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PAGE SIX THE BOY ON THE FARM. We have a letter from a boy on a farm. In it he says: “If you want to keep a boy on the farm, give him a crance. A boy will be a boy, anyway. A boy will have his gun and hunt a little, if he has to go when his Pa is gone to town and leaves him something to do.” The letter is lengthy and boy-like all through. In it we hear the complaint of tens of thousands of boys on the farms who are overworked and under played. “Give the boy a chance!” Let him have his gun and a day off occasionally in hunting season to go out and find game —but, better, find evidence of God’s presence in the world, to know Nature's moods, and to breathe the uplifting airs of ambi tion. Tell him to shoot birds, sell them, and buy a book for evening study. Let him go fishing and sell the string for a jew’s harp, a fiddle, or a piano fund, if he has a knack for music. Let him have a patch of ground and raise things that, he can sell and use the money as his own —not to buy what his parents should give him — but the extra things of value, useful ness and self-improvement that most sensible boys long for. The boy on the farm is the best hope of the nation. He is “the rookey of civilization" —the recruit who comes clean-and lusty from the heart-side of Nature to re-enforce the lines that are failing because of luxury and effete ness, and who retrieves the republic with his fresh and forceful demo cracy. God bless the hoy on the farm and may the day soon come when the farmer fathers and mothers of Amer ica will “give them a chance” —give them encouragement, development and the spirit of independence, born of pure living, healthy home surround ings and the aspirations to perform righteous deeds for God and their na tive land. Build up the farm boy and he will build the nation upon solid founda tions and rear its head among stais that spell “Esto Perpetual” S. W. S. BATTLE FOR JUSTICE. The farmers of the United States need to have no complaints against the governments of the state or that of the nation. They can be the abso lute masters of them all, if they will. But to master government the farm ers MUST DO THREE THINGS. First, they must READ and keep themselves too well informed on pub lic .matters to be successfully de ccita’d by demagogues and debauched JnSHeond, they must THINK for them ami patiently work out of all KWfacts in their case some SET- SwLED CONVICTIONS of what are Ftheir real WRONGS and RIGHTS. And in their thinking they must fol low rigidly the principle of the GOL DEN RULE. Special thinking for class profit ends in SPECIAL PRIVI LEGES —and that is the cancer that destroys all free and equal govern ment. Third, they must hold their ballot as a sacred instrument and wield it with ABSOLUTE INDEPENDENCE. There are no slaves any more in this nation but the slaves of special privi- and the SLAVES OF PARTY! Farmers’ Union Department 'Roster of National and State Officers NATIONAL OFFICERS. C. S. Barrett, president, Atwater, Georgia. J. E. Montgomery, vice-president., Gleason, Tenn. R. H. McCullough, secretary-treas urer, Beebe, Ark. L. N. chaplain, Bernice, Louisiana. STATE OFFICERS. Georgia Headquarters—Barnesville.. R. F. Duckworth—President. W. P. Quinby—Vice-President. J. L. Barron —Secretary-Treasurer. J. L. Lee —State Organizer. G. M. Davis —Lecturer. J. G. Eubanks —State Business Agent. Alabama- —I. A. Worley, president, Guin, Ala.; E. J. Cook, secretary-treas urer, Pell City, Ala. And the latter are the most abject and hopeless of the twain! If the farmers will organize into Farmers’ Unions all over the state and the nation, preserve a strict allegiance to the principles of the order, and let the politicians understand that they are FREEMEN and VOTERS determ ined to fight at every ballot box, each man on his conscience, for fair, equal and impartial justice in governments, a grander revolution will be wrought in the next two years than was that of 1776 to 1883, in which our fathers won our liberties. Every Farmers’ Union in the land should make this program the creed of its life and labors. S. W. S. THE WAREHOUSE PALLADIUM. The Palladium was the ancient image of Pallas Athena, or Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom and War, in Troy, and on the possession of which depended the safety of the city. She was represented seated, with a spear in her right hand and in her left hand a spindle and distaff. So long as she was held by the Trojans their town could never be taken in war. What an appropriate figure she would make to symbolize the Farmers’ Union! Her spear their weapon of attack on wrongs; her spindle and distaff the emblems of the trades their industry supports! Today all wise men who are con nected with the vital interests of the cotton producers of the Southern States realize that “the planter’s ware house” is the citadel of King Cotton’s palladium. This fact has given rise to the Sam Morse, Joe Hoadley, Har vie Jordan and all other plans to con trol the cotton crops of the South by and through a warehouse system. Just here, on the warehouse ground, is where the farmers must keep their eyes open for the Trojan horse of the cotton gamblers, speculators, spinners and manufacturers. If the cotton crops are to be wisely and profitably handled; if the Farm ers’ Union fixed price in any season is to be surely secured; if the crop is to be held “in escrow,’ so to speak, and marketed only as the trade win pay the price; if “distress cotton” is to be taken in and held by the plant- WATSON'S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. Arkansas —J. B. Lewis, president, Jonesboro, Ark.; Ben L. Griflin, secre tary-treasurer, Conway, Ark. Indiahoma—J. A. West, President, Shawnee, O. T.; B. C. Hanson, secre