THE FARMERS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 22g 



tion, that the American Republic may yet be "ravaged by 

 Huns and Vandals, engendered within itself and by its 

 own laws, and by its own institutions," has not lost its 

 significance. 



It seems imperative, for the safety of a democratic coun- 

 try, that all its people take a direct interest in preserving 

 its institutions. As matters are going in America, the 

 proportion of those who are not so interested is rapidly 

 increasing. While we extend political rights to all, in 

 some communities, and propose to extend them in others, 

 we increase the effectiveness of systems which are caus- 

 ing continual accessions to the ranks of those who at any 

 time may become a revolutionary force. How long un- 

 der such circumstances before the rule of the despot will 

 become a necessity ? It was a direct interest in protect- 

 ing their own, which stimulated the hardy farmers of the 

 Revolution to fight so well for their land. They fought 

 not only to make it a " land of liberty," but their land of 

 liberty. "The shocks of corn," said Xenophon, " inspire 

 those who have raised them, to defend them." 



It will be well, however, not to nurse the delusion that 

 socialistic sentiments are destined to obtain lodgment in 

 the breasts of only the laborers in our towns and manu- 

 facturing centres. They are, in some sort of shape, rap- 

 idly spreading to the rural districts.' All are aware of 



Mt is a striking coincidence, that while the first President of the 

 United States made stronger claims than any of his successors for the 

 interests of agriculture, and for its value in civilization, the President 

 who leaves office in the centennial year of the inauguration of the first, 

 should feel called upon in his last message to Congress, to sound an 

 alarm at the unsatisfactory position of agriculture in this latter day. 

 Mr. Cleveland looks with apprehension to the time when the farmers, 

 among others, will, realizing the inequality and injustice under which 

 they labor, breed a discontent dangerous to the lieneficent operation of 



