclone that swept the
Republican party from power, these
words, quoted above, ring out defiant
ly from the citadel of free trade." I
need not write of Cardinal Gibbons to
Virginian readers ; a man of the highest
attainments andtenderest human sym
pathies, and, although occupying the
mostj exalted position of his church in
America, he does not consider it be
neath his dignity to espouse the cause
of the poor and oppressed, and does it
with the zeal of a divine and the ability
of a statesman.
What has the cardinal to say on the
subject of a high protective tariff,
which, more than any other agency
has contributed to the formation of
trusts, syndicates and monopolies for
robbing the people, to build up colos
sal fortunes for their organizers ? ' 'The
school is too potent a factor, our news
papers are too numerous, the masses
too intelligent to accept any half-way
or uneven solution of this great eco
nomic question. And to make it a
little more pointed he might have said,
general advance of national prosperity,
without sooner or later, but most cer
tainly, causing a grave disturbance in
the equilibrium of national affairs. The
surest guarantee to the stability of any
government is to be found in the enjoy
ment of equal privileges by all classes
of ? its citizens, and in a just distribu
tion among them 6f the benefits as
well as the burdens of the political
structure." Not the wealth of the few,
but the well-being of the many, ought
to be the chief concern of those to
whom the affairs of the government is
entrusted.
And now in conclusion, begging par
don for the length of this communica
tion, wo can say to the reader, that
whatever may be the opinion of the
writer of this paper, he gives you food
for serious thought from some of the
ablest and most distinguished men liv
ing, who regard the subject here dis
cussed, trusts and their influence for
evil, with the gravest fears and most
emphatic denunciation. Right or
wrong, this writer is assuredly in good
respectable company; but he has the
courage of his convictions, and were
he alone in the belief which he holds
against trusts, he would still disclaim
with all his might against their unholy
purposes.
We honestly entertain the opinions
to which we have striven to give shape
and expression, have no axe to grind,
but stand ready to help sharpen the
great broad-axe of the people to hew
to the line, regardless of how, when or
where the chips may fall. Moreover,
he is optimist enough to believe that it
is not yet too late to bring this govern
ment back to an administration of the
people, for the people, by the people,
and not a government of the masses,
by the classes, for plunder.
R. L. Ragland.
TREASON.
What greater treason than to pro
claim that "John Brown's spirit is
marching on?" And yet that is just
what I do say, and I simply assert a
truth. What spirit? A detestation of
human slavery. Fanatic was he?
Yes, doubtless. Why was he used to
precipitate revolution bloody devas
tation, that culminated in emancipa
tion? Ponder this, ye farmers, ye men
who are deaf to the mutterings of dis
contents that pervades the vast army
of producers in this free America free,
did I say? Yes, free we are and by
the Gods free we will remain. Think
you the chains with which you sought
to bind us has or could enslave us?
If so, disabuse your minds of the hal
lucination. You are outwitted mon
aphaly. You grew too fast. Your
greed caused you to over-reach. Not
content with the lion's share, you
sought to grasp everything, to enslave
a people whose sires long since re
solved that they or their posterity
would not wear a yoke of bondage,
many of them sealing their resolution
with their life's blood, winning and
leaving as a rich legacy a government
based on the bed-rock of human
rights, the equality of men ; their right
to pursue happiness, and by the eternal
powers these rights we will maintain
this government in its purity we
will perpetuate. We deride, we des
pise, we did defiance to your asserted
power. Your ill-gotten gain shall be
spewed out. Your would-be serfs are
now compounding the emetic they
will administer it in heroic doses at the
polls in November, '92. It is labeled
"Anti Wall Street," and is warranted
to cure or kilL
The people, the toiling masses, are
aroused as they never were before
they know your devices, they have
been hoodwinked, gulled for ,the last
time. Your partisan cry will prove
unavailing. The fight is on. Wall
street may trot out her man or men, they
will be beaten. The day of her glory
is departed, her sway is ended. This
I say weighing well my words, know
ing well the power of her magic, the
influence of money, appreciated as it
is by the corrupt legislation of the
past 25 years. Yet powerful as it is,
it is too weak to contend against the
cohorts, the determined host who have
pledged to throttle, to destroy it.
