The Plight of the Farmer
An English observer of agricultural conditions in 1893 finds that
agricultural unrest was not peculiar to the United States in the last
quarter of the nineteenth century, but existed in all the more advanced
countries of the world:
Almost everywhere, certainly in England, France, Germany, Italy,
Scandinavia, and the United States, the agriculturists, formerly so
instinctively conservative, are becoming fiercely discontented, declare
they gained less by civilization than the rest of the community, and are
looking about for remedies of a drastic nature. In England they are
hoping for aid from councils of all kinds; in France they have put on
protective duties which have been increased in vain twice over; in
Germany they put on and relaxed similar duties and are screaming for
them again; in Scandinavia--Denmark more particularly--they limit the
aggregation of land; and in the United States they create organizations
like the Grangers, the Farmers' Leagues, and the Populists. ¹
¹ The Spectator, vol. LXX, p. 247.
It is to general causes, indeed, that one must turn before trying to
find the local circumstances which aggravated the unrest in the United
States, or at least appeared to do so. The application of power--first
steam, then electricity--to machinery had not only vastly increased the
productivity of mankind but had stimulated invention to still wider
activity and lengthened the distance between man and that gaunt specter
of famine which had dogged his footsteps from the beginning. With a
constantly growing supply of the things necessary for the maintenance of
life, population increased tremendously: England, which a few centuries
before had been overcrowded with fewer than four million people, was now
more bountifully feeding and clothing forty millions. Perhaps, all in
all, mankind was better off than it had ever been before; yet different
groups maintained unequal progress. The tillers of the soil as a whole
remained more nearly in their primitive condition than did the dwellers
of the city. The farmer, it is true, produced a greater yield of crops,
was surrounded by more comforts, and was able to enjoy greater leisure
than his kind had ever done before. The scythe and cradle had been
supplanted by the mower and reaper; horse harrows, cultivators, and
rakes had transferred much of the physical exertion of farming to the
draft animals. But, after all, the farmer owed less to steam and
electricity than the craftsman and the artisan of the cities.
The American farmer, if he read the census reports, might learn that
rural wealth had increased from nearly $4,000,000,000 in 1850 to not
quite $16,000,000,000 in 1890; but he would also discover that in the
same period urban wealth had advanced from a little over $3,000,000,000
to more than $49,000,000,000. Forty years before the capital of rural
districts comprised more than half that of the whole country, now it
formed only twenty-five per cent. The rural population had shown a
steady proportionate decrease: when the first census was taken in 1790,
the dwellers of the country numbered more than ten times those of the
city, but at the end of the nineteenth century they formed only about
one-third of the total. Of course the intelligent farmer might have
observed that food for the consumption of all could be produced by the
work of fewer hands, and vastly more bountifully as well, and so he
might have explained the relative decline of rural population and
wealth; but when the average farmer saw his sons and his neighbors' sons
more and more inclined to seek work in town and leave the farm, he put
two and two together and came to the conclusion that farming was in a
perilous state. He heard the boy who had gone to the city boast that his
hours were shorter, his toil less severe, and his return in money much
greater than had been the case on the farm; and he knew that this was
true. Perhaps the farmer did not realize that he had some compensations:
greater security of position and a reasonable expectation that old age
would find him enjoying some sort of home, untroubled by the worry which
might attend the artisan or shopkeeper.
Whether or not the American farmer realized that the nineteenth century
had seen a total change in the economic relations of the world, he did
perceive clearly that something was wrong in his own case. The first and
most impressive evidence of this was to be found in the prices he
received for what he had to sell. From 1883 to 1889 inclusive the
average price of wheat was seventy-three cents a bushel, of corn
thirty-six cents, of oats twenty-eight cents. In 1890 crops were poor in
most of the grain areas, while prosperous times continued to keep the
consuming public of the manufacturing regions able to buy; consequently
corn and oats nearly doubled in price, and wheat advanced 20 per cent.
Nevertheless, such was the shortage, except in the case of corn, that
the total return was smaller than it had been for a year or two before.
In 1891 bumper crops of wheat, corn, oats, rye, and barley drove the
price down on all except wheat and rye, but not to the level of 1889.
Despite a much smaller harvest in 1892 the decline continued, to the
intense disgust of the farmers of Nebraska and Minnesota who failed to
note that the entire production of wheat in the world was normal in that
year, that considerable stores of the previous crop had been held over
and that more than a third of the yield in the United States was sent
forth to compete everywhere with the crops of Argentine, Russia, and the
other grain producing countries. No wonder the average farmer of the
Mississippi basin was ready to give ear to any one who could suggest a
remedy for his ills.
Cotton, which averaged nearly eleven cents a pound for the decade ending
in 1890, dropped to less than nine cents in 1891 and to less than eight
in 1892. Cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, and mules brought more in the late
than in the early eighties, yet these, too, showed a decline about 1890.
The abnormal war-time price of wool which was more than one dollar a
pound in October, 1864, dropped precipitately with peace, rose a little
just before the panic of 1873, and then declined with almost no reaction
until it reached thirty-three cents for the highest grade in 1892.
The "roaring eighties," with all their superficial appearance of
prosperity, had apparently not brought equal cheer to all. And then came
the "heart-breaking nineties." In February, 1893, the Philadelphia and
Reading Railroad Company failed, a break in the stock market followed,
and an old-fashioned panic seized the country in its grasp. A period of
hitherto unparalleled speculative frenzy came thus to an end, and sober
years followed in which the American people had ample opportunity to
contemplate the evils arising from their economic debauch.
