304 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL. 



Let me recapitulate : Fertile soil, salubrious climate, convenient to the 

 great markets of the world, abundant transportation facilities, an in- 

 dustrious, frugal, and temperate class of citizens, continuous good crops 

 with local exceptions. Should we not be prosperous and contented ? 



What are the facts ? With an area capable of supporting comfortably 

 12,000,000 people, we have less than one-third that number, with the 

 rural districts at a standstill or actually decreasing in population, farm 

 values steadily decreasing, while farm and chattel mortgages are as 

 steadily increasing. Census Superintendent Porter gives the land mort- 

 gage figures for Iowa at $199,000,000; $2,000,000 per county for land 

 mortgages alone. A farmer's debts are by no means measured by the 

 mortgage on his farm ; on the contrary, his chattel and unsecured lia- 

 bilities often exceed the real estate indebtedness. Minnesota and the 

 Dakotas are in a worse condition than Iowa ; and when to the totals 

 of her land and personal debts are added the township, municipal, 

 school, corporate, and State obligations, an aggregate is reached almost 

 incomprehensible in magnitude, and appalling to contemplate, especially 

 when an attempt is made to figure how the debt, principal and interest, 

 is to be paid. Labor Commissioner Sovereign of Iowa has collected 

 reliable information as to cost of production in Iowa, and profits 

 thereon. Selecting twelve representative farmers in each of one hun- 

 dred counties, and sending them a series of questions, including cost 

 per acre of raising crops, price of products realized, profit or loss, 

 rates of interest prevailing, etc., the almost unanimous report was that 

 for the last six or seven years farming had been carried on in that 

 favored State at an actual loss. Conservative judges estimate the total in- 

 debtedness, personal, corporate, municipal, and State, at $2,000,000,000 

 for the four States, bearing from six to twelve per cent interest, much 

 of it even higher than that, and very little lower : seven per cent would 

 be an average, making an annual interest tax of $140,000,000. 



A system that brings about, or even renders possible, a debt of 

 one billion in 1880, to increase to two billion in 1890, will permit it to 

 swell to three or four billion in 1900, and so on, continually increasing, 

 until our beautiful inheritance, of which we are so proud, will pass from 

 us forever. As a result, the people are organizing as never before, and 

 demanding an about-face in governmental policy, retrenchment in 

 expenses, decrease of official salaries, more honesty in administration, 

 the resumption of such national and State functions as have been 

 improperly delegated to corporations and individuals, such as the con- 

 trol of finance and commerce, and the assumption of such additional 

 functions as may be essential to the successful consummation of the 



