THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 521 



cumulating a few paltry dollars by coining them from 

 their own life-blood, and stamping them with the sighs 

 of weary children and worn wives. 



" What we want in agriculture is a new Declaration 

 of Independence. We must do something to dispel old 

 prejudices, and break down these old notions. That 

 the farmer is a mere animal, to labor from morn till 

 eve, and into the night, is an ancient but abominable 

 heresy. We have heard enough, ten times enough, 

 about the ' hardened hand of honest toil.' The su- 

 preme ' glory of the sweating brow,' and how magni- 

 ficent the suit of coarse homespun which covers a 

 form bent with overwork, and which has incorporated 

 in its every thread moments of painful labor which 

 the over-worked wife had stolen from her needed 

 rest. 



"I tell you, my brother tillers of the soil, there is 

 something in this world worth living for besides hard 

 work. We have heard enough of this professional 

 blarney. Toil is not in itself necessarily glorious. To 

 toil like a slave, raise fat steers, cultivate broad acres, 

 pile up treasures of bonds and lands and herds, and at 

 the same time bow and starve the godlike form, 

 harden the hands, dwarf the immortal mind, and 

 alienate the children from the homestead, is a damning 

 disgrace to any man, and should stamp him as worse 

 than a brute. 



" It is not honorable to sacrifice the mind and body 

 to gain. It is not a trait of true nobility to bring up 

 children to thankless, unrequited labor. It is not just 

 or good or noble to wear out the wife of your bosom in 

 the drudgery of the farm without a just return. You 

 have no right to make agriculture so disagreeable as to 



