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FARMER, RICHARD (1735–1787)

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 182 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FARMER, See also:RICHARD (1735–1787) , Shakespearian commentator, the son of a See also:rich maltster, was See also:born at See also:Leicester on the 28th of See also:August 1735. He was educated at the See also:free See also:grammar school of his native See also:town, and at See also:Emmanuel See also:College, See also:Cambridge. He graduated in 1757 a See also:senior optime; three years later he proceeded M.A. and became classical See also:tutor, and in 1775 See also:master of his college, in See also:succession to See also:William See also:Richardson, the biographer of the See also:English bishops. In the latter See also:year also he was appointed See also:vice-See also:chancellor, and three years afterwards See also:chief librarian of the university. In 178o he was appointed to a prebendal See also:stall in See also:Lichfield, and two years later to one at Canter-See also:bury; but the second See also:office he exchanged in 1788 for that of a See also:canon residentiary of St See also:Paul's. Cambridge, where he usually resided, was indebted to him for improvements in See also:lighting, paving and watching; but perhaps See also:London and the nation have less See also:reason to be grateful for his zealous advocacy of the See also:custom of erecting monuments to departed worthies in St Paul's. In 1765 he issued a See also:prospectus for a See also:history of the town of Leicester; but this See also:work, based on materials collected by See also:Thomas See also:Staveley, he never even began; it was carried out by the learned printer See also:John See also:Nichols. In 1766 he published his famous See also:Essay on the Learning of See also:Shakespeare, in which he proved that the poet's acquaintance with See also:ancient and See also:modern See also:Continental literature was exclusively derived from See also:translations, of which he copied even the blunders. " Shakespeare," he said, " wanted not the See also:stilts of See also:language to raise him above all other men." " He came out of nature's See also:hand, like See also:Pallas out of Jove's See also:head, at full growth and mature." " One might," he said—by way of ridiculing the Shakespearian See also:criticism of the day—" with equal See also:wisdom,' study the See also:Talmud for an exposition of Tristram Shandy." The essay fully justifies the author's description of himself in the See also:preface to the second edition: " I may consider myself as the See also:pioneer of the commentators; I have removed a See also:deal of learned rubbish, and pointed out to them Shakespeare's track in the very pleasant paths of nature." Farmer died at Cambridge on the 8th of See also:September 1791. He was, it appears, twice offered a bishopric by See also:Pitt, but declined the preferment. Farmer was immensely popular in his own college, and loved, it was said, above all other things, old See also:port, old clothes and old books. FARMERS' See also:MOVEMENT, in See also:American See also:political history, the See also:general name for a movement between 1867 and 1896 remarkable for a See also:radical socio-economic propaganda that came from what was considered the most conservative class of American society.

In this movement there were three periods, popularly known as See also:

Granger, See also:Alliance and Populist. The See also:GRANGE, or See also:Order of the Patrons of Husbandry (the latter the See also:official name of the See also:national organization, while the former was the name of See also:local chapters, including a supervisory National Grange at See also:Washington), was a See also:secret order founded in 1867 to advance the social needs and combat the economic backwardness of See also:farm See also:life. It See also:grew remarkably in 1873–1874, and in the latter year attained a membership of perhaps 800,000. In the causes of its growth—much broader than those that issued in the See also:financial crisis of 1873—a high See also:tariff, railway See also:freight-rates and other grievances were mingled with agricultural troubles like the fall of See also:wheat prices and the increase of mortgages. The See also:condition of the farmer seemed desperate. The See also:original See also:objects of the Grange were primarily educational, but these were soon overborne by an See also:anti-middleman, co-operative movement. Grange agents bought everything from farm machinery to See also:women's dresses; hundreds of See also:grain See also:elevators and See also:cotton and See also:tobacco warehouses were bought, and even steamboat lines; mutual See also:insurance companies were formed and See also:joint-stock stores. Nor was co-operation limited to distributive processes; See also:crop-reports were circulated, co-operative dairies multiplied, See also:flour-See also:mills were operated, and See also:patents were See also:purchased, that the Grange Alight manufacture farm machinery. The outcome in somestates was ruin, and the name Grange became a reproach. Nevertheless these efforts in co-operation were exceedingly important both for the results obtained and for their wider significance. Nor could politics be excluded, though officially tatooed; for See also:economics must be considered by social idealists, and economics everywhere ran into politics. Thus it was with the railway question.

