THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
555 
*89o 
RURAL SPECIAL CROP REPORTS. 
Nebraska. 
Albion, Boone County.—We are just 
now engaged in harvesting oats, which are 
promising a fair yield. Corn is looking 
prosperous where it has been properly cul¬ 
tivated. Rain will soon be needed. Good 
farms can be bought at prices ranging from 
$10 to $25 per acre according to locality and 
improvements. Our soil is very productive. 
I have lived on my homestead 15 years and 
have never yet had a failure of crops. The 
farmers are just now engaged knocking the 
old politicians off their old roosts in this 
State, and it is to be hoped they will be 
replaced by actual agriculturists, whose 
interests are at stake. We need The R. 
N.-Y.’s assistance as well as that of every 
other farm journal in the land. A. B. J. 
Pennsylvania. 
Flourtown, Montgomery County, July 
26—I have been a subscriber of the excellent 
R. N.-Y. for nearly two years and read its 
columns with great interest, especially the 
letters written from the practical farmers 
themselves upon the various and timely 
subjects treated. In this section wheat was 
a good crop. Hay was a particularly heavy 
one. Oats about half a crop: not yet all 
harvested. Corn is looking well and will 
be wonderfully helped by the present rains. 
Taking it all together, this has been a fav¬ 
orable season and all we want is fair prices 
for our products. subscriber. 
South Carolina. 
Walhalla, Oconee County, July 30.— 
The hotels and boarding houses are crowded 
now. A great many more from the low 
country are coming up next month. The 
country looks flne and the outlook for 
farmers is grand. Corn is almost made. 
Farmers can do much better here than they 
can North, but it seems hard to make them 
believe it. A man came in here from Ohio, 
about two months ago; he bought a tract of 
land about two miles from town, and is 
building a new house; he is delighted with 
the place. h. p. t. 
Nebraska. 
Grayson, August 5.—Harvesting is about 
over now and the thrasher is at work. The 
wheat seems to be of very good quality but 
the yield is light. Oats are nowhere. Corn 
is looking the best I ever saw here, although 
in places the drought is affecting it. The 
potato crop is very light, new potatoes 
bringing from 75 cents to $1. per bushel. 
Cane looks well, but the stand is thin; still 
it promises well. e. e. r. 
New York. 
Newark, Wayne County, August 11.— 
We have had little rain siuce June 14. The 
month previous to that date it rained every 
day but eight. Farmers are about through 
wheat and barley harvest. The wheat crop 
this season is the best in 10 years. Barley 
and oats will average about one half a full 
yield. Corn will be one-quarter of a crop. 
Potatoes are looking well—in our town 
about one-half the number of acres was 
planted that there was last year. There 
are not apples enough in Wayne County to 
supply the home Uemaud. Owners of 
evaporators are looking lor apples in some 
of the Western States, with the intention 
of shipping them to this place. There 
are a few of the varieties of pears. No 
peaches or plums. There are many vineyards 
of Niagara Grapes in this and Ontario Coun¬ 
ties, and as rule they are heavily loaded with 
fruit. Black-c p raspberries, on account of 
dry weather, will be one-third fewer than 
last year. Nearly all are evaporated. 
Peppermint, of which Wayne County pro¬ 
duces two-thirds of the entire amount 
grown in the United States, is promising a 
full yield from newly-set plants; the 
amount set is about one-third less tnau 
last year. Since writing the above I have 
taken a drive of 80 miles, visiting seven 
towns of this county, and what I have re¬ 
ported regarding the apple crop is fully 
confirmed; there will be no apples in 
Wayne County this year. Wheat is $1; 
barley, market not opened. Oats have ad¬ 
vanced from 25 cents in April to 45 and 48 
cents; corn has advanced to 60 cents: po¬ 
tatoes, 75 to 80 cents; peppermint oil, $2; 
wool, 23 to 30 cents; evaporated raspberries 
30 cents ; butter, 12 to 14 cents and eggs 15 
cents. w. H. K. 
THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE AND 
SUPREME COURT. 
In 1887, the legislature of Minnesota 
passed a law placing in the hands of a rail¬ 
road commission full power to regulate 
railroad rates. The Chicago, Milwaukee 
& St. Paul Railroad objecting to the tariff 
imposed upon one of its lines by this coin- 
mi8son, appealed to the Supreme Court of 
the State for a judicial hearing as to the 
reasonableness of the rate. The court, 
however, maintained that the rate fixed by 
this commission was final and conclusive 
and hence denied the request of the rail¬ 
road company. The company then carried 
the case, upon a writ of error, to the Su¬ 
preme Court of the United States for final 
settlement. That body reversed the de¬ 
cision of the Supreme Court of Minnesota, 
or, in other words, it maintained that the 
railroad company was entitled tc a judicial 
Inquiry as to the fairness of the rate im¬ 
posed by the railroad commission. This 
decision has met with unqualified condem¬ 
nation by the Farmers’ Alliance of Min¬ 
nesota. Not only was the decision of the 
court severely denounced, but the extreme 
and radical position was taken of request¬ 
ing the Alliances of other States to unite 
in an effort to so amend the Constitution 
of the United States as to abolish the court 
itself. 
resolutions adopted by the alliance. 
