LABOR'S WRONGS. 39 







"The better to show who gets the money, please note 

 the following: As stated above, the total income for all 

 the roads in the State for 1884 was $56,457,238. . Now 

 how much of the farmers' produce would be required to 

 pay this sum? Value of beef cattle sold the same year, 

 $32,251,145; hogs the same year, $24, 886,854; surplus 

 wheat sold the same year, $13,199,522 total, $60,505,- 

 623. (Agr. Rep. Vol. 22.) 



4 'Sales from beef cattle, hogs and wheat comprise 

 nearly all of the farmer's income. From these sales we 

 received $60,607,623, and paid to transportation companies 

 in the same time $56,457,238. The tax-gatherer and 

 money-lender got the balance. 



"Who gets the money? Does farming pay? No! 

 It has ceased to pay! And is there not here a reason, a 

 good and sufficient reason, why agricultural districts are 

 being depopulated? If this state of things shall continue, 

 depopulation will go on until the survival of the fittest 

 only will remain. 



"We hear people boast of our boundless resources and 

 our vast aggregation of wealth; of our twelve thousand 

 miles of railroad trackage in the State, and making more 

 every day. Of what avails all this, if the workers in the 

 field, toiling twelve hours a day, cannot make both ends 

 meet? They are sinking, sinking, into a state of depend- 

 ency on those who control the wealth and resources of the 

 State." 



Speaking of the mortgaged condition of the farmers 

 of his State the same man says: "McLean county, in the 

 last three years, and the adjacent counties thereto, have 

 been especially blessed with good crops beyond other 

 counties in the State, but I find from a report that is to-day 

 only partially made up by the board of labor statistics, 

 that the mortgaged indebtedness of these counties are as 

 follows: McLean county, for the year 1887, 1,752 mort- 