See also:

Railways had been extended into frontier states; there were heavy crops in sparsely settled regions where freight-rates were high, so that—given the existing distributive system—there were " over See also:production " and See also:waste; there was notorious stock manipulation and discrimination in rates; and the farmers regarded " absentee ownership " of railways by New See also:York capitalists much as absentee ownership of See also:land has been regarded in See also:Ireland. The Grange officially disclaimed enmity to railways; but though the organization did not attack them, the Grangers—through political " farmers' clubs" and the like—did. About 1867 began the efforts to establish regulation of the railways, as See also:common-See also:carriers, by the states. Such See also:laws were known as " Granger laws," and their general principles, soon endorsed (1876) by the Supreme See also:Court of the See also:United States, have become an important See also:chapter in the laws of the land. In a See also:declaration of principles in 1894 Grangers were declared to be " not enemies of railroads," and their cause to stand for " no See also:communism, no agrarianism." To conservatives, however, co-operation seemed communism, and " Grange laws" agrarianism; and thus in 1873–1874 the growth of the movement aroused extraordinary See also:interest and much uneasiness. In 1874 the order was reorganized, membership being limited to persons directly interested in the farmers' cause (there had been a millionaire manufacturers' Grange on Broadway), and after this there were See also:constant quarrels in the order; moreover, in 1875 the National Grange largely lost See also:control of the See also:state Granges, which discredited the organization by their disastrous co-operation ventures. Thus by 1876 it had already ceased to be of national political importance. About 188o a renascence began, particularly in the See also:Middle States and New See also:England; this revival was marked by a recurrence to the original social and educational objects. The national Grange and state Granges (in all, or nearly all, of the states) were still active in 1909, especially in the old cultural movement and in such economic movements—notably the improvement of highways—as most directly concern the farmers. The initiative and See also:referendum, and other proposals of reform politics in the direction of a democratic advance, also enter in a measure into their propaganda. The ALLIANCE carried the movement farther into economics. The " National Farmers' Alliance and See also:Industrial See also:Union," formed in 1889, embraced several originally See also:independent organizations formed from 1873 onwards; it was largely confined to the See also:South and was secret.

The National Farmers' Alliance," formed in 188o, went back similarly to 1877, was much smaller, See also:

Northern and non-secret. The " Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Co-operative Union " (formed 1888, merged in the above " See also:Southern " Alliance in 189o) was the second greatest organization. With these three were associated many others, state and national, including an See also:annual, non-See also:partisan, deliberative and advisory Farmers' National See also:Congress. The Alliance movement reached its greatest See also:power about 189o, in which year twelve national farmers' organizations were represented in conventions in St See also:Louis, and the six leading ones alone probably had a membership of 5,000,000.1 As with the Grange, so in the ends and declarations of the whole later movement, See also:concrete remedial legislation for agricultural or economic ills was mingled with principles of vague radical tendency and with lofty See also:idealism.2 Among the principles 1 Membership usually included See also:males or See also:females above 16 years of See also:age. 2 Thus, the " Southern " Alliance in 1890 (the chief platforms were the one at See also:Ocala, See also:Florida, and that of 1889 at St Louis, in See also:con-junction with the Knights of Labor) declared its principles to be: j' (I) To labour for the See also:education of the agricultural classes in the See also:science of economical See also:government in a strictly non-partisan way, and to bring about a more perfect union of such classes. (2) To advocated about 1890, practically all the See also:great organizations demanded the abolition of national See also:banks, the free coinage of See also:silver, a " sufficient " issue of government See also:paper See also:money, tariff revision, and a secret See also:ballot (the last was soon realized); only less commonly demanded were an income tax, See also:taxation of See also:evidence of See also:debt, and government loans on lands. All of these were principles of the two great Alliances (the Northern and the Southern), as were also pure See also:food legislation, abolition of land-holding by aliens, reclamation of unused or unearned land grants (to railways, e.g.), and either rigid federal regulation of railways and other means of communication or government ownership thereof. The " Southern " Alliance put in the forefront a " sub-See also:treasury " See also:scheme according to which cheap loans should be made by government from local sub-treasuries on non-perishable farm products (such as grain and cotton) stored in government warehouses; while the " Northern " Alliance demanded restriction of the liquor See also:traffic and (for a See also:short See also:time) woman See also:suffrage. Still other issues were a modification of the patent laws (e.g. to prevent the See also:purchase of patents to stifle competition), postal currency See also:exchange, the eight-See also:hour See also:day, inequitable taxation, the single-tax on land, " See also:trusts," educational qualification for suffrage, See also:direct popular See also:election of federal See also:judges, of senators, and of the See also:president, See also:special-interest See also:lobbying, &c. In 1889–1890 the political (non-partisan) movement See also:developed astonishing strength; it captured the Republican stronghold of See also:Kansas, brought the Democratic Party to vassalage in South Carolina, revolutionized legislatures even in conservative states like See also:Massachusetts, and seemed likely completely to dominate the South and See also:West. All its work in the South was accomplished within the old-party organizations, but in 1890 the demand became strong for an independent third party, for which various consolidations since 1887 had prepared the way, and by 1892 a large See also:part of the strength of the farmers' organizations, with that of various industrial and radical orders, was united in the See also:People's Party (perhaps more generally known as the POPULIST Party), which had its beginnings in Kansas in 1890, and received national organization in 1892. ' This party emphasized free silver, the income tax, eight-hour day, reclamation of land grants, government ownership of railways, telephones and telegraphs, popular election of federal senators, and the initiative and referendum.