Name it third party, people's party,
or call it by any name you please, there
will be found gathering, crowding to
the polls in November, '92, such a
vast horde actuated by the spirit of our
revolutionary sires, the men of 1776 as
will cause the party of Wall street,
the monied aristocracy, to wonder at
their puny numbers insignificance.
Why will a people not need a coming
storm? Why did not our leading
spirits, prior to the civil war, antici
pate, avert its dreadful shock, its fear
ful carnage?
Brown's raid was nipped in the bud ;
he paid the price of his folly, designed
it, too, yet in it he drew the eyes of
the world to a wrong that needed to be
righted. He focused the thought of
higher, nobler spirits on this blot that
and too long remained on America's
otherwise bright page, and led to its
erasure. Shall it be blurred again?
Shall it be proclaimed to the world
that the rivers of blood which were
spilled to erase this blot did but open
the way to blot out, erase the record
of her former glory? That the freeing
of the negro led to the enslavement of
the toiling millions? God forbid. It
cannot be, surely no such fate is or can
be in store for us. We can, we must
keep our record clean. On its brightest
pages are written, by the hands of our
sires, the deeds of chivalry the record
of our inheritance. On its pages is
stamped our birth right to be free.
Shall we sell it for a mess of pottage?
No, a thousand times no. Free we
were born, free we will die. Monopoly
the Republican policy of taxing the
masses for the privileged few. As
surely as the sun shall rise to-morrow,
the sovereign people will ascertain in
the long run whether Mr. Carnegie is
a 'normal process,' 'an imperative ne
cessity,' an 'essential condition of
modern society.' A republic of mil
lions of voters may err for a time, the
political pendulum may for a season
unevenly or unequally swing, but there
is always here the biennial opportun
ity to modify or qualify one's views."
We thank thee noble prelate for your
wise and encouraging words !
The Rev. Mr. Kaufman says, "in
Europe the desperation of the poor is
fast driving men into atheism." In the
United States, says Professor R. T.
Ely, "the methods of millionaires are
alienating wage-workers from Chris
tianity. " ' 'They cannot, " says Cardinal
Gibbons, "reconcile Godliness with
greed ; and one sanctimonious miserly
millionaire in a community works more
deadly harm to Christianity than a
dozen isolated cases of burglary or
drunkenness."
Ex-Premier Gladstone and Cardinal
Manning both notice, comment upon,
and deplore "the shrinkage of private
charity going on contemporaneously
with the enormous increase of wealth
in England." And directly in the face
of the evil tendencies complained of
by the Cardinal and ex-Premier, Mr.
Carnegie boldly asserts that nineteen
twentieths of the charity, public and
private, is uselessly spent." All is
chaff that is not grist to tke million
aire's mill.
REPLY TO DOCTOR BROOKS.
While our, sentinel philosophers,
divines, and statesmen see danger
threatening our beloved land, our
friend, Dr. Brooks, would have us be
lieve that all our troubles come from
"pessimism," indigestion, chronic
grumbling or "over-production," or a
mixture of all. He argues that it is
insensate folly "to raise our feeble
cries against this that or the other, and
try to hew our destinies to the line of
our conceits, but that the divinity of
evolution shapes all our ends." We
ought not to confess to any surprise at
the above declaration, coming as it
does from a "nationalist," a disciple of
the author of "Looking Backward,"
who evolved from his fertile brain the
wildest, most Utopian and baldly ab
surb socialism that was ever conceived
of. There is a vein of ridicule running
all through the Doctor's paper; ill
adapted to so grave a subject. But
when he says " it is useless, if not un
wise, to decry in general terms combi
nations of capital and monopolies as
destructive of our best interests," but
goes further and actually claims that
"they have wrought the greatest
blessings to the human race," we can
scarcely believe the Doctor is in earnest.
