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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
MAY 23 
A FARMERS’ ALLIANCE LEADER. 
NATIONAL LKCTUREIt WILLITS TALKS 
Almost a governor; quite an honest un- 
huyable man; new and striking slatis 
tics; watits the Sub Treasury bill ; 
means business from the start. 
How He Came To The Front. 
All Kansas rang last year with the name 
of a farmers’ candidate for governor. Pro¬ 
fessional politicians and “ iridescent 
dreamers” had, hitherto, been made the 
gnardiais of the public interest by the 
farmers, while they followed the plow. 
When, at the end of the year, these men, 
who had left kindred and friends to find a 
home in the wide West, sat down on their 
plow beams and balanced their accounts, 
they found themselves poorer after the 
year’s labor was done than they were at the 
beginning. Forbearance seemed to have 
ceased to be a virtue, and it was time to 
awaken the dreamers. 
J. F. Willits, a pioneer and a hard work¬ 
ing farmer, was chosen as the candidate for 
governor on the People’s ticket in spite of 
his protests of financial inability to make 
the canvass. One hundred and seven 
thousand voters helped him make it, how¬ 
ever, and for several days succeeding the 
election it was believed by them that they 
had won, but the final count decided other¬ 
wise. These facts, so well known to Rural 
readers, are recalled as they serve to intro¬ 
duce to every reader the National Lecturer 
of an organization of nearly three millions 
of people—the Farmers’ Alliance and In¬ 
dustrial Union, 
He Can’t Be Bought and Sold. 
Your correspondent met him at Colum¬ 
bus, O., where a State Alliance was organ¬ 
ized, and, in common with the other de¬ 
legates, was impressed with the native 
ability, force of character and honesty of 
purpose of the incumbent of this important 
office in the Alliance. “ There goes a man 
that a million dollars cannot buy,” said 
one delegate to another as the sturdy Kan¬ 
san passed by. So much is being said of 
danger to the Alliance from dishonest men, 
who may get into the lead, that there was 
a general expression of content that two 
men—the President and Lecturer—carried 
with them that air of honesty that rogues 
fail to counterfeit. 
Mr. Willits was seen again the other day 
and told that Thii R. N.-Y. would like to 
present, in an authoritative way, to its read¬ 
ers, his views upon the Alliance work, its 
demands and its future prospects. 
“ You are welcome to anything that I can 
say that will help the growth of the Alli¬ 
ance,” was Mr. Wllllts’s kind reply. 
Disagrees With Governor Tillman. 
“ Mr. Willits, Governor Tillman says that 
he does not believe if the Farmers’ Alliance 
were polled in his State, one-half would 
support the Sub-Treasury scheme.” He 
further says: “ I believe the Alliance of the 
entire South would repudiate it. Some 
leaders may favor it, but the rank and 
file—the thinking, reading members—utter¬ 
ly refuse the absurd provisions of the 
scheme.” 
“ The Governor is mistaken,” said Lect- 
urer Willits. ‘‘I meet with our people 
from every section of this country. Put 
me on record as saying that the mass, the 
great m iss of our people, stand squarely on 
the Ocala pla’form and are demanding the 
adoption of the scheme. The reasons are 
many : 1 . It provides for the distribution 
of the crops as needed. It gives the pro¬ 
ducers opportunities to hold back a suf¬ 
ficient quantity of their products partially 
to prevent the usual glut that is so disas¬ 
trous to prices for a time succeeding the 
harvest. 2. It gives us a flexible cur¬ 
rency. It will make money plenty at a 
time when mon^y is in demand, and it pro¬ 
vides for its gradual withdrawal when a 
less volume is needed. 3. It takes the agri¬ 
cultural products out of the hands of the 
gamblers. It is the perfect cure for deal¬ 
ing in futures. 
“Some sections do not feel the need of 
this plan as keenly as others, but our peo- 
p'e believe that it will benefit them as a 
whole, and that any benefit to the farmers 
of this country will be equally shared by 
the entire people. None will suffer but the 
class that would keep our currency unduly 
restricted for selfish and unpatriotic ends.” 
