* ' , / t GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS, DISCUSSING ALL POINTS BEARING UPON THE FARMERS’ MOVEMENT FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF WHITE SLAVES FROM THE SLAVE-POWER OF MONOPOLY. BY STEPHE SMITH, AUTHOR OF “ ROMANCE AND HUMOR OF THE RAIL.” PHILADELPHIA: John E. Potter & Company, No. 617 SANSOM STREET. I I WJ> Iff 5 ,fs ♦' Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by JOHN E. POTTER AND COMPANY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. NOV 3 0 1987 &CLLE 6 E LIBRARY CHESTNUT KILL, MA 02167 v/ TO THE TOILING HAND. All honor to the toiling hand, Or in the field or mine; Or by the harnessed fire or steam, Or on the heaving brine. Whatever loom, or bark, or plow, Hath wrought to bless our land, Or given around, above, below, We owe the toiling hand. It battles with the elements, It breaks the stubborn sward; It rings the forge, the shuttle throws, And shapes the social board. It conquers clime, it stems the wave, And bears from every strand, The sweetest, best of all we have,— Gifts of the toiling hand. God bless it with a special grace— Striking for Freedom’s cause; Emancipation from the power Of Wealth and unjust laws; God give it strength, against the few Who rule but to be bribed, And speed the cause to which this page Is earnestly inscribed. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. AUNTIE MONOPOLY TO HER POOR RELATIONS GREETING. She refers to her First Victory_Steady Advancement of Thought_Why she Greets the Grange_The Props of Tyranny_Well-tutored Knaves_ Freedom of Opinion_Compliments to Uncle Sam_Party Promises_ Warning against Advice_Big and Little Postmasters_Importance of a Well-directed Opposition_Necessity of Organization_Old Party Organi¬ zations_Dropping Politicians Out of Sight_The Farmer’s Appeal based upon Justice and Right_Obstacles in the Way_Success !.15 CHAPTER II. . ORIGIN OF THE RURAL ORDER. Its Birth and Parentage-A Chemical Process_A Serious Appearance_ Saving Truths of Agricultural Chemistry_Mr. William Saunders_Con¬ gressional Seeds_How to reach the Farmers_Description of the Order_ The Degrees_The various Grades of Granges_Laborers and Maids_ Husbandmen and Matrons_The Grange and its Wives_Lessons from Masonry_No Prejudice of Sex_Ceremony of Consecrating and Blessing _Initiation_Progress of the Order_Its Social Attractions..23 CHAPTER III. ANCIENT AND MODERN MONOPOLIES. Governments in the Olden Time_A King for Israel_The Pilgrims_ Born Monopolies-Monopoly the Cause of our Revolution_The Second Declaration of Independence_The Third Declaration of Independence_ Labor and Capital. __32 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. THE PANDOWDIES. The Pandowdy Club_An Auxiliary to the Grange_Its Obiect and Attractions_An Interesting Meeting_Farmer’s Daughters as Patrons of Husbandry_The word “Patron”_Elder Brown-Judge Burton and “Conservatism in Politics”_Radicalism— Pedagogue Parker tells a Little Story_The “Movement” in Rome_A Little Progress_Farmer Roberts Brings Good Cheer_Matron Gardner Hears from Jane_Brother Smith Points to Facts_Farmer Churchill on “Protection”_The President’s Reply_The Slavery System_Emancipation from Artificially Enforced Slavery to Capital_What it Costs Matron Marks for a Spool of Thread_A Mechanic is Reminded.What it Costs him for Sundries_Merchant Maple on the Cost of a Hat_Mayor Field on Manufactures_A Civil Polity_ The Right of the Majority... Matron Pease knows a Thing or Two, as well as Other People_“Weak Woman, indeed.”...39 CHAPTER V. ECONOMIC PROGRESS. Bias of Published Works on Political Economy....Borrowing from English Authors-The Victims of “Protection”_Looking to Papa Government_ The Manufacturing Aristocracy_A Clamor for Protection_The Protective Principle Worsted in 1844 _The Home Market_The Great Problem_ Object of Labor-Monopolizing the Results of Labor.60 CHAPTER VI. THE LIBERAL GRANGE. IfCongratulates the Leading Press.... Advantage of Free Passes to Railways -An Anti-Monopoly Party-A Gubernatorial Deadhead_A Railroad Game-The New Illinois Tariff_No Cure for the Disease_An Idiotic Philosophy-Matron Clay on the Key-Note_The Work before us_Be¬ ginning the Reform at Home— .From Minnesota and Iowa_The Boys at Clifton— Catching a Spy... y| CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER VII. THE ANTI-MONO POLY LEAGUE. Signs of the Times_The Conflict between Protection and Free Trade_ The British Com Laws_A favorite Policy with England_The Agricultur¬ ists and their Monopoly_A Compromise_Revisions of the Com Laws_ A perfect Specimen of Protective Legislation_The Repealing Act of 1846 _ Commercial Depression_The Germ o a Mighty Enterprise.. .The Anti- Corn Law Association_The Free Trade Parliament_A Bill to Abolish the Sliding Scale_A period of Unexampled Distress_The Events of 1843 . The prime Maxim of the League_Dissolution of the League....95 1 CHAPTER VIII. THE MANY AND THE FEW. The Question of Taxation_No Way of Making it Agreeable_The Problem_Wealth and Industry_The Evil of Indirect Taxes_The In¬ come Tax McCulloch’s Objections A Fallacy A Legacy Duty The Astor Case_A Great Disadvantage_The Lords of the Land_Govern¬ ment Bonds----109 CHAPTER IX. GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. ' EXTRACTS FROM ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES, ACCEPTED BY THE PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY. The Primary Cause of “High Rates.”-Railway Rates_The Real Ex¬ tortion_In our own House_The Middlemen_The Little Bull Law_ Our Corporations_A Scare_The Infant Pig_King Caucus_Blades of Grass_Old Parties or New__.„_.....121 CHAPTER X. THE TARIFF, ITS HISTORY AND INFLUENCE. Wealth the Produce of Labor_Adam Smith’s Discovery_Law Makers and Gentry_Political Economy One Hundred Years Ago_In England in 1773 _Enhanced Protection Increases Embarrassments_The Colonial CONTENTS. • • • Vlll Policy_An Obstacle to the Framers of the Union-The First Regular Tariff_The First Tariff Recognizing Protection as a Principle_Meetings in Boston in 1820 _Webster on Protection-The Source of Instability in Legislation---167 CHAPTER XI. LABOR REFORM. Capital and Labor_Monopolists and Land Tenures-“Protection to Industry.”_Its Nobility and Gentry_Demand and Supply-What con¬ stitutes the Greatest Burden_What Labor Demands, etc., etc.__.179 CHAPTER XII. A CHINESE FABLE. A Recent Meeting_A Brother Mildly Dissents_A “ Little ” Tarifl Wanted_A “ Little ” Strangulation_An Iowa “Maid” Rises to explain _A Practical Example_What Yong-Sen said to the Mongoles_The Advantageof a few Obstructions_The Wreckers to be Protected_A Com¬ mittee on Whirlpools and other Obstructions..190 CHAPTER XIII. CONCERNING RIGHTS. The Age of the Farmer’s Movement_Equality in the Eye of the Law.... The Many Against the Few_A Significant Movement Against Self_.The * first Democracy_Prejudice versus Reason_The Divine Right to Rob_A Modern Political Speech in 1520 _The Twins_The Blinding Process—An Old Dodge_The Hero on the Stump_High Tariff and No Tariff_The College and the University_A Mighty Power_What the Farmer’s Move¬ ment Says........195 CHAPTER XIV. SEEDS FOR EARLY PLANTING. Railroad Appropriations_The Balance of Trade_Land Steals_ A voice from Ohio_The Pig-Iron Patriots_Protection on Wheels_The Victims......209 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XV. BANDS FOR THE BINDERS. At Princeton_Bureau’s Demand About Ann Eliza Jones-The Wisconsin Farmers_Their Resolves_The Minnesota Farmers-The Indiana Grangers_At the South_Consistency_A Last Word.229 CHAPTER XVI. FREEDOM IN TRADE. The Great Financial Resource....No Connection between Revenue and Tariff_Universal Free Trade_Its Advantages on a Large Scale_Plain Points_What Interests are capable of Protection_The Office of Commerce _Reciprocal or Retaliatory Tariff Our Secondary Interest Only Aggra¬ vates the Mischief_National Independence_A Favorite Argument_ The True Measure of Wages_How to Equalize Compensation_Cause of Disparity of Remuneration_Labor’s Security_A Home Market_Arti¬ ficial Distinction of Labor_The Whole Earth as a Home Market_An In¬ justice and a Fallacy_A Delusion_Purely a Burden_A Chart to guide Statesmen_244 CHAPTER XVII. THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE. t The Servants of the People_The Source of Power_The President’s Regal Authority_Executive Patronage_Centralization Preventing a True Expression of the Popular Will_Government Patronage in Europe_ Checks against Back-door Influence_Errors of our Constitution_Office- seekers in the United States_Stimulants to Partisan Activity_How Pol¬ iticians betray Public Interest_How Presidents secure Creatures and Sup¬ ports, etc., etc...259 CHAPTER XVIII. VOX POPULI VOX DEL A Mockery_The Sovereignty lodged with the People_The Will of the Majority_Momentary Outcries_The Arbitration of the Ballot-Box_ X •CONTENTS. The Working of the System_In the Agricultural Sections_The Abuses of the Nominating System_Light afforded by Figures.268 CHAPTER XIX. THE TRUE REMEDY. ♦ Of Republics_The True Idea_Complicated Political Machinery_ Rude Beginnings Two Thousand Years Ago_A Nation made up of States. _Knowledge Required to Comprehend this Intricate Machinery_Impar¬ tial Suffrage_Inviting Sef-Destruction_Educational Test of Fitness_ A Suggestion_The Great Doctrine_Our Experience_Are Voters all Men of Intelligence ?_The Leaders of Parties_The Traffic of Demagogues. _The Remedy—The Universal Education of the People,...273 CHAPTER XX. FROM THE NATIONAL GRANGE. Letter from J. Wilkinson_______281 i AUNTIE MONOPOLY TO HER POOR RELATIONS, GREETING. CHAPTER I. She refers to her First Victory_Steady Advancement of Thought_Why she Greets the Grange_The Props of Tyranny_Well-tutored Knaves_ Freedom of Opinion_Compliments to Uncle Sam, ...Party Promises_ Warning against Advice_Big and Little Postmasters_Importance of a Well-directed Opposition_Necessity of Organization_Old Party Organi¬ zations_Dropping Politicians Out of Sight_The Farmer’s Appeal based upon Justice and Right_Obstacles in the Way_Success ! Having followed the standard of Auntie Mo¬ nopoly from the time of her first great victory over the Corn Laws, I am happy in being assured of my revered relation’s continued respect and confidence. As a tried and trusted Poor Relation, I am honored with a commission as envoy to other Poor Relations, and her adherents everywhere, bearing glad tidings of the progress of the cause, and her best wishes for its continued success. Doubt and uncertainty disap¬ pear day by day, and agriculturists approach a clearer and more intelligent understanding of the Economic Problem. A movement having for its object the 1 6 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. i emancipation of a people from the slave power of the Monopoly system, has already captivated public opinion and bids fair to become the most popular movement of the day. In your intelligent efforts to escape the evil consequences of the monpoly system, day by day, you are acquiring a more definite con¬ ception of the remedy to be applied. This steady advancement of thought is not limited to the State of Illinois, where my relative was first offered shel¬ ter from the sneers and gibes of bloated and pro¬ tected Capital. The organization of “ Granges is proceeding with gratifying rapidity in all sections, and in all states. As they multiply, thought and in¬ quiry are stimulated, and sophistry gives way to es¬ tablished truth. To help this on, my Aunt has di¬ rected me to compile and prepare from the best sources, all that has the slightest bearing upon the subject, and to send the result to you in a form con¬ venient alike for study and preservation. Her fer¬ vent prayers go with “ Grains for the Grangers ” with the hope that they may yield an abundant harvest, when Elections call the producing classes to the field. Auntie Monopoly would impress upon your mind that knowledge is power. Ignorance and poverty are the props of tyranny and oppression. Ignorant men are generally credulous, and readily influenced by positive assertions when uttered by men of prop¬ erty and position in the world. It often happens that the intellects of poor ignorant men are confused and blunted through the mere presence of those whom they regard to be great and good. Hence they.are often the victims of well-tutored knaves, who have AUNTIE MONOPOLY’S GREETING. I 7 won enough of popular approbation to hold some office. They become the playthings and support of demagogues, who, while pretending to devote their time and labor for the common advantage of those who constituted them, are only attentive to their own selfish interests. The difference of mental efficiency between a child and a man, depends more upon the inexperience and want of knowledge of the child’ than upon the greater age of the man. Those who are inferior in experience and information are chil¬ dren, no matter about their age; in conflict with the highly cultivated minds of educated men, they must always be beaten, especially where they are also opposed by selfish, dishonest pretensions. It is a duty and a privilege of every American cit¬ izen to express his views on all points affecting the common good or interests of all classes. While he is bound to bow in obedience to all laws in existence, he may attempt to point out their errors, that they may be corrected. Even when his opinions are wrong, they maybe expressed advantageously to himself, be¬ cause discussion will elucidate and bring out the truth and render it manifest to all, or at any rate, to the majority. In presenting her compliments to Uncle Sam in these pages, Auntie Monopoly would not be so rude as to withhold a word in defence of Congress. It is its custom to rely on the reports of committees and the heads of bureaus in the executive departments, especially upon technical points. If the heads of bu¬ reaus be feeble, prejudiced, antiquated men, with per¬ sonal interests in personal schemes, destitute of the 1 8 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. i spirit of progress which is characteristic of our age and country; or men who are only capable of imita¬ tion and of following the precedents of other na¬ tions ; or men so conservative that they naturally op¬ pose all change and improvement, it is to be antici¬ pated that Congress and the Executive himself will be often led astray, in spite of the best intentions. It is time that the capabilities and qualifications of heads of bureaus should be scrutinized, and where they are found corrupt or incompetent, even in a mod¬ erate degree, more efficient men should be substitut¬ ed. The dominant party has promised this scrutiny and fed your impatience with subterfuge. Rings of men seek to control and do control the party in many districts for plunder and only plunder. There are many great, good and brave men in the Republi¬ can party, who seem appalled at the corruption of the times—perfectly helpless in their protestations. The corruptionists long ago seized the forts and batteries, —the papers and party organs with a few exceptions —and the most of the offices. It is useless and dan¬ gerous to fight against such things inside of a corrupt party. Just as dangerous and hopeless as it was for Southern patriots to remain and resist treason in the bosom of the South during the rebellion. To speak out, is political degradation and inquisitorial proscrip¬ tion ; to keep silent lest the party may suffer, is vol¬ untary slavery. Hence true reformers assume an in¬ dependent attitude in politics, applauding the right and condemning the wrong in men and in parties. My Aunt trusts that you will be warned in time against the deluge of advice that will sweep upon you AUNTIE MONOPOLY’S GREETING. 19 from all quarters. You will be tendered more of this porridge than was the negro before and since the war, or the monopolist Joseph, when he went into Egypt to secure a corner on grain. A monopolist governor thinks you should mind your own business and let politics alone. All present and prospective candidates for office within party lines, agree with the monop¬ olist governor. Every big and little postmaster will urge you to let politics alone. Every court-house ring, and cliques composed of little big men in vil¬ lages, are sure that you should steer clear of politics. The organs too, the little penny whistles through which refuse party wind escapes, being but echos themselves, repeat the cry. My Auntie asks in her modest way, how you are to reform an abuse, if you let politics alone? How punish the Credit-Mobilier thieves, and back-pay grabbers ? How reform the currency, revive commerce, open markets and force cheap transport¬ ation ? How reach the Tariff and other monopolies ? ' How accomplish any tangible or valuable result? It is not your aim, Auntie Monopoly adds, to parade griefs and outrages without doing something to rem¬ edy them. A strong, able and well-directed opposition is al¬ most as important to the success of a free govern¬ ment, as a worthy and competent administration. Government by one party, unrestrained by any appre¬ hension of defeat, or nerved to new measures by a profound conviction that the very existence of the government depends upon the success of the dom¬ inant party, is always attended with danger. The peo¬ ple operating upon and controlling and directing their 20 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. government through the working of the represent¬ ative principle, organization among them becomes unavoidable and as indispensable in politics as it is found to be in war. This necessity is not confined to a free government, for it is evidently only through an organization of their followers and retainers, that the Privileged Few ruling the many, and striving to perpetuate their own power, can succeed in securing the passive obedience of the inert masses, or in over¬ coming the open, but unconcerted and ill-devised op¬ position of numbers in any state. Again, it is as clearly only through an organization of themselves, that a free populace, by their delegates and represent¬ atives, are enabled to meet together and deliberate upon their affairs, and to devise and concert such ac¬ tion as their welfare demands. A free people who only delegate defined and limited powers to their government, usually require discussion and delibera¬ tion on their affairs prior to decision and action. For in order to enable any portion of a people to have a single representative, it is necessary to agree upon some one as a common choice. Now this certainly can only be effected by an organization. This orgam ization necessarily becomes in such a case the basis of a party. The “ Granges ” are made up of men of both parties and the most significant feature of the movement is the clearness with which it demonstrates the fact, that party lines are weakening and fading out. You have adhered to existing political organizations until they have fallen behind the requirements of the times. You demand active results from the party in power AUNTIE MONOPOLY’S GREETING. 