tary-treasurer, Shawnee, 0. T. Louisiana —L. N. Holmes, president, Bernice, L,; J. W. Boyett, Jr., sec treasurer, Tanhill, La. Mississippi—J. M. Bass, president; Hazlehurst, Miss.; G. W. Russell, sec retary-treasurer, Hazlehurst, Miss. Tennessee —J. E. Montgomery, pres ident, Greenfield, Tenn.; J. T. Brooks, secretary-treasurer, Atwood, Tenn. Texas —E. A. Calvin, president. Dal las, Texas; B. F. Chapman, secretary treasurer, Dallas, Texas. South Carolina —O. P. Goodwin, president, Anderson, S. C.; B. F. Earl, secretary-treasurer, Anderson, South Carolina. ers not in stress —then, warehouses in every supporting community are essen tial palladiums of the planters round, about them. But every warehouse should be the project and property of the farmers themselves; owned and operated for their protection and profit; and all its dealings ordered and guaranteed by their local Union or guaranty com pany. Such a system of local Farmers’ Union warehouses will save hundreds of millions of dollars to the planters of the South —saved by the stability of prices, by the lowering of freight rates, the fees of storage kept at home and not expended in New FJngland and in Europe, and in costs of insurance and exchange. The warehouse is the cotton farm er's palladium. Let him be sure that he owns it and defends it, and it will protect and enrich him and not his enemies. S. W. S. FINLEY AND THE PEOPLE. President Finley, of the Southern Railway, in his latest speech, an nounces that “the interests of the rail roads and of the people are the same.” This is surely good news. We will now expect President Finley to put himself over on the people’s side of the fence and take their point of view of the proceedings by which Morgan, Spencer and himself have transformed the railways of the Southern’s system into huge steam milkers of the peo ple’s prosperity. President Finley, at that point of view, will promptly concede that he can better afford to carry trains of passengers at two cents per mile than to carry the same trains only one third filled at three cents per mile. He will open his eyes to the unimpeached experience of other states and railway systems and at once quit his ground and lofty kicking against the Farmers’ Union petition for a two-cent-a-mile rate in Georgia. Since President Finley at last ad mits that the people have an equal in terest in this great railway problem, he will further admit that they have the right to legislate all inequities out of tW? system and send to the peniten tiaries every railroad official who gives a rebate, preference, or discriminat ing favor to any shipper over another. The people ask only a “square deal” — first come, first served, and one flat, reasonable rate in each case for all comers. Does President Finley want more or less than that? If so, his Memphis talk was all tommy-rot. But Georgia must take him at his word and help him run his road on the “fair play” principle. S. W. S. THE WAREHOUSE PROPOSITION. (Farmers’ Union Banner.) This is the most sublime of all other questions. It is paramount to all ques tions with which we have to deal in a business way. We should not quibble over details and minor things. We need to come and face the warehouse proposition squarely, firmly and solid ly. It’s no more a question as to “shall we build them?” It is a question now, “How can be build them?” It is a foregone conclusion, if we do not build them ourselves some one else will, and we will be forced to use them. We are facing that kind of a proposition now. After hard study, I have come to this kind of conclusion, that we build warehouses for the exclusive use of handling cotton, and build suitable buildings for clearing houses, with cold storage rooms and other conveni ences for handling other farm prod ucts. Let this be well understood, that the cotton warehouse be clear and distinct from the clearing house, but. hold each under the jurisdiction of the Farmers’ Union. We must get ourselves in shape to market this cotton crop. We have no time to lose. Time and money will be well spent in preparing to sell, as well as to make, the crop. It is high time that we begin to divide our time and mind in marketing well what we make. It has been the rule with farm ers to put all their mind and time in making their crop, and at the same time baking their brains in the hot sun, and the few moments they had to rest they would sleep; but the other fellow who got more than the profits, kept his head cool in the shade and did the thinking for the farmer, there by got his fortune easy. Now, we are going to do the think ing, as well as the making, and there, by sell our crops for the cost and a little profit, that we may build as good houses as anybody and send our dear little children to school. The only hope for us is to build our cotton ware houses and market our cotton. In deed, we have made wonderful prog ress in the last three years, but we have just made a beginning, compared to what we will do in three more years. By this time we will have our busi ness well in hand and we will rejoice because of our high calling—farming. Truly, the patriotic spirit of our farmers will return to the sons of toil. We have eleven warehouses built al ready, and quite a number will be built in this state right soon. Get ready and build and let’s make a pull this fall and we will get that old com mercial cow a little our way, if not altogether. L. N. H. MORE SUGAR NEEDED. (The Birmingham News.) The bureau of statistics of the de partment of commerce and labor an nounces that the American uses 76 pounds of sugar annually. Even that much is not sufficient to properly sea sfn all the lemons some Americans are handed in a year.