Page:Oscar Ameringer - Socialism for the Farmer (1912).djvu/16

 made sugar, packed pork, dried beef, wove cloth and made clothing.

What little furniture and implements they had were usually home made. The blacksmith, the miller and the shoe cobbler were about the only artisans called upon outside the home, and these were usually paid in produce instead of in money. If there was a house to be erected they called upon the neighbors for help, and the old time "log raising" was regarded in the light of a holiday. Tobacco was raised, cured and smoked by the men folks on the place. Corn was easily transformed into whiskey and still easier consumed. If there was a bigger corn crop than the family could harvest, a husking bee was arranged, followed by a dance of the young folks on the barn floor.

Grandfather had few luxuries, but he made a living and raised a dozen or so of children. He was economically and politically a free man. Being dependent on none he did not care a continental who knew when he voted for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"

The cradle of American democracy stood on the independent farm of the first half of the last century. Free soil and freedom cannot be separated, economic independence and political liberty go ever hand in hand.

The invention of the power loom made hand weaving unprofitable; the spinning wheel became a plaything for the children and the weaving industry moved to the towns. Soap factories making soap that floats and soap that sinks, soon relegated the soap kettle to the scrap pile. The oil refinery put an end to the candle mould. Armour absorbed the meat packing industry. Havemeyer assimilated the sugar making business. The whiskey trust manufactured booze, and Duke, by discovering a process which makes alfalfa hay smell almost like tobacco, put an end to the Dog Leg and Granger Twist industry of the farmers.

The farmer trade too, became decomposed and specialized. One industry after the other left the farm until the farmer finds himself a specialist, raising a few products, not for home consumption but for sale.

As soon as the farmer produced for sale instead of for home use, his independence ceased and he became dependent upon the great and unknown market. Without organization to regulate production, with no knowledge as to how much of his products the market demanded, he produced blindly,