26 THE WESTERN FARMER 



The farmers, by insisting on justice being done to them- 

 selves, are at the same time fighting the battle of the 

 American community at large. All are sufterers from the 

 same fiscal absurdity, and all ought to join the farmers, 

 heart and hand, in enforcing the redress of a common 

 grievance. 



Every farmer should hold this language to the candi- 

 dates : " I will only vote for you if you will vote for me ; 

 and voting for me means voting in the House for A re- 

 duction of five per cent, every successive year on the import 

 duties till the whole are abolished." If this were done 

 pretty generally, the tariff, in its present shape, would not 

 survive the first sitting of Congress. The voting power 

 of the farmers is overwhelming, and will further increase 

 after the next census. They hardly know their own 

 strength. They are the backbone of the great American 

 Republic. They own most of its soil, they have created 

 most of its wealth, and they form the most numerous and 

 influential body among its population. The exercise of 

 their voting power would forcibly influence the commercial 

 policy of the government, and if they choose to exercise it. 

 an end will be put for ever to the yearly exactions from 

 which they are now suffering. In other words, they have 

 but to signify unmistakably by their votes that they wisli 

 to be freed from the unjust burdens laid upon them b)' 

 heavy import duties, and those duties will speedily cease to 

 exist. Is it possible to imagine that they should feel the 

 evil, know the remedy, and hesitate to apply it ? 



It is doubtless true that many, perhaps most, of the 

 American farmers are unaware of, or have given little atten- 

 tion to, the facts set forth in these pages, and hence their 

 silent endurance. But if every farmer who reads this, and 

 concurs in our views, would order from the nearest town ten 

 or twenty copies of this little paper, and would distribute 

 them by hand among his neighbours, or by post among his 

 friends at a distance, a spirit of inquiry would rapidly be 

 roused, and a definite expression of public opinion would 

 soon be elicited. By such means each man would con- 