21 You would compel Legislatures to acknowledge an allegiance higher than that of mere party, that you may be in a position to treat on something like terms of equality with that overshadowing monopoly which is everywhere putting the masses on their mettle. So long as the old party organizations are maintained, old party leaders and traditions must be supported. They are kept up solely for that purpose. This you do not want. The spirit of Reform will never find a practical embodiment until the professional politic¬ ians on both sides, with their Salary-grab, and Credit- Mobilier attachments, are dropped out of sight. You must take the matter in your own hands, regardless alike of Democratic and Republican parties as they stand. The process of new formation is recognizable in the Farmer’s organizations, Auntie Monopoly con¬ ventions, and independent municipal and local com¬ binations all over the land. Your appeal is based upon justice and right. The great producing classes—Farmers and Mechanics— find themselves at the absolute mercy of the money¬ changers. You are met by the money power at eve¬ ry turn. To'the greedy it offers fortunes, to the am¬ bitious, it tenders high office. Congressmen and even our chief magistrate grasp backward and forward to secure it, violating every trust that you have reposed in them. Unscrupulous “leaders” have long since sunk their love of country in their loyalty to party and the selfish gratification of their avarice or their ambition. The irrepressible conflict between capital and labor lies at the bottom of your movement—a 22 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. conflict between the money interest and the produc¬ ing interest. Your Movement holds forth the only fair chance of saving the public morals and the public liberty. The obstacles in the way of success are fallacious legisla¬ tion, and concentrated power of capital in the hands of the few. All depends upon intelligent and united effort among yourselves, and the prompt application of the remedy at the polls. STEPHE SMITH. Galesburg, Illinois, July, 1873. 1 CHAPTER II. Its Birth and Parentage-A Chemical Process— A Serious Appearance_ Saving Truths of Agricultural Chemistry-Mr. William Saunders_Con¬ gressional Seeds_How to reach the Farmers-Description of the Order_ The Degrees_The various Grades of Granges-Laborers and Maids_ Husbandmen and Matrons-The Grange and its Wives_Lessons from Masonry_No Prejudice of Sex-Ceremony of Consecrating and Blessing _Initiation_Progress of the Order-Its Social Attractions. As readers both on the farms and in the cities, are growing curious concerning the great Rural Order, my Aunt is able to gratify, in some measure, this very reasonable and laudable curiosity. In the year 1856, a wealthy citizen of Portland, Maine, departed this life, leaving a vast accumulation of real and personal property to an only son. When it is added that the family name was Smith, it need 2 23 1 • . 24 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. not be explained that the son was both learned and eccentric. Instead of a spendthrift, he became a chemist, and while experimenting with telegraph bat¬ teries, became possessed with the idea that he had a mission. While a renowned namesake—whom my Aunt is pleased to state was three generations re¬ moved from the main Smith—was busy perfecting a process by which figures on bank papers could be seduced from their original shape, the eccentric son came upon a secret which he conceived was to bene¬ fit the whole civilized world. Ceres appeared to him in a dream and commanded him to go among the western farmers and expound to them the saving truths of agricultural chemistry. Full of this benev¬ olent project, he called upon Mr. Horace Greeley and obtained from that oracle, a few advance sheets of “ What I Know about Farming,” and a bottle of dis¬ tilled rain water from Chappaqua. With these and a small carpet valise, he hastened to Mr. William Saunders, of Washington City. This gentleman was at that time the editor of an horticultural paper, but is now connected with the agricultural bureau, having charge of that department which prepares seeds in available packages for distribution by uncertain Con¬ gressmen, to the doubtful agriculturists of their re¬ spective constituencies. Young Smith consulted Saunders as to the mapping out of his lecturing tour and the best means of gathering his audiences. Un- willing that so young a plant should start in a new field that had already been copiously watered, he told him that the thing could not be done; the farmers were too isolated ; he would save himself disappoint- THE RURAL ORDER. 25 ment and mortification by staying at home and ex¬ perimenting in his back yard. Pained at the young mans discomfiture, the cultivated seed vouchsafed a word of consolation. If he would become a par¬ doned criminal, a government defaulter, the hero of a filthy divorce suit, or a brother-in-law of the Presi¬ dent, he would find his audiences everywhere, ready made. History, never having tackled the Smith Family, does not mention that the advice was taken. It is however, known that the bulbous Saunders possessed himself of the young man’s secret, and lost no time in turning it to his own advantage. He was at head- quarters and knew how other interests were organ¬ ized for both good and ill. They had the strength born of union. “In union there is strength,” saluted the Saunders from the walls that hedged him about, and looked down upon him from shelf after shelf of agricultural reports. Why should not the agricul¬ tural interests secure strength through union ? The Saunders revolved these things in the agricultural portion of its brain—consulted other seeds—and worked them out on paper. Thus, in the winter of 1867, was founded, in the city of Washington, the great rural order which is now making such a stir throughout the length and breadth of this land. O O Who shall say that its representatives shall not one day be summoned to Washington, there to treat with the enemy under a flag of truce ? The organization of this order, as described to my Aunt, is rather complex. At the base is the subordi¬ nate, local or neighborhood Grange. Above this, 26 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. the State Grange ; at the apex, the National Grange. The chief duties of the National Grange are, to collect and disseminate information for the benefit of the whole Order, and to place State Granges in co¬ operative communication, and to advise subordinate Granges with reference to matters of special inter¬ est. There are four degrees in the subordinate Grange—“ Laborer or Maid,” (according to sex,) “Cultivator or Shepherdess,” “Harvester or Gleaner,” and “ Husbandman or Matron.” On entering the State Grange, which is composed of the Masters of subordinate Granges, and such Masters wives as are Matrons, the fifth degree is obtained, which is known as “ Pomona—hope.” “ Flora—charity,” the sixth degree, is obtained on entering the National Grange, which is composed of the Masters of State Granges, and such of their wives as have taken the previous degree. “ Ceres—faith ” is the seventh degree, for which all members of the National Grange are eli¬ gible, after a year’s honorable service. This degree has charge of the secret work of the Order, and is the tribunal for trying impeachments. As many well-informed and prominent Masons are members, the work of the Order is conducted with the utmost harmony and regularity. The gentle reader will already have noticed that the “ Patrons ” are as free from the prejudice of sex as Miss Anthony herself could desire. One of the head centres is quoted as saying * “ Suffrage for women is coming; we have the certain means of knowing that which even the press cannot find out. We have taken a broad stride in the world’s progress; THE RURAL ORDER. 2 7 we have given woman her true place. We not only make her eligible to our highest office, but we have three places which only a woman can fill. You may call it the poetry of our order, but it is a part of the foundation as well as a principle, for no person can be¬ come a member until they have been consecrated and blessed by her hands.” The ceremony of consecrat¬ ing and blessing is so original, that it would be treat¬ ing my Aunt very shabbily to abridge a syllable : “ On a remote platform,” she says, “ in the hall where the meeting is held, may be seen the three women whose charming hands must consecrate the new aspirant. The first is Flora, named from myth¬ ology. Her brow is bound with flowers, and if the proper season is at hand, they trail in garlands from her garments, which are as fleecy as the clouds. From the profusion before her she selects a specimen and presents it to the new accession. To the inno¬ cent young girl she presents a lily. To the juiceless old bachelor a sprig of rue. The woman who repre¬ sents Ceres is usually a matron. Her ripe forehead is surmounted with a crown of straw, which is dotted with golden grain. She bestows upon the candidate a handful of her treasures, or, perhaps, an ear of corn, after her part of the ceremony is over. Last, but not least, comes Pomona, symbolic of the riches of harvest and autumn. A glorious woman she should be. When the candidate has passed her hands, nothing- more can be done for him. He is a full- fledged Patron of Husbandry.” We should add that, after these imposing ceremonies are over, and the business is transacted, the Grange resolves itseli. into 28 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. a committee of the whole on having a good time— in warm weather, usually adjourning to out-doors. If you ask my Aunt if this does not seem like child’s play, or the manner in which Good Templars run the gilt-edged temperance business, she refers you to the railroad people, and to the politicians, who have opinions of their own upon the subject, suitable for the retail trade. The Order is rapidly extending over the Union. It has formed a home and habitation in twenty-six states and territories, and in twenty-one states there are state organiza¬ tions. The number of Granges is roughly estimated at 5,147, with an average membership of 50, making a total membership which my Aunt thinks you may figure up for yourself. In Iowa there are 1,765 Granges alone, making an increase of over one thousand since January last. The Order is now re¬ ceiving members at the rate of from three hundred to five hundred a day. It can afford to indulge, if it chooses, in very singular and even puerile ceremo¬ nies, without forfeiting its claim to respectful consid- ation. Socially, the Order has accomplished much good. Heretofore farmers, especially in the sparsely settled districts, knew little or nothing of each other ; seldom came together, and were without the mental stimu¬ lant generated by the friction of mind against mind. The Grange brought them together. It was estab- lished for their benefit; they gravitated towards it, and soon the cohesive power of mutual kindness, good will, and interest bound them together to pro¬ mote the common welfare. The isolation and com- THE RURAL ORDER. 2 9 parative solitude which prevailed so largely, and tended to dry up the better feelings of nature, were succeeded by a regular convening of the farmers and their families, at stated periods, resulting in a better understanding of each other, and in enlarged views of men and things. There is, in consequence, more reading, more discussion, and more independent thinking. Improvements are being gradually intro¬ duced into the social department of the Order, ren¬ dering the meetings attractive and entertaining as well as instructive. The Grange room is a kind of moral club-room for the enjoyment of both sexes. There is much music in the ritual to enliven the cer¬ emonies, and many ot the Granges possess libraries for the amusement and instruction of its members. This, it is claimed, naturally has a tendency to pre¬ vent young men from leaving rural life, where they possess a comfortable competence, for precarious com¬ petition in the large cities. Every Grange pays into the national treasury $15 for a dispensation, receiving in return material which, at the lowest figure costs not less than six dollars, and consisting of sample regalias, manuals, song books, blank books, and in a word,* everything essential to starting the Order. All the funds are deposited in the Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company, in New York, where there is to-day a fund of over $20,000. When fifteen subor¬ dinate Granges are organized in a state, authority is granted to organize a State Grange, composed ot masters of the subordinate Granges, who, in turn, elect their Master, and he becomes a member of the National Grange. 30 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. The National Grange was organized on the even¬ ing of Dec. 4, 1867, at the office of Mr. Saunders, on Four-and-a-half street, Washington City, between Missouri avenue and the old canal, by the election of the following officers : Master, William Saunders, of District of Columbia; Lecturer, J. R. Thompson, of Vermont; Overseer, Anson Bartlett, of Ohio; Steward, William Muri, of Missouri; Assistant Steward, A. S. Moss, of New York; Chaplain, Rev. A. B. Grosh, Pennsylvania; Treasurer, Wm. M. Ire¬ land, Pennsylvania; Secretary, O. H. Kelly, Minne¬ sota ; Gate Keeper, Edward P. Farris, Illinois. Sev¬ eral of the persons from the states elected officers were not present, but were elected because of the interest they had manifested in the matter, and with the hope that they would serve. It was thought proper to elect the officers for a term of five years, since the majority of them had actively aided in establishing the organization, and having matured their plan of operations, desired a sufficient time to carry it out in accordance with their own precon¬ ceived ideas. Soon after a subordinate Grange was established in Washington, as a school of instruction and to test the efficiency of the ritual. This Grange numbered about sixty members. The first dispensa¬ tion was issued to a subordinate lod^e at Harrisburg, Pa., the second to a lodge in Fredonia, N. Y., and the third at Columbus, O. To-day the weekly bulletin of the Secretary shows the number of Granges to be as follows: THE RURAL ORDER, 31 GRANGES IN THE UNITED STATES. Alabama_ 21 Arkansas_ 26 California. 35 Georgia. 77 Illinois. 562 Indiana... 272 Iowa. 1,765 Kansas. 405 Kentucky. 1 Louisiana... 11 Massachusetts. 1 Michigan_ 40 Minnesota. 330 Mississippi .. 200 Missouri .. 501 Nebraska. 305 New Jersey. 3 New York.. 8 North Carolina..36 Ohio... 80 Oregon.. 24 Pennsylvania.. 9 South Carolina. __i31 Tennessee. 63. Texas. 2 Vermont.. 24 Virginia. 3 West Virginia.. 2 Wisconsin.189 Colorado. 2 Dakota. n Canada . 8 Total.5,147 i ANCIENT AND MODERN MONOPOLIES. --*■- CHAPTER III. Governments in the Olden Time._A King for Israel_The Pilgrims_ Born Monopolies_Monopoly the Cause of our Revolution_The Second Declaration of Independence_The Third Declaration_Labor and Capital. Governments in the olden time, were instituted not for men, but for man. The patriarchs, as the head of families or tribes, had a monopoly of the gov¬ ernment of their people, both civilly and ecclesiasti¬ cally. The children of Israel demanded a king, thus admitting that they were not capable of self-govern¬ ment. The right of governing the many by the few, was a part of the Mosaic law, and has been the his¬ tory of every people. Man .has sought and now seeks to govern men either by the monopoly of blood or wealth, in every nation, whether kingdom, empire, or republic. Because they were not the few that gov¬ erned the many, the pilgrims sought the wilds of America, and not for the sole reason that they could not worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. Had they ruled, others would have been forced into the pilgrimage business. Undoubt¬ edly honest in their religious belief, nevertheless they exercised more tyranny than their oppressors had done by acts of parliament. Not only did they de¬ sire a monopoly of the water and land of Massachu- 32 ANCIENT AND MODERN MONOPOLIES. 33 setts bay, but they claimed a divine right to get up a “ corner ” in religion. It was not tax that caused the revolt bv the col- * onies, but the establishment of custom-houses, an at¬ tempt by men born rulers—the blood monopoly of England, to derive a revenue from imposts. Long before men complained of taxation without repre¬ sentation, the revolution was a fixed fact. When George III. established a schedule of duties on im- ports, the assembly of North Carolina, Nov. 4, 1769, declared against the right of Great Britain to tax the colonies. In 1770 the “ regulators ” of that colony, whose headquarters were at Hillsborough, were or- ganized. On the 16th of May, 1771, Gov. Tryon at¬ tempted with a force of state militia to suppress them. An engagement took place near Alamance Creek, re¬ sulting in the death of twenty-seven militia and nine regulators. This was the first blood shed in defense of the principle that men, and not man should gov¬ ern. This republic is a child of accident. The col¬ onies were loyal to the British crown. They were taught to believe in the divine right of kings to rule, and the birth-right of the house of lords to tax. Gage was received in Boston, May, 15, 1774, with an address of welcome, although the embassador of a king. In October, 1774, Washington said,“ Notone thinking mind in America desired independence.” In 1775, Jay expressed great abhorrence for the “ claim of the few ” for independence. “ Our wish,” said he,“ is that Brit¬ ain and the colonies, like the oak and ivy, may grow and increase together.” Samuel Adams wrote, “ We will suffer indignities, rather than precipitate a crisis.” 