THE PLIGHT OF THE FARMER 107 



of 1892, a movement to separate the State into two 

 commonwealths received serious consideration. 



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 out- 

 fit 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 

 che corporation. Although his equity in the land 

 he owned might be much less than its assessed val- 

 ue, he was not allowed to make any deduction for 

 mortgages. The revenue of the Federal Govern- 

 ment 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 inter- 

 mediaries between the producer and the consumer, 

 mortgages with high interest rates, and an inequit- 

 able 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 



