20 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



ists conduct a warfare against society in all its forms. They would take away 

 all rights in property. They would destroy the family relation. They would 

 abolish the laws of inheritance of property. They would, in fact, make earth 

 a chaos. They may at times control for a brief period iu our large cities, and 

 property and life may be jeopardized, but the stability and permanence of our 

 Government is made secure by the farmers and the honest laboring men, who 

 believe that ownership in property should be protected. The future of our 

 country is safe while the farmers are in the majority. The poor laboring man, 

 who finds life burdensome in the competition of labor within the crowded cities, 

 can, by saving his earnings for a few years, iu working in the mills or factor- 

 ies, accumulate sufficient to buy forty acres in our western country, and this in 

 time will make a comfortable home for himself and family. The overcrowded 

 cities must be relieved by prevailing upon these laboring men, who, by competi- 

 tion, have depressed wages, to go upon our new lands and improve them. This 

 alone will make our country prosperous and happy. Of all classes, none are 

 more independent, comfortable and happy, than the farmers of our country. 



Finally, I advise you all, as farmers of Michigan, give support to the common 

 schools, to the Normal schools, and to our State University ; and last, but not 

 least, send your boys to. our State Agricultural College, that the next genera- 

 tion may become educated and intelligent farmers. In conclusion, bear in 

 mind the scrij^ture injunction: "Let each man first take care of his own 

 household." 



CAPITAL AND LABOE— THE FARMER'S RELATION TO BOTH. 



BY HON. C. V. R. POND, STATE COMMISSIONER OF LABOR. 

 [Read before the Farmers' Institute at Quincy, Feb. 18, 1886,] 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Farmers' Institute : 



Wlien invited by your local committee to prepare a paper for this occasion, I 

 was asked if the subject might not be, " The Labor Bureau, and the Farmer's 

 Relation Tiiereto ? " To this inquiry the reply was given that the relation of 

 the farmer to the Bureau was identical with that of all citizens of the State, 

 and for me to use argument to prove the value of the Bureau before this 

 Institute might give strength to the thought that officially I feared sufficient 

 importance was not attached to this department of work, now authorized by 

 statute law. I preferred that so far as my connection with the Bureau of 

 Labor is concerned, the annual report, soon to be given to the public, should, 

 after a careful perusal, be accepted as evidence for or against the usefulness of 

 an office, which has for its work the gathering of statistics bearing upon a 

 subject which is to-day engrossing the attention of national legislative bodies. 



The subject then, accepted by your committee and myself for a brief talk to 

 you this afternoon is, "Capital and Labor, the Farmer's Relation to Both."' In 

 a talk upon this subject in the short time allowed by the program, let me ask 

 you to keep in mind the fact that for ages cajjital and labor has been a topic of 

 discussion by the press and by the people, but that until within the last decade 

 it has occupied no nationally familiar place in the United States. To-day, 



