WHERE THE BLAME ORIGINALLY LIES. 199 



of our great cities, and for what ? Simply to keep them still. 

 The great &quot; operators &quot; could not fleece both classes, and so the 

 farmer must pay for all. 



The great mistake made by the railroad magnates, East 

 and West, was in not heeding the smaller tidal waves that 

 were as mere ripples to the great September groundswell 

 that convulsed the country. The question may well be 

 seriously asked, Will it require a still greater explosion 

 of long-suppressed fires, a more terrible disorganization of 

 business than that through which we have just passed, to 

 show this class of men that henceforward their power for 

 evil is circumscribed, and that they must conform to the 

 requirements of justice? We believe it most certainly will, 

 unless the Government itself can be purified of the class of 

 politicians, who pander to the great money lords of the East. 

 The signs of the times persistently misread or unheeded, 

 there may come a wide-spread financial ruin, such as no 

 civilized people ever suffered. What a humiliation to a 

 nation of boasted freemen, who have allowed their law-makers 

 to become utterly corrupt, and their laws vicious and one 

 sided, through the buying and selling of human consciences ! 



WHERE THE BLAME ORIGINALLY LIES. 



Much of the evil we have mentioned arises from the 

 want of a business education among the masses of the farm 

 ers themselves. For this, however, they are not entirely to 

 blame; their isolation one from another has, in a measure, 

 prevented it. Congress, while yet it was pure, endowed 

 schools for the instruction of the masses to the industries. 

 Let them allow mere scholiasts to fritter this endowment 

 away, and they will be utterly lost. 



Looking at the grievances entailed since the settlement of 