Resolved, “ That we appeal from this 
second Dred Scott decision to the people of 
the nation, and we ask them to consider 
whether any other race would submit to 
have their liberties thus wheedled away by 
a squad of lawyers sitting as supreme au¬ 
thority high above Congress, the President 
and people. We call attention to the fact 
that the citizens of England, from whom 
we have largely derived our form of gov¬ 
ernment, would not permit for one instant 
a bench of judges to nullify an act of par¬ 
liament. There the people are properly 
omnipotent. No civilized government on 
earth has ever conferred such powers upon 
any court as are by our Constitution 
granted to the U. S. Supreme Court. In 
our anxiety to protect the rights of prop¬ 
erty we have created a machinery that 
threatens to destroy the rights of men. 
Resolved, That copies of these resolu¬ 
tions be sent to the Alliances of the several 
States of the Union, with the request that 
they unite with us in an effort to so 
amend the Constitution of the United 
States as to abolish this new slavery of 
States and nation, established by and for 
the benefit of corporate wealth, and to 
make it so plain that no court, however 
shallow or corrupt, shall ever again attempt 
to subject the people to the domination of 
the artificial personages they have them¬ 
selves created 
Resolved, That we recommend the hold . 
ing of a convention by the Alliances of the 
United States at an early date to consider 
the very grave and monstrous questions 
growing out of this extraordinary de¬ 
cision.” 
A resolution so extraordinary in charac¬ 
ter as this, coming, as it does, from an or¬ 
ganization supposed to represent the agri¬ 
cultural interests of a great State, demands 
the careful consideration of every farmer. 
Let us, therefore, inquire what the decision 
of the court really was. In the first place, 
it did not deny the right of a State legisla¬ 
ture to determine rates, but at the same 
time it maintained that the power thus 
exercised by a legislature is not absolute, 
and that any question raised as to the fair¬ 
ness of a rate thus fixed is to be decided by 
judicial inquiry. This decision, the court 
held, was simply in conformity with the 
fifth amendment to the Constitution, 
which provides, among other things, that 
“ No person shall be deprived of his prop¬ 
erty without due process of law.” The 
evidence before the Supreme Court showed 
conclusively that the rate imposed by the 
railroad commission upon the Minneapolis 
and Eastern Railroad was insufficient to 
pay operating expenses aud make the neces¬ 
sary repairs. Hence the decision main¬ 
tained that “ there should be some power 
in the courts to stay the hands of a rail¬ 
road commission if it chooses to impose 
rates that are unequal and unreasonable.” 
Again, the facts, to which the attention 
of the Supreme Court was called, did not 
make it appear that the above railroad 
company had any opportunity afforded it 
by the railroad commission to present its 
statement of the case, while, on the con¬ 
trary, it did appear that it asked leave of 
the Supreme Court of Minnesota for such 
a privilege and that its request was de¬ 
nied. it is therefore evident that had not 
the Supreme Court of the United States 
overruled this decision, the question of 
regulating railroad rates would have been 
made a controversy wholly dependent on 
the will of one of the parties. By con¬ 
demning this decision, therefore, the Alli- 
auce has indicated that it would vest the 
power of fixing railroad rates entirely in a 
legislature. That is, it would make it 
purely a legislative question. Hence, the 
Alliance would deprive a railroad company 
of any means of relief, even when the rate 
imposed by the legislature is ruinously low. 
In this connection it may be remarked 
that nearly everybody believes that a rail¬ 
road company should not be allowed to 
charge the public extortionate rates. Does 
it not follow with equal force that a legis¬ 
lature should not be allowed to impose un- 
remunerative rates upon a railroad ? Again, 
has the public any permanent advantage to 
gain from attempts to place railroad rates 
below the point necessary to pay operating 
expenses ? Among other results one of two 
would be likely to follow: Either the com¬ 
pany might abandon the road, or some 
court might compel it to operate it at a loss. 
But, as a rule, there would be a limit to the 
company’s credit, and it is hard to conceive 
how a railroad company could be compelled 
to do a losing business when it no longer 
had any credit. It is therefore manifest 
that in the long run the public has nothing 
to gain from attempts to impose non-paying 
rates upon a railroad company. But why 
should the Farmers’ Alliance object to the 
question of what constitutes an equal and 
reasonable rate being settled by a judicial 
hearing ? It is a fundamental principle that 
if justice is to be obtained anywhere it is in 
the courts. If the Alliance therefore simply 
desires justice,why should it protest against 
this question being settled in this way ? 
