402 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



upon this land system as almost perfect, that we now 

 behold the curious phenomenon of a large and most 

 important class of the community, the Western farmers, 

 while almost on the brink of ruin, yet quite unable to 

 discover the real cause of their suffering, and frantically 

 asking help of the government through action which 

 might, perhaps, alleviate their immediate distress, but 

 could have no effect in permanently benefiting them. As 

 this question of the farmers is one calculated to throw 

 light on the whole problem of " increasing want with 

 increasing wealth," it will be well to devote a little space 

 to its discussion. 



The farmers in the great food-producing States in the 

 West are admitted to be very badly off. A large pro- 

 portion of them are crushed down by heavy mortgages, 

 others are tenants at high rents, and almost all have a 

 hard struggle for a bare livelihood.^ Their friends and 

 representatives consider that their misfortunes depend 

 primarily on financial and fiscal legislation, and advocate 

 reforms of this nature. Mr. S. S. King, of Kansas City, 

 says: 



" The first step in legislation is for the people to undo, so far as 

 they can, the things done by the hired tools of the monopolists, 

 repeal the National Banking Act, pay oft" the bonds, stop the inter- 

 est, call in the National Bank notes, and rei)lace them with full 

 legal-tender paper money issued by the government . • . Then let 



^ Mr. Atkinson, the optimist statistician of Boston, in his paper read 

 before the British Association in August, 1892, summarizes the special 

 Census Report on this subject as folloAvs : Dealing with Illinois, 

 Alabama, Tennessee, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, he states that 

 "more than one half of the farms are free from any mortgage," and 

 that "those which are under mortgage are encumbered for less than 

 half their value." This is the optimist way of stating the case, as if it 

 were something gratifying, something that indicated a successful 

 agriculture and a contented body of farmers ! Nearly half the farms 

 in six great agricultural States mortgaged ! And these mortgaged to 

 nearly half their value, which, at the high rates of interest usually paid, 

 is equivalent to a heavy, sometimes to a crushing rent!! I could 

 scarcely have imagined a more terril^le state of things, short of absolute 

 ruin ; and had the facts been stated by any less trustworthy authority, 

 I should have thought there was certainly error or exaggeration. It 

 must be remembered, also, that during past years many mortgages have 

 been foreclosed, and the mortgagees are now the landlords. We are 

 not told how many of the farmers in these States are tenants. 