It is a fact in the piscatorial world as
the Doctor states, that "the big fish
shall eat up the little ones;" but does
the Doctor propose, willingly, to sacri
fice himself in becoming food for fill
ing the cormorant maws of the big
fish, or does he propose to turn "big
fish" and thus escape the doom of the
little minnows? Possibly the Doctor
may think he can appropriate a little
"cat hole" all to himself, but when
ever the big fish start for him "he's a
goner!"
We challenge the Doctor to the proof
of his declaration, that combinations '
in the nature of "monopolies have ,
wrought the greatest blessings to the
human race.v No one can, or will,
deny that the concentration of capital
ethically used is beneficial industrially
socially, educationally and religiously ;
but when large aggregations of capital
are used in any monopolistic, forestall
ing or gambling business, with the
avowed purpose of over-riding and
driving out competition, it is hurtful
and antagonistic to all legitimate, honest
business.
We beg to remind the doctor that
the great mass of the farmers of this f
country are not novel readers, and are
looking forward rather than "looking: "
backward," as it seems has been the
Doctor's recent occupation. They are
looking forward to a different develop
ment than Bel amy describes, or that
which centres power and money into
the hands of unscrupulous wealth ; and
that development we verily believe is.
coming through legislation and peace
ful revolution, let us hope, but it is,,
nevertheless, surely coming !
Dr. Brooks is a reading man and.
ought to know better than to repeat
the refrain of Edward Adkisson,
" over-production is ruining the farm
ers. " The -New England-statistician - -had
a motive in such plea, but what a
Virginia farmer can mean by its use is
beyond this scribe's conjecture. If the
Doctor had said underconsumption
and a restriction of markets for our
farm products, and the currency to
handle them at the proper time, were
prejudicial to the agricultural industry
of this country, such statement would
have been founded on facts and en
dorsed by the intelligent planters all
over the land. The subsidized hire
lings of the money lords of this country;
are ever crying, "lie still, farmers, you
are doing your own hurt in producing
more than the world can consume ; you
have no one but yourself to blame for
low prices."
It would extend this paper far be
yond the desired length to demonstrate
how the farmer suffers through inade
quate currency to move and handle his
crops at the proper time, and how his
markets are circumscribed and he
discriminated against in various ways,
and all for the benefit of monopolists
here and abroad. The Secretary of.
Agriculture in an article in the April.
North American Review, says, "Nor
can the farmer unequally share in the
increase of our national wealth, in the
you sought to be our king. Yours was
to be a despotic rule. Your aims will
not mature.
"John Brown's spirit is marching
on." 'Tis decreed, iU verification is.
assured. Slavery is eradicated from,
this American soil never to be instituted
again. On this the South, as well as
the North, is a unit. Farierl
Windsor, N. C, May 27, 1891.
Mr, Editor: I have just completed
a tour of the county, lecturing the Sub
Alliances and soliciting subscriptions
to the National Economist and The:
Progressive Farmer. It being a busy
season of the year, it was not expected
to have large crowds, but in many
places the attendance was large. At
one place I organized a new lodge, in
itiating nine persons. Many of the
Sub-Alliances I found thoroughly alive
to their interests and the importance
of the work that lies ahead of our grand
army of reformers But some are lag
ging for the want of education. It is
impossible for Alliancemen to bo pro
gressive who do not read Alliance
papers.
Some of the politicians are stitt.
troubled about the fate of the old
parties; but it is a matter of little mo
ment to any true Allianceman. If
neither of the old parties will join ua
in an effort to bring about the reforms
we purpose. I believe a sufficient num
ber of the conservative and better ele
ment of all parties will align themselves
with our grand organization, and in
1892 we will sweep this country like a,
whirlwind, take possession of the gov
ernment and administer it in the inter
est of the people. ' . - ' .
Fraternally,
James Bond, Co. Lecturer.