34 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. Warren expressed himself as in favor of petition, and not a resort to arms. They had no “ precedents ” for violation. The call for the congress of 1776 was to “ resolve.” When the “ declaration ” was adopted some members hesitated to sign. Peace they desired although at the cost of freedom. To the wavering ones Rev. John Witherspoon, of New Jersey, said, “that noble instrument on your table which insures immortality to its owner should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in the house. He who will not respond to its accents and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions, is unworthy the name of freeman. Although these gray hairs must descend into the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather they should descend thither by the hand of the pub¬ lic executor, than desert at its crisis the sacred cause of my country.” Forthwith the declaration was signed by every member. With varying success, without knowing that the end would be a republic or a monarchy, the war went on. With the treaty of peace came the want of a government, not a confed¬ eracy, The revolution had been a success; would a republic succeed ? what model should be adopted ? like Rome? great through conquest and blood ; Flor¬ ence? where the people ruled; Venice? where the people had no voice; Switzerland? with a president for an ornament; or the republic of Poland, gov¬ erned by a king; a federal government was established. The monopoly of birth and blood received its first lesson from the people. Men and not man was to govern. ANCIENT AND MODERN MONOPOLIES. 35 The war of 1812 was fought and won against the monopoly exercised by England on the high seas. The second declaration of independence was the war of the rebellion. Capital monopolized the labor of the slaves. The emancipation proclamation es¬ tablished the principle that labor and compensation must go together. An amendment to the constitu- tion of the republic made that principle more bind¬ ing and gave it the sanction of law. The first dec- laration was for white men ; the second was for all men. Freedom under both was secured by the sword. You have announced the necessity of a third decla¬ ration—commercial freedom, emancipation from the slavery of monopolies, and personal independence- It is this declaration, that is briefly, and it is hoped, attractively discussed in these pages. Labor is entitled to a fair share of the profits made by the use and combination of labor and capital. Capital is no more entitled to all the profit of labor and capital, less the wages paid to labor, than labor is entitled to all the profits, less the interest paid to capital. As wages are paid to labor, so should inter¬ est be paid to capital, and whatever is earned by joint and combined labor and capital above wages and interest, should be fairly divided between labor and capital. It is this monopoly upon which we would bring to bear the influence of an intelligent opposi¬ tion. Our order is founded upon the axioms that the products of the soil comprise the basis of all wealth ; that individual happiness depends upon gen¬ eral prosperity; and that the wealth of a country depends upon the general intelligence and mental ' 36 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. culture of -the producing classes. When we shall have successfully demonstrated our faith in all this by prompt and united action, monopolies will cease to exist. But that action must not falter or bend until the whole breed shall have been laid low. That blow will perhaps be the most effective for immediate good which is aimed at the monopoly of party and corrupt politics. It may reach our best friend or most respected relative ; but it is a cause worthy of the sacrifice, and everything save principle must be put aside. THE PANDOWDY CLUB. _ - _ _ THE PANDOWDIES. CHAPTER IV. The Pandowdy Club_An Auxiliary to the Grange_Its Obiect and Attractions_An Interesting Meeting-Fanner’s Daughters as Patrons of Husbandry... The word “Patron”_Elder Brown-Judge Burton and “Conservatism in Politics”_Radicalism... Pedagogue Parker tells a Little Story_The “Movement” in Rome_A Little Progress_Farmer Roberts Brings Good Cheer_Matron Gardner Hears from Jane_Brother Smith Points to Facts_Farmer Churchill on “Protection”-The President’s Reply_The Slavery System_Emancipation from Artificially Enforced Slavery to Capital_What it Costs Matron Marks for a Spool of Thread_A Mechanic is Reminded.What it Costs him for Sundries_Merchant Maple on the Cost of a Flat_Mayor Field on Manufactures-A Civil Polity_ The Right of the Majority.Matron Pease knows a Thing or Two, as well as Other People_“Weak Woman, indeed.” The Pandowdy Club is an auxiliary to the Grange, flourishing more especially in towns, cities and busi¬ ness centres. It is designed for landholders, who entrust their farms, in the vicinity, to tenants, or representatives of the professions, who favor reform and sympathize with the producing classes in their great movement. It took its name from a New England dish—of the nature of a pot-pie—which flourished, like all good dishes, at an earlier day. It is the Younor Men’s Christian Association of the o movement, and more ethical, perhaps, than agricul¬ tural in its character. It has received a new impetus 39 3 40 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. since the Anti-monopolists charged all along the line, and whole evenings are now frequently given up to the discussion of matters pertaining to the best interests of the cause. The object is to harmonize new ele¬ ments, husband strength, and enlighten members upon doubtful points. It indulges in essays, chess, cold tongue, conversation, raisins, poetry, debate, newspapers, agricultural publications, chicken salad, croquet, and the bringing about of social reforms. A very interesting meeting took place at the Pan¬ dowdy Club Rooms last evening, and it is believed a condensed report of the proceedings will prove of interest to Pandowdies everywhere. Professor Jones, of the Academy, presided. The minutes of the preceding meeting were read, ap¬ proved, and ordered to their proper place in the Blue Book. The president then declared discussion in order, each member to choose his or her own topic. The Widow Martin thought it strange that so many farmers’ daughters had enrolled themselves as Patrons of Husbandry. Bachelor Bland, of the “ Dunn Farm,” thought it was the first business they could get into, and the last they could get out of. Farmer Crane didn’t like the words “ Patron,” “ Patronage,” and all that. Elder Brown agreed with his friend. They are words that a free and independent people might well expunge from their vocabulary. The origin of the term “ Patron ” is disreputable. When a Roman patrician freed his slaves, he did not free them THE PANDOWDIES. 41 unconditionally. He retained certain feudal rights over them, in virtue of which they styled him Patro - nits , that is, Superior and Protector. Hence, in aris¬ tocratic England, after the feudal system had been abolished, the great men, who were then no longer the absolute lords and masters of the little ones, assumed the title of their patrons. The English masses, in the progress of time, became too formid¬ able and too sturdy to be snubbed and buffeted with impunity, but they still continue to call the higher classes by a name that implies service on the one hand, and condescending favor on the other. We have imported the word into this country as a fitting one to be applied by the workingmen of America to the aristocracy of the purse. Away with it! To solicit “ patronage ” is to cringe, to “ eat dirt,” as they say in China, to crook the supple hinges of the knee, that thrift may follow fawning. Why, your upstart, mercenary politicians are telling you now that they are going to “patronize” the farmers! American workingmen sometimes so far forget their sovereign position as to boast of having “patrons” among people of standing. As if any man in this republic had any right to look down upon its intelligent work¬ ers, or it was seemly in any honest American toiler to call his fellow citizen and political equal by a name which the half-breed Latin helot—transformed from a slave to a client —used with bated breath and downcast eyes in addressing his former master. We have something too much of “patronage” in the United States, as we agriculturists can testify. Rail¬ ways and Protective Tariffs are our “ patrons,” the 42 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS scurvy politician says. From the government de¬ partments in Washington, down to the avenues of this inland town, toadyism kisses the feet of assump¬ tion, and profits by the contact of lip and sole. The social, like the political scale, has its regular grada¬ tions,—degradations were perhaps the better term— and class distinctions are more sharply drawn and more rigorously insisted on every year. We seem to be rapidly adopting the artificial, undemocratic, irrational, social classifications every year. Judge Burton wanted to warn the Pandowdies against conservatism in Politics, the enemy in a thin disguise. The establishment of monopoly and privi¬ lege is the birth Qf conservatism; and the senti¬ ments which generate it would intuitively discover, and therefore favor and support the policy which is to furnish it with food. By conservatism in politics, no one pretends to mean the maintenance of the rights of the people, the preservation of the purity of the laws, or a scrupulous adherence to the restric¬ tions and limits on power, but really nothing more than a policy which favors particular interests, and sustains peculiar rights or exclusive privileges in cer¬ tain classes. Conservatism and consolidation nat¬ urally go together in our government. It is only through the exercise of implied, and therefore ques¬ tionable and doubtful powers, which a strict construc¬ tion of the Constitution places among the ungranted and reserved powers, that the Federal Government can invest any class or set of persons with any exclusive privileges or monopolies. The first step, therefore, in creating monopolies, is to expand the functions of THE PANDOWDIES. 43 the Federal Government into those oi a more en¬ larged and unrestricted central authority, by assum¬ ing for, and consolidating in it, more than the granted powers. Thus is shown the natural harmony and alli¬ ance which exists in our government between the polit¬ ical principles of conservatism and those of consol¬ idation. In Hamilton’s philosophy of government, consolidation was a means and not an end. It is not, however, a necessary consequence that the same means would, in all countries and under every cir¬ cumstance, lead to the same end, which is to strengthen and perpetuate the government, by allying with it, and keeping dependent upon it, great and powerful inter¬ ests, founded on exclusive privileges—any special industry peculiarly fostered and protected.- Elder Brown. —Let us declare for Radicalism at once! [Applause.] Judge Burton. —Conservatives are often men of well-stored minds and extensive influence. But their habits of thought, their tastes, their imaginations, all unite to fasten their conviction'to the must and fra734 Ordinary laborers.. 1,031,666 Trade and transportation.. 1,191,238 Non-protected manufactures. 1,850,000 Miners, not protected. 75,000 Total non-protected...11,723,502 PROTECTED CLASSES. Operatives in wool, iron, cotton, and other goods. 705,314 Miners... 77,107 Total protected classes. 782,421 GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 143 The number of persons engaged in protected in¬ dustries is six and one-quarter per cent, of the whole, and the non-protected classes are ninety-three and three-quarters per cent, of the whole producing pop¬ ulation. It is hardly probable then, that the protectionists are in earnest when they claim that if the average bounty of forty-nine per cent, extorted from the peo¬ ple nominally, to protect the labor of the protected classes, is abolished, there will be a million of adults driven to the farms. Persons raised in cities, and who have been engaged in mechanical and factory work, can not be induced by any stress of circumstances, to become farmers. The farmers of the West could give homes and employment to an immense army of both men and women, and liberal wages, too, if they could be procured. It is one of the evils of the day, that such a large proportion of the laboring popula¬ tion prefer to live in the cities struggling with pov¬ erty and exposed to all the temptations and vices of a metropolis, rather than seek the country, where a comfortable and respectable living awaits them on the farms. Nor can farmers attach their own sons and daughters to the plow. They hasten to abandon the healthfulness and integrity of agricultural life, to be¬ come petty clerks, salesmen, servants, and wage-labor¬ ers in cities. When Protectionists talk about empty¬ ing their factories and sending their laborers out on the farms, if the special bounties to a few manufac¬ turing interests be repealed, they do not scare any¬ body, much less the Patrons of Husbandry. So dif¬ ficult is it to get sufficient labor for the farms, that 144 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. if it were not for the addition to such labor obtained from the annual immigration, it would be impossible to increase the products of farms in proportion to the increase of the population of the country. The idea that the Protectionists furnish from their mills the “consumers ” of farm products, is a specious false¬ hood. The same people would consume just as much in a non-protected occupation. They are as far from the truth when they claim that the object of Protection is to give higher wages to labor. The proportion of labor performed by ma¬ chinery is annually growing greater, and that by hu¬ man labor decreasing. The proportion of cash ex¬ pended for wages of the leading manufactures, does not exceed eighteen per cent, of the product. Ten men, by the aid of machinery, now do the work which required forty men twenty years ago. The capital¬ ist enjoys the same bounty on the product of his ma¬ chinery that he does on the labor of his workmen. At the most, the workman can only receive, as his share of the average, forty-nine per cent, bounty— the proportion which his wages bear to the value of the thing produced, which is eighteen per cent. The rest of the bounty is awarded to the capital which hires the laborer and owns the machinery. THE INFANT PIG. %! The true Granger never loses his interest in what¬ ever concerns the health of the government’s little pig—or as it is known outside the Grange, the infant pig-iron industry. So eager is he to possess himself r-T\ “ ' GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 1 45 of information concerning p’ggys welfare, that he is always ready to accept it from friend or foe. Once obtained, he loses no time in spreading the glad tid¬ ings before his brethren, that neither “ matron ” or “maid” may doubt that Protection’s favorite child, shall be eventually successfully weaned. The latest bulletin comes from the Messrs. A. B. Meeker and Co., the meek iron-masters of Chicago. A monopolist journal of that sun-burnt village smiles upon its readers with the information that the above firm “ shipped a considerable quantity of iron out of the United States last year, and was engaged in working up an extensive trade in that metal with Her Majesty’s subjects.” If this be true, our Infant would be in little danger if the duty on pig-iron were wholly removed. An additional inference is warranted that the present duty enables American iron-masters to practice extortion, for which there is not the shadow of an excuse. But as monopolist organs often err, even in telling ! the tale of their own pigs, corroboration comes through a voice from the great iron kingdom of Pennsylvania. This voice is the Harrisburg Patriot , whatever that is, and it says: “ A great change for the advantage of the leading interest in the manufactures of Pennsylvania, the production of iron in its various forms, has taken place within the past two years. The market value of pig-iron has almost doubled during that period, with no increase in the cost of production.” This change has taken place, in spite of a consider- 146 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. able reduction of duties. When the duty on pig- iron was $9 per ton, before the year 1870, the price of American pig, in New York, was from $26 to $33 per ton, according to quality. The present price, under a duty of $6.30 per ton, is from $40 to $50 per ton. The advance in price has been from $14 to $17 per ton, without taking the duty into account. Now, if the boss pigs were able to live, with a protection of $9 per ton, when the price, including duty, averaged $29.50,.can’t they subsist now without begging, when the price—also including duties—averages $45 per ton, without any protection at all ? Supposing, as we Grangers have a right to suppose, the repeal of the present duty should reduce the price of American iron $6.30 per ton, as it would, the manufacturers would still realize an average of $38.70 per ton, against an average of only $29.50, when the duty was $9. They would still realize $9.20 per ton more than they did when they had the benefit of the highest rate of duty. They admit that it costs no more to produce pigs, that is to say pig-iron, in this country now, than it did then. It follows that the manufac¬ turers would be better off by $9.20 per ton, without protection , than they were then, with $9 per ton pro¬ tection. It follows of necessity again, that the pres¬ ent duty is a sheer gratuity from those generous fellows, the professional politicians, to men who would make enormous profits without any duty at all. If you ask the enemy why, even on the protective theory, the duty should longer exist, he will answer, because the present high prices of iron cannot be sustained , because, if the present duty be abolished, GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 147 * . • prices will fall at once, and the rapacious British iron¬ masters will instantly flood our market with cheap iron, the product of their “ pauper labor,” and “ crush out” our “infant industry,” just as it is being able to- walk alone. If this argument is good now, when will it cease to be ^ood ? We are forever beina- assured by the advocates of the “ American System,” that “ protection ” is merely a temporary expedient; and we have heard farmers say that it was a good thing when the country was new. The protectionist adds, that it is only necessary while our industries are in their infancy; that as soon as we have machinery and skilled labor, we shall be able to defy foreign competition by reason of our natural resources, and protection then will no longer be necessary. Then, why not apply the doctrine at once ? The infant is well supplied with capital, skilled labor, and machin¬ ery, and is backed by natural resources unsurpassed. It is able, we see, to cope with Great Britain on her own ground. Could any infant wish for more ? Is it not able now to run alone, without the assistance of nurse ? There are two causes for the advance in the price of iron, during the past two years. First, the in¬ creased demand, and second, the increased cost of production in Great Britain. Doubtless, the increased demand will be met in time by the increased produc¬ tion ; but the increased cost of production in Great Britain is not likely ever to be overcome. The prob¬ ability is that the cost of producing there, relatively to the cost of producing it here, will constantly in¬ crease. