m 
Annual Report of the 
of which we have any knowledge—the “Tailor’s Union,” formed by 
Adam and Eve, when they abandonded farming, and made gar¬ 
ments. From that day to this, all over God’s green earth, the 
“Tailors’ Unions” have made the clothes we wear, cost us what they 
pleased. In the progress of time children were born, the world 
grew populous, there became many people, among them a curious 
fellow by the name of Crispin, who was a shoemaker, who discover¬ 
ed a curious fact; for which discovery he has been, by his followers 
and brother shoemakers, canonized; has been made by them a 
Saint, and is called Saint Crispin. His wonderful discovery was 
this: That all children were born bare-footed and must be shod. 
He formed shoemakers into secret societies, and our “soles” are high 
or low, in more than one sense, as they ordain. 
Every book or newspaper we read has cost something extra on 
account of “ Printers’ Unions.” Seeing how swimmingly the dis¬ 
ciples of Crispin were getting on, other operatives and artizans 
formed “ unions,” made secret pledges, dubbed their patron a saint, 
and by so doing increased their wages and lessened their labor. 
The doctors had their little society meeting, and agreed among 
themselves that they would pill us—sometimes kill us—for so much 
and no less. The lawyers had their bar associations, and made a 
fee-bill, which read: “ Take all your client has.” In justice, how¬ 
ever, to the profession, I will say, they are something like the old 
English robber—they take from the rich and give to the need}\ 
They live well and die poor. Ministers combine, if not at dona¬ 
tions, at ordinations. Merchants have quit running one another, 
and have formed boards of trade. Rogues and knaves are bound 
by secret ties. In short, everybody and everything, the farmer ex¬ 
cepted, have had grips and signs, and save with him, co-operation 
has been the order of the da}q but the farmer, “ his hand against 
every man and every man’s hand against him;” and as a namesake 
of mine said, the farmer’s hand is too poor to play alone, for the 
tradesman sees it, and has both right, left, and a secret bower. The 
farmer, ever since commerce and manufacture have existed, has 
been a mere bush-whacker, confronting an organized, well-equipped 
foe; but at last a better day is coming; the Grange and the Far¬ 
mer's Club are doing their good work. I bid them God speed. 
They are both fighting the same great enemy—the monopolist and 
the middlemen; the Club, with as much boldness, but with less 