There can be but two answers to this ques¬ 
tion. Either the Alliance desires rates so 
ruinously low that, in the interests of jus¬ 
tice, they would be overruled by a court, or 
it believes that a court is liable to favor the 
railroad company rather than the people. 
If it believes the latter it is ignorant of the 
facts ; for it is a matter of record that, 
since the question of regulating railroad 
rates was first brought before the Supreme 
Court of the United States, every decision 
rendered upon it by that body, has been in 
favor of the people. It is readily seen that 
even the decision we have been reconsider¬ 
ing is in no proper sense hostile to the in¬ 
terests of the people. 
But the utter folly of the manner in 
which the Alliance treated the decision of 
the court, is only equaled by its proposition 
to abolish the court itself. And since there 
is no reason why it should oppose the Su¬ 
preme Court more than any other Court of 
the Federal Government, its proposal 
simply amounts to a motion to destroy the 
entire Judicial Department of the National 
Government. There would be but two re¬ 
sults to such action. First: The powers 
of the National Judiciary might be ab¬ 
sorbed by the Legislative and Executive 
Departments of the National Government. 
This would mean that any order of the 
Executive or any enactment of the Legisla¬ 
tive Department would be absolute and 
final, and hence, lawfully just, whether 
just in fact or not. Second: The power 
now lodged in the National Judiciary 
might be tiansferred to the various De¬ 
partments of the several States. Then the 
Constitution would be construed or disre¬ 
garded as State interests might require. 
There would be no authority to determine 
the limits of State and National jurisdic 
tion, and uniformity in the adniinistration 
of justice would be conspicuous by its ab¬ 
sence. In short, the doctrine of States- 
rights, which in 1S32 led to nullification, 
and which in 1S61 culminated in secession 
and armed rebellion, would be revived and 
again used as a weapon to destroy the 
great Republic. It is hardly to be sup¬ 
posed that the Alliance realized the ex¬ 
tremity to which its proposal to abolish 
the Supreme Court might lead. 
Let no one misapprehend the meaning of 
what has been said. It is not intended to 
condemn the motive that led to the organ¬ 
ization of the Alliance. This motive was 
merely to secure through united action, 
what individual effort had been unable to 
obtain. No doubt, under existing condi¬ 
tions, there are things rightfully belonging 
to the farmer that he cannot obtain acting 
merely as an individual. The law of the 
industrial world at present is that, “ the 
survival of the fittest ” frequently means 
the survival of the best organized. The 
fact that the farmer has organized for him¬ 
self therefore should excite no surprise. 
His instinct of self-preservation, if nothing 
else, is sufficient to account for his action 
in this respect; but it must be admitted 
that to favor organization with a certain 
end in view is one thing, and that to in¬ 
dorse the methods employed to attain the 
same is quite another. I hope it is there¬ 
fore clear that I am not objecting to the 
end which the Alliance has in view, but to 
some of the methods which it occasionally 
employs. 
The point of all this you perceive, is, 
that the position taken by the Alliance of 
Minnesota is so manifestly unreasonable, 
that it is not only calculated to incur the 
hostility of every conservative interest, but 
also to bring the organization into con¬ 
tempt and thus do irreparable injury to a 
good cause. Suppose even that the de¬ 
cision of the court was not based upon 
justice, would it have been prudent for the 
Alliance to propose to abolish that trib¬ 
unal ? Any proposal so completely at var¬ 
iance with the beliefs of the American 
people as this, is not likely to bring the or¬ 
ganization which makes it into popular 
favor; for the power which any organiza¬ 
tion exerts depends very much upon the 
judiciousness of what its leaders say when¬ 
ever they speak. Thus, the influence 
which the Knights of Labor have exerted 
in Dehalf of labor has been largely due to 
the common sense, which has, on most oc¬ 
casions, characterized the sayings of Mr. 
Powderlv. It is certainly to be hoped that 
the Farmers’ Alliance, guided by wise 
counsel, may enter upon an enlarged field 
of usefulness to the ultimate advantage 
not only of the farmer but also of the 
whole country. CHARLES EMERICK. 
Lansing, Mich. 
PrSteUaMousi gUiTYtisittfl. 
Please r, ention The R. N.-Y. to our adver 
t’sers. 
The soft, velvety coloring effect so desirable for 
house exteriors can only be produced and perm 
nently held by the use of 
CABOT'S CREOSOTE SHINGLE STAINS. 
For Samples on Wood, with Circulars and full 
information, apply to 
SAMUEL CABOT, 
70 Kilby Street, Boston, Mass. 
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4 NOTED STOCK FARM OF 500 ACRES. IV 4 MTLES 
_£JL from village in Susquehanna Couuiy, Pa.: 
spring water by gravity to second story of mansion : 
three set buildings trout lake of SO acres; two 
orchards • *40,000 refused for it 16 years ago; to close 
estate will sell for $2,000 cash and $8,000 on mort 
gage. (Folio 5,087.) 
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