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that 148 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. the increased supply of iron must come from this country, if the iron-masters are wise enough to sur¬ render the privilege of exacting tribute from their countrymen, and to demand exemption from the payment of tribute to other protected producers. If they are wise enough to improve their golden oppor¬ tunity by helping to rid themselves, and the country, of the whole tribute system, they will soon control the iron markets of the whole western continent. The Grange may safely conclude that the govern¬ ment’s pig is doing very well. KING CAUCUS. BY AN OHIO PATRON. The Old Men’s Party met in convention, recently, in Ohio, and danced a hornpipe to the tune of “ Old Hundred.” It was a fair-sized collection of political pall-bearers, and one in which the ages of the par¬ ticipants compare appropriately with the age of the deceased, which was known in life as “ The Ohio De¬ mocracy.” It was composed mainly of ancient sticks, old dead timber that lost its sap and its bark before the war. There was an occasional limb still green at the top, but the trunk of the thing is worm-eaten, rotten at the heart and shaky at the butt. It was re¬ marked that “old men of the senilities,” who have not cast their votes for more than adecade, had come out in spectacles and on crutches, for a last victory, a closing triumph of speeches over youth and clear eyesight. A platform of principles was adopted, as a matter of course, the first resolution of which em¬ bodied a truth which is not only taking hold of the GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 149 ; . . A popular mind everywhere, but which was a part of the Patron’s creed, from the very commencement of the People’s movement. It is the first of the string of resolutions composing the platform, and is as fol¬ lows : Resolved , That we declare against a caucus or con¬ vention which fails to present fit candidates for office. It is the high privilege, as well as the bounden duty, of all good citizens to withhold their votes from such candidates, and, regardless of party -affiliations, to support the best men presented for official position. Our movement is as much against King Caucus o o as against any other tyrant; as much against the fetters imposed by party management and political conventions, upon the freedom of action of voters, as against any other species of monopoly. People begin to revolt at the spectacle, not only of nomina¬ ting bodies, but even of state legislatures packed in the interest of particular aspirants to office, and con¬ verted into so much machinery to be “run” for their individual benefit. An ambitious, unscrupulous pol¬ itician may in reality have the support of but a small minority of the party to which he belongs. The great body of that party, including its most enlightened and respectable members, may be altogether opposed to his elevation, and see, not only with reluctance, but disgust, the control of the party surrendered into his hands. But, unfortunately, the active minority who support him are of the class of “working” politi¬ cians—the class who attend primary meetings, serve as delegates to conventions, who live by politics, and between whom and the candidate a natural alliance GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. 150 of interest springs up. Disgusted “ respectability,” meanwhile, stays at home, takes no active part in the nominations, and, when the day of election arrives, finds that it has no choice but to support the candi¬ date whom it condemns, or, by withholding that sup¬ port, let the election go by default in favor of a po¬ litical opponent. At least, that is what too com¬ monly happens in all parts of the country. Until the organization of the farmers’ movement, few men had the courage to disobey the party mandate, or to “bolt” the action of a regular convention in order to save even a state from beincr disgraced. o o We have seen good men supporting unfit nomina¬ tions because they were “ regular,” and as Patrons we confess, in entire accord with the Ohio resolutions, that the most dangerous feature in our politics is the disposition to follow blindly the dictates of party caucuses, which are controlled, in nine cases out of ten, by scheming, intriguing political demagogues. Partisanship is the present peril, and wholesome “bolting” the escape. Wherever the selfishness and ambition of self-constituted leaders and would-be party managers seek to lord it over the people and to forestall the popular choice, a healthy, spirited “ bolt” will do a world of good, and teach such fellows, that even though they get the ear of power, and the con¬ trol of patronage and machinery of party, the people back of the party are honest, clean and decent, and will stand no nonsense. I trust, that before it is too late, those who claim to have the political destinies of the states in their special keeping will take note of the spirit that is abroad in the land, and by present- > / \ GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 151 ing only the “best men” as candidates, forestall the danger of a disastrous if not fatal “ bolt.” The Pat- rons of Husbandry will support only the best men, and there is that in the spirit of the people, just now, which will stand no nonsense. BLADES OF GRASS. BY A KANSAS PATRON. We want it clearly understood, that this movement of the farmers began without the aid of any politi¬ cian or newspaper “ organ.” As the grass springs up all over the land in the spring of the year, so was our movement the spontaneous outgrowth of exist¬ ing conditions, springing into existence in all parts of the West, as naturally and necessarily as the growth of vegetation in springtime. Wherever the same causes exist, there, from the necessities of the people, has arisen this farmers’ movement, and there with in¬ telligent leadership and permanent organization, it is struggling against the power of aggregated capital, combined with the evil influences of party rings and political demagogues. The reform movement goes bravely on, and the disinclination of the farmers, and those who sympathize with us in the war against monopolies, to be drawn into or to indorse any party, or to be ridden by any set of politicians, argues well for the future. It has not grown like a hot-house plant, but rather is it the result of deep convictions that the time has come when something must be done to break up old party ties. It is neither a Dem¬ ocratic nor a Republican move, but welcomes all who 10 J 5 2 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. will take part. No one is excluded on account of former political belief; neither does it matter what calling he follows, provided it is an honest one. Men who have hitherto been operating with the different political organizations, engaging with all the earnest¬ ness and bitterness engendered by party differences, have buried the hatchet, and are ready and willing to denounce wrong-doing and wrong-doers, wherever found. I am aware that the stream cannot be purer nor rise higher than its fountain. We Patrons are charged with the momentous work of purifying the fountain—even the people themselves—until they shall see that the man who legislates the peoples’ money into his own pocket, or betrays public trust in any way whatsoever, is a worse criminal than he who steals a horse or robs a bank. Everyday experience demonstrates the fact that misfortunes befall the country when incompetent men are elected to office. The proof in this country is as clear as it is disgraceful. People are suffering all over the nation from either the dishonesty or the incapacity of public officers, and in many cases from both. We must have reform. The country cannot stand this ceaseless drain upon its resources. There must be some kind of correspondence between the income and the expenditures of the country, or bank¬ ruptcy will ensue. Many of us were at first disposed to turn to the old Republican party, but it has be¬ come so corrupt, from long continuance in power, that reform within its fold is among the impossibili¬ ties. At every convention it has held, in the last two or three years, it has resolved and resolved again in GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 153 favor of reform, of official purity, etc., etc., and as often goes back to its filth, systematically violating every pledge and promise. Just now the Democratic corpse is thrusting similar resolves at us through its shroud. The people are casting about now for other means to preserve what is left of their rights and liberties, and to get back, if possible, those rights which the government has arbitrarily seized and con¬ ferred upon monopolies. It is not a new departure, but merely the taking of new means to preserve be¬ tween the people and the government their constitu¬ tional relations, and to get better security than the constitution gives the people, that the relations of freemen to their government shall not be arbitrarily broken by the exercise of power not vested in the government, and that rights, which belong to the people at large, shall not be taken away and conferred upon corporations. This is taking place all over this country.. It needs but system and order in its management and guidance to be entirely successful. This system and order we have already secured, through our organization. OLD PARTIES OR NEW. BY A MASTER. The better sort of government is that which leaves the largest freedom of action to the citizen. To secure this, it must not seek to in¬ terfere with the laws of trade, religion, or the customs of society. The Republican party is the successor of the old Whig party that came in turn from the 154 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. Federal party of the Revolution. It regards the government as the guardian, or rather the parent, of the people. Hence the class legislation of which we complain. We are not only made to pay heavily for the support of an extravagant government, but we are forced to sustain the pets of the government— privileged monopolies based on money, that are wrong and oppressive. These constitute the oppos¬ ing forces that are inimical to good government. These forces may be classed under one head, as the accumulated capital of the country in the hands of the few—the men who grew rich out of contracts, during the war. They may be enumerated as fol¬ lows: The Protectionists, the great railroad interests, the national banks,—all based upon, or outcropping from, the gold-bearing bonds. All of these have taken stock in the present administration. They own and control it. They have made of our govern¬ ment one vast job. The first of the iniquities is the protective tariff, which I do not stop to discuss now, as it was the re¬ quest of the Grange that I should merely outline our grievances, in reply to demagogues who are asking us to permit existing political organizations to assume our cause. When the war broke out, the Republi¬ can party came into power. Its representatives in Congress passed a tariff law that amounted to pro¬ hibition. Thus protected, the manufacturing inter¬ ests realized large profits. Now, when the consumer needs cheap articles, we are forced to pay the highest prices, while the producer or laborer of the country is forced to take prices for his produce far below its GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 155 value. This is an artificial condition of things, cre¬ ated by law, which establishes an inequality highly detrimental to the freedom of the citizen. Prohib¬ ited by a protective tariff from going abroad to purchase in the world’s market, he is forced to pay an artificial price upon home-manufactured goods that is ruinous; for while compelled to pay the ex¬ cessive price demanded for the manufactured article, he finds the home market glutted with the products of the land, which are almost made valueless by the combined action of capital in various forms. The most onerous and tyrannical of these are the railroads —the most powerful of corporate grants in the land. Covering the country with a net-work of iron, they have the exclusive control of the carrying trade in the transportation of merchandise and the products of the land, and upon which they fix their own rates of charges. This so enhances the high price upon the manufactured article, created by the tariff, that, by the time any article of merchandise leaves their hands, the cost of the simplest fabric is so great as to make it a luxury to possess it, after it has been carried from the East to the West. This is a load in itself that the labor of the country can barely sustain ; but when to this is added the reduction in the value of produce by the cost of railroad charges for carrying, and the glut of the market, it leaves the producer without the means to purchase the bare necessities of life. As an illustration: here in the West it takes three bushels of corn to get one to market, and corn ceases to be an article of ship¬ ment, and we frequently use it as fuel.* Thus, while 156 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS, the manufactured article is enhanced in price, to place it beyond the reach of purchase by the West¬ ern producer, the corn is burned, while the wheat barely pays for transportation to the consumer of the East. Under this administration of affairs, the capitalist very kindly allows the laborer of the coun¬ try to have left him only enough clothes to cover his nakedness and sufficient food to keep his body and soul together. But they are not satisfied with wielding this crush¬ ing power. They have secured through Congress a vast extent of the public domain, the property of the people, the inheritance of their children, held in trust by the government for their sole benefit; to be pos¬ sessed and used by them when called for upon pay¬ ment of the nominal sum of one dollar and a quar¬ ter per acre, the trust charge for the safe keeping of the public lands for the use of the individual. The trust has been violated, and now railway corporations have assumed ownership. Saddled upon all these evils is your banking sys¬ tem, which furnishes the circulating medium used to make up balances, and thus to carry on the trade of the country. The operators form one class of bond¬ holders, from which thgy gather their gold interest, and on which they issue another indebtedness, and draw interest on that. With eight per cent, interest on the bonds, and one per cent, a month on the cur¬ rency, they realize the net sum of twenty per cent, on their capital, and in five years double their invest¬ ment. Now, if it is true in regard to private affairs, that there is no legitimate business in the country, GRAINS FRQM THE GRANARIES. 157 that can be carried on with capital that costs ten per cent, how can the business of the country be carried on with a circulating medium, costing twenty ? It cannot be done. To all these evils under which the business men of the country are oppressed, is to be added taxation—an extortion from the producing classes, to run the machinery of the government, which as I have hinted, is run in many instances as a charitable institution, to keep up the feeble branches of trade, that cannot sustain themselves. Summing it all up, it would seem that there was no legitimate business in the country but that of farm¬ ing and day-laborers. These seem to be the only self- sustaining branches of industry, and they are taxed to death to support the illegitimate business. Here we have illustrated, in its broadest sense, a paternal government. I beseech you, farmers, laborers, and business men of the country, who are sustaining these enormous charities, to look into these matters ! Why are your hard earnings to be taken by law from healthy branches of trade, to sustain unhealthy branches? —branches, which, under this unholy legislation, are making millionaires of those supposed paupers, and pauperizing you in return. Let us examine these matters, as citizens, as Patrons of Husbandry, as men who would be free, and correct the evils which threat¬ en a total upheaval and subversion of our govern¬ ment. We would be patriots rather than partisans. Both of the old parties seem incapable of correcting these evils. One has brought them upon us, and the other 158 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. i is unable to resist them. Who is to do it? The an¬ swer comes from the Granges all over the land. The people in consultation looking to their own interest —they are the only power that can resist the current of destruction that threatens to overwhelm us. We would cast aside old party trammels. Let no prej¬ udice bias your judgment, my brethren, and then with firmness pour oil upon the troubled waters, and the storm of abuses will subside. The tide has set in from this Great West. The farmers, in solid phalanx, are marching to the front. The work is begun. The people are in earnest, and the People’s party is simply an outcrop¬ ping of their determination to resist these wrongs— wrongs that have at last aroused the most peaceful element. As the tyranny of Great Britain aroused such men as Putnam from their dream at the plow, so the present condition is bringing the farmer to the front. We have no great job to put up! In our action we are simply seeking remedies to correct existing wrongs. We ask no favors. All we wish is to be let alone in our business relations—to have these free and unhampered, and not to be burdened by unneces¬ sary taxation that has been put upon them to encour¬ age monopolies and business that cannot sustain it¬ self. We favor railways, but they must be kept with¬ in proper bounds, by laws regulating their charges; and we are in favor of currency that is on a par with the worlds currency. The bill of exchange, the cer¬ tificate of deposit, the check and the bank-note, are all proper as a medium of exchange, but the farming GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 159 and laboring interest, demand with the business men, that each and all of these forms shall bring gold upon demand. We cast our fortunes then with