Prices of agricultural products continued their downward trend. Wheat
touched bottom in 1894 with an average price of forty-nine cents; corn,
two years later, reached twenty-one cents. All the other grains were
likewise affected. Middling cotton which had sold at eight and a half
cents a pound in 1893, dropped below seven cents the following year,
recovered until it reached nearly eight cents in 1896, and was at its
lowest in 1898 at just under six cents. Of all the marketable products
of the farm, cattle, hay, and hogs alone maintained the price level of
the decade prior to 1892. Average prices, moreover, do not fully
indicate the small return which many farmers received. In December,
1891, for instance, the average value of a bushel of corn was about
forty cents, but in Nebraska, on January 1, 1892, corn brought only
twenty-six cents. When, a few years later, corn was worth, according to
the statistics, just over twenty-one cents, it was literally cheaper to
burn it in Kansas or Nebraska than to cart it to town, sell it, and buy
coal with the money received; and this is just what hundreds of
despairing farmers did. Even crop shortage did little to increase the
price of the grain that was raised. When a drought seriously diminished
the returns in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan in 1895, the importation from
States farther west prevented any rise in price.
Prices dropped, but the interest on mortgages remained the same. One
hundred and seventy-four bushels of wheat would pay the interest at 8
per cent on a $2000 mortgage in 1888, when the price of wheat was higher
than it had been for ten years and higher than it was to be again for a
dozen years. In 1894 or 1895 when the price was hovering around fifty
cents, it took 320 bushels to pay the same interest. Frequently the
interest was higher than 8 per cent, and outrageous commissions on
renewals increased the burden of the farmer. The result was one
foreclosure after another. The mortgage shark was identified as the
servant of the "Wall Street Octopus," and between them there was little
hope for the farmer. In Kansas, according to a contemporary
investigator, ¹ "the whole western third of the State was settled by a
boom in farm lands. Multitudes of settlers took claims without means of
their own, expecting to pay for the land from the immediate profits of
farming. Multitudes of them mortgaged the land for improvements, and
multitudes more expended the proceeds of mortgages in living. When it
was found that the proceeds of farming in that part of the State were
very uncertain, at best, the mortgages became due. And in many instances
those who had been nominally owners remained upon the farms as tenants
after foreclosure. These are but the natural effects in reaction from a
tremendous boom." In eastern Kansas, where settlement was older, the
pressure of hard times was withstood with less difficulty. It was in
western Kansas, by the way, that Populism had its strongest following;
and, after the election of 1892, a movement to separate the State into
two commonwealths received serious consideration.
¹ G. T. Fairchild, Pol. Sc. Q., vol. 11, p. 614.
Even more inexorable than the holder of the mortgage or his agent was
the tax collector. It was easy to demonstrate that the farmer, with
little or nothing but his land, his stock, and a meager outfit of
implements and furniture, all readily to be seen and assessed, paid
taxes higher in proportion to his ability to pay than did the business
man or the corporation. Although his equity in the land he owned might
be much less than its assessed value, he was not allowed to make any
deduction for mortgages. The revenue of the Federal Government was
raised wholly by indirect taxes levied principally upon articles of
common consumption; and the farmer and other people of small means paid
an undue share of the burden in the form of higher prices demanded for
commodities.
Low prices for his produce, further depressed by the rapacity of the
railroads and the other intermediaries between the producer and the
consumer, mortgages with high interest rates, and an inequitable system
of taxation formed the burden of the farmer's complaint during the last
two decades of the nineteenth century. These grievances and all sorts of
remedies proposed for them were discussed in farmers' gatherings, in
agricultural weeklies, even in city dailies, and ultimately in
legislative chambers. Investigations demonstrated that, even when
reduced to a minimum, the legitimate grounds for complaint were
extensive; and the resultant reports suggested a variety of remedies.
Generally, however, popular sentiment swung around again to the tack it
had taken in the late seventies: the real cure for all the evils was
more money. Wall Street and the national banks could suck the blood from
the western community because of their monopoly of the money supply.
According to one irate editor, "Few people are aware of the boundless
advantages that the national banks have under our present accursed
system. They have usurped the credit of the people and are fattening a
thousand-fold annually from the unlimited resources at their command."
Another editor wrote:
We find the following printed card on our desk: "The last report of the
Secretary of the Treasury shows the banks as loaning $1,970,022,687"!
Four times the amount of money there is to loan. Four interests in every
dollar! They are drawing from the people enough to run the National
Government. How long will it take them to gather in all the money of the
nation? This does not include the amounts loaned by state, private, and
savings banks. Add to this the billions of dollars of other loans and
think if it is any wonder times are hard. Will the American people never
wake up to the fact that they are being pauperized? Four people are
paying interest upon each dollar you have in your pocket--if you have
any. Wake up! Wake up!
Whatever the ultimate effects of an inflated and consequently
depreciated currency might be, the debtor class, to which a large
portion of the Western farmers belonged, would obviously benefit
immediately by the injection of large quantities of money into the
circulating medium. The purchasing power of money would be lower; hence
the farmer would receive more in dollars and cents and would be in a
better position to pay his standing debts. Whether or not the rise in
the prices of his products would be offset or more than offset by the
increased prices which he would have to pay for the things he purchased
would depend upon the relative rate at which different commodities
adjusted themselves to the new scale of money value. In the end, of
course, other things being equal, there would be a return of old
conditions; but the farmers did not look so far ahead. Hence it was that
less attention was paid to taxation, to railroad rates and
discriminations, to elevator companies, to grain gamblers, or to
corporations as such; and the main force of the agrarian movements from
1875 onward was exerted, first for an increased paper currency and then
for free silver.