‘‘How about its alleged impractica¬ 
bility ? ” 
“There is nothing in that claim,” an¬ 
swered the Lecturer. “ There are minutiae, 
of course, for the consideration of our 
legislators. Provisions requiring such in¬ 
surance of the grain, cotton, etc, stored, 
as is now k<-pt up on grain in the elevators, 
limiting the amount loaned and the time, 
and providing for a business-like regulation 
cf affairs, will be needed. The plan is 
feasible, and the Alliance is practically a 
unit in its demand for it. However, some 
people have one mistaken idea. They think 
and talk as if this Sub-Treasury plan was 
our chief, nearly our sole demand. Our 
first and great demand is for an increase 
of our circulating medium. Unless the 
farmers of this country, and especially the 
farmers west of the Mississippi, get a proper 
and honest increase—and that means a 
large increase—at an early date, they will 
be a ruined class. 
Do Statistics Indicate Impending 
Ruin ? 
“There is no question about this. As Lect¬ 
urer of the greatest organization on the 
face of the earth, I addre-s many people, 
and I watch most carefully that I make no 
statement upon any authority that is not 
the best obtainable. I have recently spent a 
week or more at Washington looking up 
tbe figures in the census department. Some 
that I have here have not yet been pub¬ 
lished, as they were not properly tabulated 
for the public, but I have been allowed to 
copy them, and have spent much time in 
verifying them, that no mistake might ap¬ 
pear. The c°nsus report will show the fol¬ 
lowing facs: 
“ We have 5,000,000 farms The average 
amount produc-d is only $400. The average 
mortgaged indebtedness is $500. The aver¬ 
age rate of interest is estimated at eight per 
cent, making an interest charge of $40. The 
average farmer pays $25 tax. Deducting 
interest and taxes, the farmer must main¬ 
tain a family of five persons on $335 a year, 
or increase his indebtedness. How can 
families be fed, clothed, doctored and edu¬ 
cated on an amount equal to 18 cents a day 
for each member? In my State of Kansas, 
40 cents a day is allowed for the mainten¬ 
ance of our convicts. 
“In 18(56 the value of our 10 leading crops 
was $2,007,462,000. In 1884 these 10 crops 
were valued at $2 043,500,000, au increase of 
only two per cent, while the cultivated area 
had about doubled. These 10 crops had an 
average value per acre in 1867 of $19; and in 
1887, of only $9 
“ From 1860 to, 1870, the average pric* of 
wheat in the United States was $1.99. From 
1880 to 1887, it was $107. In the same 
periods the average price of orn declined 
from 96 c a nts to 46 cents, while the average 
price of cotton declined from 40 cents to nine 
cents. 
“ Using our best estimates, it has of late 
years been costing the wheat farmer 2%, 
the corn farmer 2)4 and the cotton farmer 
four times as much of their several pro¬ 
ducts to get a dollar as it once did. How 
can they repay double or four times the 
amount they may have borrowed, and at 
the same time be paying a yearly rate of 10 
or 12 per cent, as some Western farmers 
have been compelled at times to pay by 
reason of such virtual contraction of the 
volume of our currency as Wall Street in 
its wisdom may have seen fit to bring 
about ? 
“ Our last census shows that the farm 
mortgaged indebtedness of Kansas is $199,- 
000,000, and of Michigan $130,000,000. To 
pay the interest on the mortgaged indebted¬ 
ness in the wheat growing State of Michi¬ 
gan requires 450,554 bushels more wheat 
than the State produces. 
“Iowa has $199,000,000 mortgaged indebt¬ 
edness—a sum equal to $104 for every man, 
woman and child in the State. 
“In 1866, our national public debt was 
$2,783,000,000. From that time to date we 
have paid $4,198,931,361, but it would now 
take more of the products of labor to pay 
the amount yet due than it would have 
taken at first to pay the entire amount. 
With all the reduction of the principal, it 
would take more wheat, corn, cotton, cattle 
and hogs to pay what we still owe than 
would have been required when the debt 
was greatest in number of dollars. 