the “ Peo¬ ple’s Party’’whose name and object shall be “Re¬ form r WANTED ! A NAME. BY TAYLOR’S BOY. The officeholders, the Bourbons, professional poli¬ ticians and political dead-beats generally, exercise their feeble wits in the way of satire and ridicule, over the fact that the new party of the people is without any distinctive name. The worst thing they can say against us is, that our party is “ nameless.” I want to say in reply to this absurd sneer, that while it differs from the Bourbon faction, and the office¬ holder’s party, in being a party without a name, it also differs from both in not being a party without principles. The only inconvenience realized from the absence of a distinctive name is the needless tendency of news reporters to classify the candidates we present by their former party designations. The chairman of our convention was reported as a “ Republican,” while the two secretaries were styled “ Democrats.” Now, both these old names should be dropped, with respect to all who enlist in the new party of liberty and emancipation. Both are names that belong to a past era in our history ; both are suggestive of fraud, corruption and oppression. The men who have stepped into the new era, have left the “ dead past ” l6o GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. and its controversies behind, and are coming up to the study of the new situation and the performance of its new duties, are neither “Republicans” nor “ Democrats,” in the party sense of those words. We are independents, in that we have voluntarily absolved ourselves from all connection with old par¬ ties, and have declared against the old Bourbon or papal dogma of party infallibility; and also, that we antagonize the practice of paternal government, and assert the independence of individual man. We are “ economists,” in that we seek to promote the eco¬ nomic system, instead of the monopoly system, by applying the established principles of political econ¬ omy in the practice of government. By one or the other of these names, “Independents” or “Econo¬ mists,” this humble Granger thinks our new party should be designated. It matters not what men have been. Our concern is merely to know what men are now. HISTORY OF THE GRAB. BY PATRON JAMES. The Salary Grab Bill was first introduced by Gen. Butler on behalf of the Judiciary Committee. Two especially prominent features suggest themselves, in following the consecutive stages of its progress. First, those who advanced the most convincing arguments why it should not become a law were among the first to avail themselves of the grab, after it passed. The second feature is, that the law was only passed by means of what is generally known as “parliamentary tactics,” in the most unfair and sneaking manner. GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. l6l In the original form of the bill, the salary of a congressman was fixed at $8,000 a year, making the increase applicable to the Congress just then going out of existence. It is therefore clear that the retro¬ active feature was contemplated from the very first. In this shape the bill was received, twice read, and re¬ committed. February 10th, Mr. Butler moved that the report on the increase of salaries be made a part of the Miscellaneous Appropriation bill, for the con¬ sideration of the Committee of the Whole, asking a suspension of the rules for that purpose. As the yeas and nays are not taken in the Committee of the Whole, this was a bit of strategy to avoid the record¬ ing of the votes. Butler’s motion was defeated, and the measute started out with disaster. On the 24th of February, the House sitting as Committee of the Whole, Butler introduced a new Grab bill, making the salaries $7,500 instead of $8,000, according to the original bill, adding a few new grabs to strengthen it, and making an appropriation of $1,250,000, for this purpose. Like all the other modifications, this bill provided for an increase of back-pay, as it was plain at all times, that upon no other condition would the retir¬ ing members support it. Mr. Upson, of Ohio, sought to have the retroactive clause stricken out, but failed, of course. The original Butler grab was then agreed to by a vote of 81 to 66. When, on February 28th, the Committee of the Whole rose, Butler again moved a suspension of the rules, and the adoption of the bill with the amendments. Several gentlemen interposed, calling for information, when one of Butler’s tools ex¬ claimed, “We do not want information.” Gen. Haw- 162 GRAINS FOR TFIE GRANGERS. ley inquired if the effect of Butler’s motion was to cut off opportunity to have separate votes. Butler said of course it was, and if Hawley had been a member longer, he would have known as much with¬ out asking. Congress laughed at this sally, as it did. at several others during the discussion. But the grabbers now seem to be laughing on the other side of their mouths. The amendment to the general bill for raising the salaries was now defeated by a vote of sixty-nine in favor and one hundred and twenty-one against. But¬ ler voted against it, in order to move a reconsideration. He then said : “ I move a reconsideration of the vote just taken, and pending that motion, I move that the House adjourn.” The motion to adjourn prevailed ; the grabbers gained time, and kept the motion te re¬ consider from being tabled. Their next step was to carry the motion to reconsider, no matter what in¬ crease was fixed, so as to attach the provision in some form to the appropriation bill; then to have the Sen¬ ate reject it if the sum was not large enough ; then to secure a favorable conference committee, and to have this committee report at a favorable moment, toward the close of the session, when there was little time for its consideration. It is not necessary to follow out, in detail, how all this was accomplished. It is enough to know that it was accomplished, and by the same unworthy means which were relied upon to bring it about from the beginning. But let the names of the persons com¬ posing that Conference Committee be recorded upon the books of every Grange. They were: Butler, GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 163 Randall, and Garfield, from the House; and Morrill, Carpenter, and Bayard, from the Senate. Four of them were declared salary grabbers. One (Bayard) was doubtful, and he finally favored it; and one only (Garfield) was opposed to it, and he took the grab, after it was passed. It is no wonder that a favorable report came from such a Conference Committee, which was finally agreed to, and thus became a law. It is a sort of consolation, that so vile a measure was passed only by resorting to the vilest kind of tactics. But is not so consoling to realize that so large a number of those who voted against the bill, and made a pretense of opposing it vigorously, availed themselves of its benefits, as soon as it be¬ came a law. Mr. Garfield is one of these. He ex¬ plained the injustice of raising congressional salaries forty per cent., because they had the power to do it, and allowing a mass of salaries to remain as they are. He proved that $26,000,000, or one-tenth of all the expense of carrying on the government, is paid for salaries. Mr. Dawes made a plea for an equaliza¬ tion, by increasing the salaries of revenue officials, and opposed the bill from this standpoint. Yet both Garfield and Dawes have drawn their back pay. This “ Patron ” would say that those who demon¬ strated that the salary grab was wrong, and subse¬ quently took it, are a little more to blame, if possible, than those who openly sustained the measure from the start. At all events, all who are implicated in the grab, by touching it—the vast majority of the last Congress—have become obnoxious to the people. 164 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. THEIR PROFITS. BY A BOSTON PATRON. A public meeting was held at the Boston Commer¬ cial Exchange, September 1, under the auspices of our Boston Grange. Mr. J. C. Abbott, General Deputy of the National Grange, spoke of the great revolu¬ tion that was going on in the country, and urged the importance of putting down the monopoly of rail¬ roads. He gave the statistics of the earnings of dif¬ ferent railways, necessarily reducing the profit of the farmers to almost nothing. He contended that the cost of frieght and travel could be reduced to a quar¬ ter of the present rates, and considered it downright robbery as it is now managed. He claimed that there should be a superior power to combine and consoli¬ date, and the Grange is the only organization that has met this monopoly with any degree of success. He was followed by Amasa Walker, who said it should be the duty of Congress to interfere and pro¬ tect the business interests of the country. He spoke of three ways in which the great object could be at¬ tained : first, by a general law fixing the rate of trav¬ el and freight on all roads in the country; second, to create new lines between the principal depots of transportation ; and third, by purchasing all roads and placing them under government management to be leased, which would open all roads to the public at the cheapest rates. He reviewed'all the different plans, and thought the last the most feasible. He considered the question of railroad reform a nation¬ al one, which would become a political question, and can only be achieved by political action. GRAINS FROM THE GRANARIES. 165 Railway corporations claim that the companies are entitled to a dividend equal to the ordinary interest on borrowed money, on the amount of their capital invested. That they have the right to exact such rates of toll as will produce the revenue that will yield such dividends. In other words, that charges for transportation will be reasonable, according to the amount of profit which is received therefrom. Why is this argument more applicable to railway compa¬ nies than to any other branch of business ? Railways are common carriers, and are subject to the common law stipulation that they can only de¬ mand reasonable compensation for the service per¬ formed. No charter can give them the right to demand unjust, unreasonable, or extortionate com¬ pensation. To ascertain what is a reasonable demand for such services, is the assumed cost of the road as represented by the capital stock and debts, a fair basis upon which to make the estimate ? A company, through the corruption of its officers, may have been forced to pay $100,000 per mile for construction, when the same work might have been done for $40,- 000. The earnings of the road may be squandered in the most reckless and fraudulent manner, and a balance-sheet may exhibit a very meagre percentage of profit. Is the general public to be taxed for all this; taxed to make good the deficiencies in the re¬ ceipts, caused by fraud and bad management? Railways are old affairs, and there ought to be no difficulty at this day in finding out what ought to be an honest average in the cost of construction and equipment of a road, as well as the cost of mainte- GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. 1 166 nance, and what ought to be a fair equivalent for the transportation of passengers and freights. The amount of capital stock and debts ought to have but little weight in ascertaining these results. In a majority of cases, they are fictitious or tainted with fraud. A fair and reasonable compensation is to be ascertained by an estimate of the value of the ser¬ vices rendered, and not by finding out rates that will yield ten per cent, on the capital invested in a partic¬ ular road. It no more follows that the company must have ten or six per cent, on the capital invested than it does that the farmer shall have an equal rate of profit on the capital invested in his farm. Railways are. subject, like all other persons, real and fictitious, to the great law of trade, wherein profit or loss is not a matter of personal control. The law of common right prohibits them from demanding anything more than a reasonable compen¬ sation for the service rendered; and whether the balance-sheet of the company shows a profit or loss does not in the least affect the amount of this com¬ pensation. \ « • THE TARIFF—ITS HISTORY AND INFLUENCE. CHAPTER X. Wealth the Produce of Labor_Adam Smith’s Discovery_Law Makers and Gentry_Political Economy One Hundred Years Ago_In England in 1773_Enhanced Protection Increases Embarrassments_The Colonial Policy An Obstacle to the Framers of the Union_The First Regular Tariff The First Tariff Recognizing Protection as a Principle Meetings in Boston in 1820_Webster on Protection_The Source of Instability in Legislation. It was quite a discovery of philosphers in the eighteenth century that wealth consisted in the pro¬ duce of labor; but it was. still supposed that labor would not produce available wealth, unless governed, guided and restricted by laws enacted by those who never labored themselves. Adam Smith was the first who clearly demonstrated that there is wealth in all labor, and that governmental enactments do not and cannot enhance the national wealth in the smallest degree; that their only effect is, by restraining indus¬ try, to diminish the aggregate amount, while they transfer the most of it from the hands of the pro¬ ducers, to whom it belongs, to those of law makers and gentry. These latter, in a state of limited suf¬ frage, constituted the nation; and those laws which accumulated wealth in their hands were to them 167 11 1 68 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. visibly beneficial, notwithstanding that the vast mass of unrepresented producers of that wealth were im¬ poverished. As long as free trade was not tried, it was easy to denounce it as a wild and ruinous chi¬ mera. When, however, in the lapse of years and the progress of popular rights, increased general pros¬ perity and an improved condition of the laboring class attended the abolition of every time-honored restriction, the scales fell from the eyes of the people, and they awoke to the wrongs they had suffered under the name of “ Protection.” It is a little over an hundred years since the enactment of a law of parliament, prohibiting the wearing of all printed calicoes whatsoever, either of foreign or domestic origin. When we read the Spectator , enjoying the didactic humor and trim morality of Addison, who did so much to advance the art of prose, we scarcely reflect that so low was the science of political econo¬ my, in his day, that the a'bove barbarous sumptuary law was enacted, some years subsequently, by sapient legislators, at the bidding of a London mob, for rea¬ sons, too, that have been repeated in our own Congress, in favor of “protection.” The law, after ten years, was modified, when British calicoes were tolerated, provided the warp was linen, on the payment of 6d sterling per yard. The same prejudice existed in France against printed cottons, the use of which was supposed to injure the consumption of French flax. When the government intimated a project for permitting the free manufacture of cotton, the Rouen deputies declared to the government that the “ in¬ tended measure would throw its inhabitants into THE TARIFF. 169 despair, and make a desert of the surrounding coun¬ try.” Those of Lyons said “the news had spread terror through all its work shops.” Amiens said, that “the law would be the grave of the manufac¬ turing industry of France. Paris declared that “her merchants came forward to bathe the throne with their tears, upon that inauspicious occurrence.” These phrases are now in the mouths of politicians in free America. The protectionists appear to have borrowed, not only the cast-off theories, but even the phrases of European monarchists. The French government passed the law, and Rouen, Lyons, and Amiens soon reaped unexampled manu¬ facturing prosperity ; not that the new law did them any good, but the old law ceased to do evil. The style of French calicoes, so great has been the progress of the art, can not now be excelled, nor their designs equalled. In England, in 1773, the silk-weavers of Spitalfields were protected by a legalized list of prices and high duties. They enjoyed a close monopoly of the home market for half a century, yet the public ear was con¬ stantly assailed with the story of their miseries. These protective laws were altogether repealed in 1822, and the silk trade thrown open; universal ruin and starvation were the least of the evils predicted as the consequence. The result has been an increase of 200 per cent, in the manufacture, and a fair degree of prosperity among the operatives. The same prosperity has uniformly attended every business from which “protection” has been withdrawn, and practical experience has demolished forever the 170 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. absurd theory of helping those who cannot help themselves. In the United States, where all other liberal principles have gained such vigorous growth, protective oppression has been clung to with greater tenacity than even in Great Britain. It has ever been experienced that tariff laws passed for the encouragement and protection of manufac¬ turers have been followed by great distress among those manufacturers, and that this distress has caused renewed clamors for more efficient protection, to the want of which the difficulties, whether arising from ignorance, improvidence, or incapacity, are always at¬ tributed. Enhanced protection as uniformly increases the embarassments. The reason is a very natural one. The enactment of a law avowedly to give, persons who will manufacture a particular article the monop¬ oly of the home market, as a special reward or bounty for so doing, tempts many persons deficient in capi¬ tal or the necessary information to undertake the business. They hope to get, through the operation of law, more than the fair profits of regular business ; that, without being obliged to exercise their whole faculties, ingenuity and skill, they will be able to make more money than the most skillful and ingenious arti¬ sans already in business. The experiment is not attended with success, and they then clamor for more protection. They allege, and with some show of rea¬ son, that the government tempted them to leave a business comparatively successful, to withdraw their capital from pursuits in which it yielded a profit, and embark in new enterprises from patriotic motives ; that they are suffering losses in consequence, and ought to THE TARIFF. 