“In the last year the farmers in Kansas 
have lost their homes at the rate of 500 per 
week, and all the desirable public land is 
now in the hands of railroads or of aliens. 
“ In 1850, the farmers owned 70 per cent of 
the wealth of this country; in 1860 they 
owned 50 per cent; in 1880 they owned 33 
per cent; in 1890 they own less than 25 per 
cent. 
“I c uld continue to give you statistics 
showing the deplorable condition of our 
occupation, but figures make plain only 
that which is already too plain and real to 
the great majority. In a few sections of 
our country there are communities that, for 
local reasons, have not felt the effects of 
our unjust conditions in this country as 
have most of our farmers, but our census 
reports will demonstrate the fact that the 
average farmer is doomed, unless he secures 
a return of the government to tbe people, 
to tbe rightful rulers. 
“Our farmers want to pay their honest 
debts. Repudiation is never considered for 
a moment; but they do demand that the 
currency be an honest one for them as well 
as for all others. A dollar that becomes 
harder to get each year is a dishonest one. 
Wall Street has a mortgage upon the coun¬ 
try, and so manipulates legislation that 
the value of its loans is increased continu¬ 
ally. These conditions must be changed.” 
“ How about transportation ? ” 
“The Alliance demands governmental 
control of public means of transportation. 
If we cannot control, we propose that the 
people shall own their carrying lines. This 
feeling is stronger in New York State, 
where we recently held a State meeting, 
than in Kansas. Thus do States vary in 
the degree of importance they would at¬ 
tach to each of our demands. One State 
may be more Interested in the transporta¬ 
tion problem, another in the currency ques¬ 
tion and another in the Sub-Treasury 
scheme ; but all States are interested in all 
our I'emands in so far that they take their 
stand on the Ocala platform, and propose 
to secure the granting o* all our demands. 
“ The Alliance Is growing faster than it 
has ever done before, and in the coming 
struggle between the organized monied in¬ 
terests on the one hand, and, on the other, 
the farmers, conservative, and yet fully 
determined to secure equal and exact 
justice to every producer in this country, 
there can be no question about the result.” 
_ A A. 
Poultry Yard. 
Are incubators gaining In popularity or 
is the reverse true ? There are two sides to 
the answer. The incubator men claim 
that their machines sell better than ever 
before, while the friends of “the old hen ” 
as a hatching machine point to breeders 
who have given up incubators after a care¬ 
ful trial. F. A. Mortimer, In the Poultry 
Monthly, makes this unique argument in 
favor of incubators. “Never allow your 
breeding stock to sit for incubating. The 
tendency will be, in a few years, to breed 
all varieties of fowls to be non-sitters. In¬ 
cubating by artificial means will be more 
practical than now. In the next five years 
there will be great advancement in the 
modes of incubating; and those that have 
started their flocks, by careful breeding 
toward the non-sitting varieties, have 
taken time by the forelock. The hen as an 
incubating machine will, in 10 or 15 
years, be seldom used.” There is some 
thing in this if it is possible to breed the 
“ incubating tendency” out of a breed. 
“ Hens Bulltfor Laying.” 
J. D. Tompkins has the following in the 
Fanciers’ Journal: 
There is as certainly a difference in the 
egg-producing qualities of certain separate 
types of hens as there is a difference in the 
butter or milk production of certain sepa¬ 
rate types of cows. In my own breeding 
I avoid long necks or long legs in birds ; 
with Silver Wyandottes, which I have bred 
exclusively for many years. “ high-sta¬ 
tioned ” birds are particularly objection¬ 
able, not alone because they do not conform 
to “ the American Standard of Excellence,” 
but for the reason that I find them inferior 
egg producers; neither are they as good 
for table purposes as <;he type having 
shorter legs and necks My ideal of a good 
layer is that she should have a broad, deep, 
round body of moderate length ; sheshould 
not be too chunky. 
We hear far more about this “egg type ” 
hen than we ever did before. All first class 
poultrymen seem to be able to pick out 
their best layers, but they judge more by 
the hen’s actions than by her shape and 
(Continued on next page.) 
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