171 be remunerated; that more restrictive laws ought to be framed for their benefit. The waste of time and capital thus brought about is a great national calam¬ ity. Probably more labor and money has been wast¬ ed in this manner since the formation of the govern¬ ment than all now engaged in manufactures. Up to the time when the colonies separated from the mother country, the colonial and protective policy was almost undisputed. But a few years before that, even, as we have seen, parliament enacted laws pro¬ hibiting the use of certain materials for clothing, not of native growth. Such barbarous tyranny was just beginning to be seen in its true light. The clear de¬ monstrations of Smith were disturbing the theories, but not affecting the practice, of commercial legisla¬ tion. The colonial system was in most vigorous op¬ eration. The spirit of that system was, after having formed distant settlements, to profit by them by mo¬ nopolizing their trade. The colony was permitted to trade only with England. It was compelled to buy all its manufactures of the mother country,at a price* dictated by it, and to sell all its raw produce to it on¬ ly. The prohibition of manufactures here, and the restrictions upon trade that now could not be tole¬ rated for a moment, were then, in the low state of political economy, less complained of than really a lesser evil, the direct tax, which was the immediate cause of separation. The independence of the colonies being established, it was but natural that the idea of encouraging man¬ ufactures here should immediately present itself as a counter-policy to the prohibitive system of the moth- 172 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. er-country. There were, however, thirteen sovereign and independent colonies, each of which possessed and exercised the power of imposing taxes on im¬ ports, and of protecting its own internal industry against the rivalry, not only of Great Britain, but of other states. The surrender of this right into the hands of the Federal Government was one of the greatest obstacles the framers of the Union had to encounter. The Customs’ Union was finally perfected, yielding to Congress the power, precisely as of later years the German States have formed the Zollverein. It was at first acquiesced in as the only possible means of providing for the public debt. Subsequent¬ ly the power was embodied in the Constitution of the United States, and the first regular tariff under it was passed July 4, 1789. The preamble of this law set forth that it was “ necessary for the support of the government, for the discharge of the debts of the Uuited States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid,” etc. The moderation of this view is sufficiently striking, when we take into consideration the state of the public mind in Europe, on the sub¬ ject of political economy. There were no prohibitory views entertained in the act, but the idea of the inci¬ dental protection that the necessary duties would af¬ ford to the manufactures started into life during the war, was held out to counteract, in some degree, the popular prejudices against all taxation. The politi¬ cal prejudice against British goods which existed be¬ fore the war was appealed to under the Union to make taxation palatable. The number of the popu- THE TARIFF. 173 lation was then 3,500,000, and the debt sixty-five mil¬ lion dollars. The tax levied by the new law to pro¬ vide for these wants amounted to five per cent, only on manufactured goods, twelve and one-half per cent, on teas and China goods, with specific duties on British and West India goods. There was no discrimination of duties with the view to protection. The taxes appear to have been laid solely with the view to the revenue they would yield, and protection was entirely incidental to those taxes, and advanced to make them palatable. Al¬ though the law embraced this idea of protection, the principle was very far from being agreed in by all the great men of the time. The sound and clear mind of Benjamin Franklin was in advance of the age upon this subject, and his pen ably exposed the falla¬ cies of the protective notion. The public mind, how¬ ever, was not sufficiently ripe to discard the sophisms, which were not only generally believed in, but acted upon by the governments of Europe; and the re¬ port of Mr. Hamilton, on manufactures, in 1791, re¬ iterating the popular fallacies, retarded the spread of sound views. This tariff went into operation August 1, 1789, and was supplanted by a new tariff, December 1, 1790. The amount of imports under it was, $23,000,- 000, and the revenues were $2,239,746, being rather less than an average of ten per cent. The tariff of August 10, 1790, went into operation December 1st of that year, and continued until June 30, 1792. This act was of the same general character as that which preceded it, with the exception of advanced rates. 174 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. That is to say, woolens, cottons, silks, and most manu¬ factures were advanced from 5 to 7^ per cent, ad valorem , which was considered so important an ad¬ vance as to require a special apologetic report from Mr. Hamilton, who was a Protectionist. In May, 1792, a new tariff law, entitled “an act to raise a further sum of money for the protection of the frontiers,” etc., was passed. This took effect June 30, 1792, and continued two years. Under it the importations were $65,700,000, and the duties $15,186,823, being 223^ per cent. In June, 1794, a new tariff took effect, which, with an explanatory act of the following year, continued until June 30, 1797. Under it the imports were $226,571,838, and the duties $37,611,521, or more than 16 per cent. The act of March 3, 1797, continued to June 30, 1800, and under it the imports were $238,873,516, and the duties $42,657,876, or 18 per cent. The tariffs of March 26 and 27, 1804, were in force until July, 1812. The imports during the eight years were $720,730,- 000, and the duties $141,379,824, an annual average of 20 per cent. The law of July 1, 1812, continued in force until July, 1816. It simply provided that the duties imposed by the act of 1804 should be doubled. The effect of such a requirement, if the operations of trade were ^ot changed by it, would be to double the revenues on the same amount of imports. This was, however, far from being the case. The imports during the four years of its action were $295,114,274, and the duties $82,315,140, or 28 per cent. Had the law produced the anticipated amount of THE TARIFF. 175 revenue, the duties would have been $113,000,000 or 40 per cent. The higher taxes, as is usually the case, when they were too onerous, were evaded or avoided. The commercial influence of a war is the same as that of an ultra-protective policy. The vigilance of an active enemy more effectually “protects” the home-manufacturer than can any parchment-edicts in time of peace. It therefore comes to be true that the enormous prices obtained for those goods, usually imported, forces into life the manufacture of substi¬ tutes of all descriptions. These are usually poor in quality and extravagant in price. The hardships thus inflicted upon the consumer form one of the greatest evils of a state of hostility. When, how¬ ever, peace returned, it found a large population who had been driven or tempted into these pursuits by the state of affairs incident to the war, and their wares were now to be exposed to the competition of the large stocks of similar goods that had accumu¬ lated abroad. The latter offered to consumers a much better and cheaper supply. Those who, during the war, were deprived of accustomed comforts or luxuries, by the high price demanded for the domes¬ tic article, had them once more within their reach. Unskillful products of domestic manufacture could not withstand the competition, and they demanded of the government to interpose and prolong, by pro¬ tective laws, the evils which had attended the war. They required that consumers should continue to pay exorbitant prices to shield them from a whole¬ some competition. In the same manner the interests, that were created in England by the war, were ruined 176 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. by the peace; a suspension of the Bank of England for twenty years had filled the country with a depre¬ ciated paper currency, according to which all property was valued, and outstanding obligations measured. The persons so interested exerted themselves to pre¬ vent a return to specie payments, and succeeded until 1821, when the bill, known as the “ Peel Act,” compelled a return to specie payments, commencing that series of commercial and financial reform which that able minister brought to a successful issue in 1846. In the United States the demand of the war interests for protection was aided by a false patriot¬ ism, which supposed that, having suffered wrongs from the English government, we could obtain redress by refusing to exchange benefits with the English people. The tariff of 1816, was the first framed to recognize protection as a principle, and not incidental to the taxing power. This tariff continued in operation ten years. The protective system having once started, continued rap¬ idly to grow, because it is its nature to “ make the meat it feeds on.” In 1818, a new tariff was enacted, which continued six years in force, but the operation of these onerous taxes was soon found to be injurious in the extreme to all other interests. The commer¬ cial classes were particularly aggrieved by it. The influential New England interests were then commercial, and were suffering under the oppression they endured for the benefit of the manufacturers. They took measures to oppose the progress of the protective principle. In the year 1820, the leading men of Boston called meetings at Faneuil Hall, the THE TARIFF. 1 17 old “cradle of liberty,” and at an adjourned meeting, held Oct. 3, 1820, the whole principle of Protection was denounced as hostile to the interests of the country, oppressive to all manufacturers of small cap¬ ital, and inconsistent with the principles of the Con¬ stitution and sound policy. On this occasion, Daniel Webster made a most unanswerable speech upon the unconstitutionality and inexpediency of the protect¬ ive policy. A paragraph or two from this address, are given here: “ It would hardly be contended, that Congress pos¬ sessed that sort of general power by which it might declare that particular occupations should be pursued in society, and that others should not. If such power belonged to any government in this country, it cer¬ tainly did not belong to the general government. The question was, therefore, and he thought it a very serious question, whether, in laying duties under the authority to lay imposts, obviously given for the pur¬ pose of revenue, Congress can, reasonably and fairly, lose sight of those purposes entirely, and levy duties for other objects. Congress may tax the land! but it would be a strange proposition if Congress should be asked to lay a land tax for the direct purpose of withdrawing capital from agriculture , and sending those engaged in it to other pursuits. The power, however , exists in one case as much as in the other . “ For his own part, he had supposed that restrictions on trade and commerce, in order to benefit particu¬ lar, classes of manufactures, were now very generally understood to be mischievous, and inconsistent with just notions of political economy. “ And, after all, how few of all the members of society are to be benefited by this system, so artifi¬ cially and elaborately constructed. Certainly not all 178 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. manufacturers, nor all mechanics—but a particular class only. “ Manufacturing capital comes, in the end, to be owned but by few. It does not, therefore, encourage industry, like capital employed in some other pur¬ suits. The case of the establishment mentioned in the Report was in point to this argument. Half a million of dollars gives employment to two hundred and sixty-five persons, and those principally women and children. Now, what employment of that sum, in almost any other pursuit, could fail to demand and require more human labor? If vested in agriculture, the sum would command good and productive land sufficient to employ, he might almost say, all the cot¬ ton spinners in the United States.” Our limits compel us to anticipate. Indirect taxes finally reached a point at which they diminished the revenue. The new government of 1842 reversed the whole system by imposing direct taxes upon the property of the country and removing the indirect taxes, which fell mostly on labor . In this country experience has already developed the fact, that pro¬ tection is a source of most baneful instability in leg¬ islation ; that it continually arrays those who seek special privileges against the government; and that the great desideratum of uniform and permanent laws cannot be attained, as long as indirect taxes open the door to the award of bounties. LABOR REFORM. CHAPTER XI. Capital and Labor_Monopolists and Land Tenures_“Protection to Industry.”_Its Nobility and Gentry_Demand and Supply_What con¬ stitutes the Greatest Burden_What Labor Demands, etc., etc. It is undeniably true that all the wealth of the world is the product of industry, and that what is called “capital” is the mere accumulation through economy of a portion of that which has been pro¬ duced by labor. The possessors of this accumula¬ tion have, in all ages, derived a profit by loaning it to producers, and the general tendency of legislation, as governments advanced, was to increase the pro¬ portion of the produced wealth which fell to capital¬ ists, and to diminish, of course, the share which those who produced it might retain to their own use. When military conquerors, like the Norman bastard, divided among their followers and adherents the territory overrun by their arms, the occupants of the lands became the serfs of the landlords, and the whole wealth of the country, less the maintenance of the workers, belonged to its lords. As the feudal system fell into decay, and the corporations of towns freed the manufacturers and trades - people from servitude to barons, the number of independent cultivators increased, until gradually the whole 179 i8o GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. people became personally free. A new system then developed itself. The personal service of tenants was no longer demanded by the lord, nor that of the latter required by the king as lord paramount ; but monopolies succeeded to fiefs, and special trading and manufacturing privileges, rather than land ten¬ ures, became the means by which the government rallied to its support the magnates of the land. Instead of giving a military follower a tract of land, with the right to the produce raised upon it by its occupiers, it gave to its parliamentary supporters the exclusive right of selling to those people the supplies they must purchase with their labor. As the monopolists charged more than the free-traders, the producers were thus compelled to give up indi¬ rectly a portion of their labor for the support of a crown favorite. The only difference here was that the military chief took directly from the producer a portion of that which he produced, while the crown favorite attained the same end in the shape of a price for articles sold to the cultivators become free. This system was gradually refined upon, and as it became distasteful to those people who, having obtained their personal independence, wished for commercial freedom, it was called “ protection to industry.” But, like all advantages granted by gov¬ ernment to a class, it was at the expense of another class. Thus, in 1534, the city of Worcester, and the towns of Eversham, Droitwich, Kidderminster, and Broms- grove, petitioned parliament to the effect, that the in¬ habitants of said cities were mostly employed in the LABOR REFORM. 181 manufacture of woolen cloths, and that within a few years, “ divers persons dwelling in hamlets, thorps and villages, make all manner of cloth, and exercise weav¬ ing, fulling and shearing, within their houses, to the great depopulation of said towns.” For these cogent reasons, the wise parliament enacted, 25 Henry VIII, that “no person within Worcestershire shall make any cloth, but the proper inhabitants of said towns and city, excepting the persons who make cloths solely for their own and family’s wearing.” The town of Brentford obtained a similar grant relative to rope-making, with the addition of com¬ pelling all hemp-growers in the country to sell said material only in that town. It was in this manner that the growing corporations obtained from a partial prince advantages at the expense of the growers of the raw material. As these latter became more pow¬ erful, so as to make their voices heard in the nation¬ al councils, such barefaced infringements of their rights could not be continued, and to prolong the same system, further disguise was necessary. The funding system, towards the close of the 17th century, developed its powers to the same general end; and for more than 150 years, fundholders, landlords, man¬ ufacturers, and government officials have conspired under the plea of “protection to home industry,” to appropriate more effectually than could have been done by feudal tenures, all the proceeds of national labor. Down to the year 1842, this protective system re¬ mained in full force, producing, as the inevitable re¬ sult, a nobility and gentry of enormous wealth, daz¬ zling the world, like the phosphoric light emitted by 182 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. corrupt substances, with the gorgeousness of their display from amidst millions of paupers, entirely des¬ titute of any portion of that immense wealth which their industry had created. The system of indirect taxes, or taxes upon articles consumed by the indus¬ trious, to the exemption of the property amassed by the few, was the instrument by which all the wealth of the country had become accumulated in a few hands. Capital had, however, obtained the largest share of the general wealth, and so little was left to those who had produced it. that the government rev¬ enues began to fail. The operation of the corn laws was eminently calculated for this end. It is easily understood that the annual product of a nation’s industry is that which constitutes its means of expenditure ; that is to say, the support of the wealthy, of the professional classes,of the “paupers” and of the government. Under the system of indi¬ rect taxes, capitalists draw a larger share of the an¬ nual products than when there are no restrictions; and the larger the share these obtain, the greater is the sum required for impoverished laborers, called “ paupers,” the smaller is the surplus left to producers for the purchase of supplies; and consequently the more difficult is it for the government to procure suf¬ ficient revenue. Thus, suppose the annual revenue is one hundred—of which producers consume fifty, capital twenty, professions ten, “paupers” ten,and the government ten. If, now, by protective laws, the share of capital is increased to thirty, then labor will get but thirty-seven and one-half, because “paupers” will increase by that diminution to fifteen, and the LABOR REFORM. I83 • share of the professions will fall to seven and one- half, while, the revenues of the government falling upon thirty-seven and one-half instead of fifty, the share of labor will be raised with great difficulty. They will be so diminished, ultimately, that govern¬ ment must turn upon capital as its only resource, and this is precisely what was done in Great Britain in 1842. The capital of the nation was not sufficiently distributed to keep its industry employed, and en¬ lightened statesmen saw that reaction had become in- evitable; that industry must henceforth be relieved of taxation, while the expenses of government must be drawn from accumulated wealth, by direct impost. It is the interchange of surpluses that constitutes foreign trade, and it is evident on a very little reflec¬ tion, that it is to the last degree necessary to the na¬ tional industry that a disposition should be made of this surplus. In the United States, land is the chief capital. In the densely populated countries of the old world, labor is the chief capital of the people. It follows very clearly, that the products of land will constitute the surplus which the United States have to sell, and the products of labor that which the countries of Europe can best spare. If the occupi¬ ers and cultivators of American land are prohibited from taking in payment for their surplus the products of the cheap labor of Europe, one of two things must happen: they must take far less of the product of factory labor for the produce of their land labor, or domestic factory labor must compete with foreign in supplying goods to land labor. The theory of the protectionists is, that after a short period of pro- 184 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. tection, home labor will furnish products as cheaply as foreign labor; that is, the reward of American labor will be so diminished that it will not exceed that of the European laborer, and therefore the land cultiva¬ tors can trade with them to as good advantage as with the “pauper laborers” of Europe. This will no doubt be the case, because, as the world has seen in the example of England, the tendency of the protec¬ tive system is to impoverish labor and enrich capital; but, in the meantime, the market of the cultivator has been destroyed. A law which shall prohibit the tak¬ ing in payment the surplus production of those who would buy our surplus produce operates as a prohi¬ bition upon the sale of the latter. The direct effect of retaining the surplus in the country is to sink the exchangeable value of the whole production, a cir¬ cumstance which confines the sales to the farms most contiguous to market, and utterly deprives the distant cultivator of his market, and as effectually deprives him of the means of living as if he were deprived of his land. This is the same object sought now by man¬ ufacturers as that obtained directly through the en¬ actments of Henry VIII., before quoted, viz : to com¬ pel producers to sell only to certain manufacturers, who give what they please. The demand for commodities, in any country, is equivalent to supply ; no man produces any article but because he wants that article, or something which he can procure for it. The articles which he produces, beyond what he consumes, constitute a stock which he may give in exchange for other commodities. If he desires one thing and produces another, it is only I r— ■ ' ^ LABOR REFORM. I 85 because the thing which he desires can be obtained by means of the thing which he produces, and better so obtained than if he had endeavored to produce it himself. Every man wishes for the comforts and necessaries of life, house, food, clothing, etc., all, in¬ deed, of the multifarious productions of industry, familiar to civilized life. This wish for commodities, accompanied by equivalents to give for them, consti¬ tutes demand. If a man is possessed of equivalents, but has no wish for other commodities, there is no demand; if he has the wish, but no equivalents, the demand fails. The wish for commodities prompts the desire to produce equivalents. For this purpose, capital of some sort is indispensable. In this coun¬ try, the place of refuge for the poor of all nations, comparatively speaking, no capital but land exists. The labor of the individual, applied to this land, soon places him in possession of equivalents, and the demand is complete. But necessarily, “ supply,” which is demand for his equivalent, must come from others than land cultivators. His commodities are the same as their own. The supply, then, must come from capital and labor, and in order that the strug¬ gling cultivator may profit most by his means, he should exchange with that capital and labor which is most abundant, or which will give most of the com¬ modities he seeks, in exchange for what he has pro¬ duced. They demand his produce and he demands their goods, and each supplies the other, demand and supply being exchangeable terms. The cheaper the labor with which he exchanges, the more rapidly will lie profit by the trade, and his wants will increase 1 86 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. with his success. To interpose laws among a com' munity of cultivators, which shall compel one portion to give such enormous prices for the commodities they desire as to induce some of their number to abandon cultivation and undertake to manufacture the desired articles, is to render the abandoned land valueless, and to deprive the cultivators of the bal¬ ance of a portion of that which they might have ob¬ tained for their labor. Land here is very abundant and very cheap; the mode of making it available is to exchange its products with those countries where land is dear and labor cheap. The effect of such ex¬ change is to enrich the land occupiers, and to accu¬ mulate capital in the country, which must and will find employment. The wish for other things, to which this capital will give effect, constitutes the de¬ mand on which manufacturing prosperity will be built up surely and permanently. The large majority of the people of the United States are cultivators, and it is from their demand for goods, that manufac¬ turers are to look for a market for their wares. As we have seen, the demand for wares is a combination of wish and equivalents. These latter are food and raw materials, and where a large majority of the people are producers of them, considerable quanti¬ ties, above the wants of all the people in the country, will exist and, as far as that surplus goes, the demand for goods will cease, unless it can be disposed of out of the country. To prevent such a disposition of it, by prohibiting a return of equivalents, is not only to destroy the foreign trade, but to crush the demand for manufactures, because the land had better have LABOR REFORM. i8 7 remained untouched, than to have yielded a stock of produce, perishable in its nature, and useless because in excess of the wants of the inhabitants. It is but a few years since, that in parts of the western country stock were turned into fields of standing grain, be¬ cause the latter would not pay the trouble of harvest¬ ing, while skilled laborers in England and France were starving to death. These countries forbade the interchange of industrial products for food, in order to “ protect home industry.” It is not the mere tax, which is derived from duties upon the goods consumed, that constitutes the great¬ est burden, but the obstruction to trade, the lessening of the sale of the surplus agricultural products of the country, which is the great grievance. The inter¬ position of a parchment wall between buyer and seller, when enterprise has just opened means of communication, is a singular anomaly. England having continually legislated for capital, until labor was exhausted, has been compelled to retrace her steps, and remove barriers to trade. In the United States, it is coming to be understood that the multi¬ plication of means of transport, at the expense of capital, is an indirect benefit to capital, through the enhanced industry growing out of the extended sale of produce thus promoted, and the removal of legal restraints upon external intercourse is equivalent to new means of transportation. If capital taxes itself for the creation of new means of transportation, the same policy should prompt it to assume taxes for government support, and relieve labor and trade from duties altogether. O 188 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. The substitution of direct taxes for the pernicious duties upon exchangeable products, is one of the most efficient modes of promoting labor reform, and of preserving a just distribution of the actual wealth of the country among those who produce it. The whole wealth of the country being the product of labor, it is to the interest of all parties that labor should be encouraged by removing every obstacle to the realization of the object of its wishes. The more continuous and efficient are its operations, the greater will be the aggregate wealth, and this created wealth is that which should bear the public burdens. When, therefore, the government proceeds upon the plan of encouraging the employment of created wealth, by taxing its creators for its benefit, it paral- izes the arm of labor, diminishes its reward, and breaks down the springs of industry. It is not wealth that requires encouragement, but the produc¬ tion of it, as well as the enjoyment of it, by those who produce it. The great majority of the people of this country being occupiers of land, their inter¬ ests require an adequate market for what that land produces. The more extensive the market, the greater becomes their profits, and the more rapid the accumulation of surplus moneyed capital, appli¬ cable to manufacturing employments. The capital so earned, by being applied locally to the construction of means of transportation, and ultimately to manu¬ facturing purposes, under free competition, not only promotes the general prosperity, but insures a con¬ tinued distribution of wealth. England was an exporter of food, down to the LABOR REFORM. 189 cl^se of the last century, and it was by this means that she obtained capital to prosecute manufactures. New England earned her capital in free-trade com¬ merce with the world, and then applied it to manu¬ facturing. The great West and South now require a more extensive market for food, and this is to be found only m throwing down the barriers between European demand and American supply; in remov¬ ing altogether the taxes upon imported goods, and levying upon the property of the country taxes for the support of its government. The millions derived, this year, by the federal government from customs, have been, to that extent, a burden upon the sale of farm produce. Had it been assessed upon the sev¬ eral states as a direct tax upon property, the sales of raw produce would have been promoted to an extent that, probably, would have added three times the amount to the reward of labor. The great reform which labor demands is release from taxes and from restrictions upon its market. * » v A . > \ A CHINESE FABLE. BY AN IOWA ‘‘MAID.” V, ^ CHAPTER XII. A Recent Meeting_A Brother Mildly Dissents_A “Little” Tariff Wanted_A “ Little ” Strangulation_An Iowa “Maid” Rises to explain .A Practical Example_What Yong-Sen said to the Mongoles_The Advantageof a few Obstructions_The Wreckers to be Protected_A Com' mittee on Whirlpools and other Obstructions. At a recent meeting of our brethren over in Illi¬ nois, a majority of the speakers assailed the system of spoliation, which the professional politicians call, or miscall, “protection.” One gentleman said: “ If we are to have a free country, let us have free trade. If material can be sent to foreign countries, manufactured, returned, and sold cheaper than articles manufactured at home, then let us have the advan¬ tage of so doing. We had slaves in this country not long since; they were set free : but we have slaves still, in the persons of farmers, and they are white ones, too.” One brother mildly dissented. He avowed that he was not quite so radical on the tariff question as some of the Patrons. He would not do away with all tariff. He thought a little was necessary in cer¬ tain cases. If the previous speaker had lived as long as some, he would have seen the time when we need¬ ed a little tariff. “ Our manufacturers,” said h^, 190 A CHINESE FABLE. I9I “ needed it for a time at least, to enable them to com¬ pete with foreign manufacturers.” A third brother replied: “ The brother does not sav how much tariff was needed, or for how long a time. As he seems to think that our ‘infant industries’ still need a little fostering, though some of them are two hundred years old, and flourished in colonial times, in spite of all the efforts of the British government to crush them out, it may be inferred that he supposes they will re¬ quire fostering for two hundred years more. He ne¬ glected to tell us what he considered ‘ a little tariff/ but as he seems satisfied with things as they are, per¬ haps he thinks the present tariff—averaging upward of forty per cent, on dutiable goods—‘a little tariff/ Now every Patron knows that ‘a little tariff’ is a lit¬ tle obstruction of commerce. It is a ‘little’ restric¬ tion of the natural right of men to exchange freely the products of their industry for the products of other men’s industry. It is a ‘little’slavery, only a little strangulation. A majority of the brethren think it is wrong to choke a man that the process does n’t add to health and happiness; but my elderly brother, who has lived longer than some of the rest of us, has seen the time when a little choking did a fellow good. He had seen the time, indeed, when it made a man stronger and healthier to interrupt respiration, just a ‘ little ,’ you know, and his friend was satisfied that time had not yet gone by. He asked the prayers of the Grangers for his elderly brethren.” Now, an Iowa “ Maid,”who has been reading Bar¬ on Richofen’s book of travels, asks permission to present a Chinese fable from that learned work, for the benefit of her Illinois brother: Once upon a time, the farmers living in the neighborhood of Whang-tu- 192 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. chu, capital of the province of Szr-chwam, were per¬ ishing of hunger. The food crops had failed. They had an abundance of silk, opium, sugar,kerosene, iron, hemp, coal, salt, and vegetable wax, and the people in the lower valley of the Yang-tse-kiang, had plenty of food, for the season there had been good, and no potato bugs had appeared. They would gladly have sent their surplus food up the river to Whang, etc., in exchange for the articles of which the people in that part of the country had a superabundance. But the river, which was the only means of communica¬ tion, could only be navigated at great loss to life and property. It was impossible, indeed, to send enough food up the river to relieve the starving peo¬ ple of Whang, etc. Under these circumstances a meeting of the Grange was called to consider what could be done todmprove the navigation of the river. Many of the Patrons thought it was possible to over¬ come the difficulties of the stream by ingenuity and skill For a time, no one seemed to doubt that.it would be entirely proper, and in every way advanta¬ geous, to remove all obstructions, and take such measures as would render the passage of the rapids entirely safe. The speakers accordingly confined themselves to a consideration of ways and means, until, at length, one patriarchal Granger, much older and cooler than the rest, Yong-sen by name, arose and said: “You are all young men, except those who are ‘ Matrons' and ‘ Maids.’ If you were as old as I am, you would see the necessity of having some of the obstructions in the river. A thousand years ago, A CHINESE FABLE. 193 when I was young, they were all necessary to compel us to develop our own industries, and create for our¬ selves a home market, and exclude a deluge of cheap food—the products of pauper labor down the river. I grant that this necessity is less now than formerly. Some of our industries have been so far developed, and placed on so solid a foundation (thanks to the rocks, gorges, and whirlpools of the river) that we are reduced to a starving condition every few years. It is safe, therefore, to remove some of the sunken rocks and to place engines at some of the dangerous points, in order to draw the boats in safety up the stream. But some of the obstructions must be left. A little obstruction will be found very useful. It was necessary, formerly, that three boats out of every ten should be lost in order to compel us to develop our own industries. It was necessary that thirty per cent, of our products, sent down the river, should be lost, in order to make the return cargoes thirty per cent, less, and it was necessary that thirty per cent, of the return cargoes should be lost, in order that our home farmers might enjoy protection equal to forty-eight per cent, against the rapacious pauper laborers down about the Hachow. It will do at this time, perhaps, if only two boats are lost, out of ten. This will insure us a loss of twenty per cent, of our shipment, and twenty per cent, of the return car¬ goes, a total loss equal to thirty-six per cent, on our total shipments. But be careful and don’t remove all the obstructions. You must have a little protec¬ tion, or you will be deluged with cheap products, and your industries will be ruined. 194 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. Nor must the “Wreckers” be forgotten. It will never do, my sun-burnt friends, to take bread out of the wreckers’ mouths. Remove one-third of the difficulties of navigation, but leave the other two- thirds for their benefit. Otherwise, they will come up here and go to farming, and take the bread out of our mouths by competition. Or, if you choose, re¬ move all the obstructions, and give two cargoes out of every ten to the wreckers, to encourage their in¬ dustry, and prevent them from ruining us by compe¬ tition. No one will object to that. The number of cargoes will, no doubt, be much greater, when only two out of ten are sacrificed, so that the wreckers will be as well off as before. Let us, then, clear out the river, and pass a law giving the wreckers two cargoes in ten, and we will name the law a “ Protec¬ tive Tariff Act.” The Yellow Grangers were much impressed with Yong-sen’s profound wisdom, but it occurred to them that if protection was such a good thing, they could not possibly have too much of it, so they decided unanimously not to improve the river at all. A com¬ mittee was appointed, however, with instructions to establish new whirlpools and other obstructions of a later patent. When the yeas and nays were called on this question, the venerable Yong-sen retired con¬ tented. The Yangt-tse river is as dangerous to-day as ever, and as highly protective a stream as it was in the days of Confucius. CONCERNING "RIGHTS.” CHAPTER XIII. 'Hie Age of the Farmer’s Movement-Equality in the Eye of the Law- The Many Against the Few_A Significant Movement Against Self-The first Democracy Prejudice versus Reason The Divine Right to Rob A Modern Political Speech in 1520_The Twins The Blinding Process—An Old Dodge_The Hero on the Stump-High Tariff and No Tariff-The College and the University_A Mighty Power-What the Farmer’s Move- ment Says. The author makes bold to assure the farmer that there is nothing new in his movement at all! In looking at the past, amid the dissonances of life, and the jarring conflicts without aim and without effect, which have been and are gone, we can trace a prin¬ ciple which, like a bright line in an endless confusion of colors, seems to indicate a purpose among the suc¬ cessive generations of mankind. Action was not al¬ ways a conflict for honor, lust, power and things that have passed away. The Persians crushed the life out of myriads in order to eat the figs of Attica without purchase, and failed ; the Roman trod over a sub¬ jected world, to die by the hand of his nearest friend; the Corsican set up thrones and made kings, to be tortured to death by a jailor ; yet mankind, amid their death-charges and retreats, have had a purpose which rests. Exertion has not always been a laughing-stock —is not always to meet with scorn and utter derision 195 I96 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. from those who look to its cause and effect. Man¬ kind does advance ; some of the van-guard of the grand advancing army think that they see the begin¬ ning of the end. The conflict which was commenced three thousand years ago, and is still going on, evidences permanence and abiding intent among the momentary purposes about which mankind clash. A contest in which man¬ kind have met with varied success ; now driven from the field; now advancing, it may be, with the stealthy tread of muffled feet ; and now, with feet shod with iron, with the clash of steel, the neighing of steeds and the cry of victory—have rushed over all obsta¬ cles. Again, with serried ranks, with the calmness of power, have they slowly moved on over the bodies of their fellows, towards the accomplishment of their purpose—the purpose of to-day—•“ Equality in the eye of the law, to all who live under the law/’ When once attained, mankind will have arrived as near per¬ fection ^s it is possible, while earth and its laws re¬ main as they are. Yet they are successful in the main, as every successive epoch shows them further advanced towards their great end. This conflict is the warfare of mankind advancing towards perfection, against men striving to degrade them. It is the general mass—the democracy, striv¬ ing to be enlightened—against the few who com¬ pose the aristocracy, somewhat enlightened, striving to keep them in ignorance, to use them. It is the in¬ habitants of the earth claiming- their high estate, against the few who would cheat them out of their D birth-right It is the cry of the nations of the earth, CONCERNING RIGHTS. 197 affirming, “We are men, created in the image of our Maker ”—against princes, potentates and powers, say¬ ing, “Ye are brutes without minds; dig ye for us, while we think for you. Ask us not to avow our principles to you who understand them not—work and submit: we think and direct.” It is the outward movement of the human race, in accordance with their destiny, against the resisting spirit of Self, which would put down all else, in order to remain superior. This warfare is greater than life’s warfare—it is time’s war¬ fare. Reason has been and is now carrying on an offen¬ sive warfare against the prejudices of men, which contract their judgments to look only upon objects in their influence upon self, and striving to substitute, for those prejudices principles whose influence would be as boundless as eternity. It is striking directly at self, and the prejudices of self; the prejudice of wealth pluming itself upon its high feeding and fan¬ tastic posturing. This warfare is going on in all parts of the world, at this moment In many coun¬ tries, it is true, there are only scouts thrown out from the grand advancing army: in others, they are ad¬ vancing with the mighty rush of ocean power. We trace the Democratic principle, developed in the first government of the Jews, when the command to the children of Israel was, “take you wise men, and of understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.” The choice of these rulers was left to the people, and so it re¬ mained until, in their folly, they asked for a king. They would not believe the prophet when he said, I98 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. “He will' take your sons, and he will take your daughters, and he will take your fields and vineyards, and he will take a tenth of your seed, and your man- servants, and the goodliest of your young men, and ye shall cry out in that day, because of your king.” They would have a splendid government, splendid in pomp and power, in sin and misery, in guilt and crime. The government of the Cretans, which was the first Democracy of which we read in profane history, existed over nine hundred years, longer than any dynasty. The laws established by Minos, all of which favored equality, and encouraged simplicity, appealed to reason and not to prejudice. Well might the im¬ aginative poetry of that age represent the just law¬ giver as the judge of the souls of the departed. We can trace many marked instances of the conflict of self-government with self-abandonment, on classic soil, where cultivation was in its highest state, almost before civilization had commenced. In the time when they made orators instead of rhetoricians, sculptors instead of connoiseurs, creators instead of critics, we see the first evidences of the successful onslaught of reason against prejudice, assumption, and oppression. Here we see the party lines drawn; we see distinctly the two great parties which now stand opposed to each other, in all parts of the world, —the appellants to reason and the appellants to pre¬ dice. Those who seek the benefit of mankind appealing to their diviner part—their reason—and those who seek to benefit self appealing, as ever, to their prejudices and passions. One party seeking to open the eyes of their fellows; the other trying to PH”'' CONCERNING RIGHTS. 199 get on their blind side, that they may lead them astray. In Athens, where they pretended to choose the wise and understanding among them, and not the well-born and the rich, we see reason and prejudice appealing to the fierce democracy, and alternately bearing sway. Reason spoke, as it must always speak to man, in the language of rebuke : prejudice per¬ suaded to pleasure and ease. The people of Rome contended against the tariff laid upon corn and salt, three thousand years ago, and by their repeated “ag¬ itations” caused the repeal of the law laying that tax. As we come down in the history of the world, we find the priests of superstition arrayed against the prophets of truth. The imagination of the poet be¬ comes the religion of the enthusiast. Usurpation founds itself upon Divinity, the divine right of kings is promulgated, and the robber described by Samuel claims the right to rob by divine authority. Again the appellants to prejudice conquer. The exertion of reason is an effort, prejudice is a downward impulse ; submission is easy, and resistance difficult; the fruits of our labor are taken from us, but the eye is pleased, and the ear charmed. We suffer, but the splendor of our court surpasses all others. In 1520, Erasmus absolutely advocated an election of rulers upon the maxim, frons occipitio prior , mean¬ ing that every man should do his own business. Read what he says, and you will think that Erasmus had lived in the present day, and had been writing an ar¬ ticle during a recent presidential campaign. He- says: 13 ' 200 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. “ We trust the rudder of a vessel, where a few sail¬ ors and some goods alone are in jeopardy, to none but skillful pilots, but the state, wherein the safety of so many thousands is concerned, we put into any hands. A charioteer must learn, reflect upon, and practice his art: an official need only be born. Yet government, as it is the most honorable, so it is the most difficult of all sciences; and shall we choose the master of a ship, and not choose him who is to have the care of many cities? It is the aim of the guar¬ dian of a prince, that he may never become a man. The nobility, who fatten upon calamity, endeavor to plunge him into pleasures, that they may be profited thereby. Cities are burned, the people are plundered, innocent citizens are slaughtered, and the handful of untamed savages hold our whole army at bay, while his royal highness is playing at dice, sending toy boats to sea, or amusing himself with puppets, (trans¬ lated fiupfiies)h.unt\ng or drinking. Oh, race of the Bruti, long since extinct! We know, indeed, that these corrupt rulers shall render an account to heav¬ en, but not to us.” Commerce and liberty have ever been twins. With¬ out the one, the other is not. Free trade and free religion constitute the very essence of freedom. Wherever commerce has prospered, liberty has grown with her. It is a mistake to suppose, as many in this country seem to think, that agriculture is a better handmaid to liberty than commerce. Athens fur¬ nished the despot of the East with luxuries which he sought to have without purchase. Commerce caused Carthage to become a Republic—caused the home of the African to become the abode of wealth, and the mother of colonies. Geneva, Venice, and the free CONCERNING RIGHTS. 201 cities of Italy furnished the world with whatever their advance in civilization demanded. Switzerland, by her commerce and machinery, made her rough mountains the seat of wealth, and caused the igno¬ rance and passion of other countries to minister to her advancement. From the promulgation of Mag¬ na Charta, commerce marked England as her own, and became a joyful co-worker in the cause of liber¬ ty. Ship-money, the monopolies of wine, wool, etc., cost one king of England his throne, and another his life. In a rough, summary way, her citizens freed themselves from the bloated selfishness of the few. Fettering commerce, stamp acts, taxes on tea, and other means of ‘ protection/ which sovereigns show their subjects, caused a republic to spring from the forests of the New World, as the warrior goddess of old sprang armed from the earth, whose duty was to contend with crowns and dynasties, and whose shadow looms large over the earth, throwing gloom over crumbling thrones, and in the evening of their day pointing to the sun-rising of a glorious to-morrow. This republic, in her infancy, contended with two of the proudest nations on earth, because they obstruct¬ ed her commerce and impressed her seamen. In her infancy she taught men who also claimed a divine right to rob, that she did not understand Christian or Ma- hommedan religion that way. We see additional instances of princely skill and priestly craft in the olden republics. Whenever the people were aroused to a consideration of their rights, and appeared determined to enforce them against the few, for whose benefit alone laws were O ' 202 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. passed, the blinding process was resorted to, even as it is practiced in these modern times. The orators of prejudice no longer resorted to sophistry to sus¬ tain the selfish measures they were advocating, but waiving the consideration of measures, they brought forward a man to dazzle the eyes of the people. The tyranny of the few was unseen, when an old hero, covered with wounds, was placed before it. In the contests for power in those republics, as in a later republic, the few elevated, as the ensign around which to gather their forces, a splendid sarcophagus, em¬ bellished with beautiful colors, and decorated with superb carvings, emblematical, as they said, of the past; the buried glories of a war which they would resurrect, and use as a menace to the conquered, for all time. Upon that sarcophagus they had painted, with Tyrian dyes and Egyptian cunning, every detail in the life of the old hero, whom they had selected from his available laurels as sufficiently powerful to gain a victory over principle—as sufficiently distin¬ guished to cause the people, in their admiration of him, to forget themselves. Around the top of this emblem they had inscribed the mottoes :—“ The past, the glorious past“ Honor to the brave “ Reward to the chieftain,” etc., and over it they waved banners rent in battle. This emblem was all-powerful with a generous people. Power and supremacy were given to the nominee of the few. But when he was once placed in the seat of power, a change came over the spirit of their dream. This splendid sarcophagus was opened, and there stood, exposed to the view of the people, the dry bones and mummy of exclusive CONCERNING RIGHTS. 203 laws ; nepotism, corruption, monopoly and the tyran¬ ny of the few. They breathed the breath of life into those dry bones, and sent it stalking through the land, withering everything with which it came in contact. Have we ever witnessed such an emblem in this country ? The time shall come when political equality shall prevail among all, whatever the private characteristics of each individual may be; when they shall build houses and inhabit them ; when they shall not build and another inhabit; when they shall not plant and another eat. Before this time shall come, there must be the battle of the warrior. In this country, we trust there are no more bloody scenes to pass through, but there is much to be accomplished by the silent power of the ballot-box. Progress is a cardinal prin¬ ciple with the democracy of the people, and will be until the time shall come when the great body of the people shall no longer be taxed to benefit the few; when the substance of the many, that should go to the support of their families, and the education of their children, shall no longer be wrenched from them, to swell the countless millions in the coffers of manufacturers and the protected lords of capital; until unjust laws shall be stricken from our statute books; until this system of legislating for classes, of legislating for the few at the expense of the many, is entirely abolished ; until the principle that the earth is made for all is recognized as a rule of action. High tariff will be superceded by low tariff; low tariff will be swept away before the cry of “ no tariff,” and the heart of the million will rejoice, that com- 204 GRAINS FOR THE GRANGERS. merce shall be as free as thought. Banks and other engines of bloated and fictitious wealth—banks, the very embodiment of unnatural inequality legalized, shall be trodden under foot by the democracy of the people: the very word “ monopoly ” shall be ior- gotten. What God hath made free, man shall not bind. Free! free! free! all entitled to the same privileges—all subject to the same restraint. Col¬ leges and universities, the standing pools of learning, mere store-houses of old armor, out of use and out of date, will be superseded by universities of the people, wherein the youth shall be taught that which the man is to practice. The self-judging, the self- willing, the self-ruling process will take the place of blind obedience and honored custom, which receives, as law and gospel, the reveries of blinded, hallucin¬ ated pedants, who never acted, but were always acted upon. The reputation and fame that these institu¬ tions give their honors and degrees, will wither and shrivel in the fervid heat of truths mightier than any they hand down, like their own parchments before a consuming fire. Value should be placed on knowl¬ edge that is received, not invented, existing in the mind, not reasoned in it. The truth shall be recog¬ nized that he who is akin to the Almighty is equal with every created thing. No robbery shall be al¬ lowed ; no forgery of God Almighty's laws; no false pretences that he who laid in the manger gave you any divine rights; any right to the labor of the poor; ♦ any right to tax others for your benefit; any right, by fiction and law, to increase your wealth four-fold in the twinkling of an eye. Laws shall be passed for CONCERNING RIGHTS. 205 the greatest good to the greatest number. Enough air to breathe, enough water to drink, enough land to cultivate, are the natteral rights of every man. H is homestead, and enough land with it to support his family, shall not be subject to execution. By superior education, intelligence, industry, by cunning, by taking advantage of your careless adversary, you may seize upon the products of hi»s labors, but an edict shall be promulgated, Thus far shall ye go, and no farther. Aye, extortioner, “ thus far shall ye go” is what the many says to the few, through the anti- monopoly movement of to-day. The power of the people is making itself felt. That mighty power, which, like a giant ignorant of its own strength, has suffered itself for ages to be fettered with withes of straw, and, bound and working in those withes, has seen, with an air of stupid wonder, its sweat caught as it dropped and hardened into diamonds, to shine upon the person of ignorance, conceit, and pride. Bearing all, it muttered at the hard hand of Provi¬ dence, as though Providence had not left them to right themselves—as though Providence had not given them a right to her last boon, the sweat of the brow and the products thereof. This mighty power, which, like the waters of the great deep, has only to be put in motion to swallow up all that rides upon it, has throughout Christendom been troubled from its depths. Ominous sounds have been heard and feared. Barriers have been raised against the tide, only t

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