In the presidential election of 1892 it See also:

cast 1,041,021 votes (in a See also:total of 12,036,089), and elected 22 presidential See also:electors, the first chosen by any third party since 1856. In 1896 the People's Party " fused " with the Democratic Party (q.v.) in the presidential See also:campaign, and again in 1900; during this See also:period, indeed, the greatest part of the People's Party was reabsorbed into the two great parties from which its membership had originally been See also:drawn; in some northern states apparently largely into the Republican ranks, but mainly into the Democratic Party, to which it gave a powerful radical impulse. The Farmers' movement was much misunderstood, abused and ridiculed. It accomplished a vast amount of See also:good. The movement—and especially the Grange, for on most important points the later movements only followed where it had led—contributed the initial impulse and prepared the way for the See also:establishment of travelling and local rural See also:libraries, See also:reading courses, lyceums, farmers' institutes (a steadily increasing See also:influence) and rural free See also:mail delivery (inaugurated experimentally in 1896 and adopted as part of the permanent postal See also:system of the See also:country in 1902); for agricultural exhibits and an improved agricultural See also:press; for encouragement to and increased profit from the work of agricultural colleges, the establishment (1885) and great services of the United States See also:Department of Agri- demand equal rights to all, and special privileges to none. (3) To endorse the See also:motto: In things essential, unity; in all things, charity.' (4) To develop a better state, mentally, morally, socially and financially. . (6) To suppress See also:personal, local, sectional and national prejudices." For the Southern farmer a chief concrete evil was the pre-crop mortgages by which cotton farmers remained in deist to country merchants; in the See also:North the farmer attacked a See also:wine range of " capitalistic " legislation that hurt him, he believed, for the benefit of other classes—notably legislation sought by railways. culture,—in short, for an extraordinary lessening of rural See also:isolation and See also:betterment of the farmers' opportunities; for the See also:irrigation of the semi-arid West, adopted as a national policy in 1902, the pure-food laws of 1906, the interstate-See also:commerce See also:law of 1887, the railway-See also:rate laws of 1903 and 1906, even the great See also:Bureau of Commerce-and-Labor law of 1903, and the Anti-See also:trust laws of 1903 and later. The Alliance and Populist movements were bottomed on the See also:idea of ethical gains through legislation." In its local manifestations the whole movement was often marked by See also:eccentric ideas, narrow prejudices and weaknesses in economic reasoning. It is not to be forgotten that owing to the movement of the frontier the United States has always been " at once a developed country and a See also:primitive one. The same political questions have been put to a society advanced in some regions and undeveloped in others. . .

. On specific political questions each economic See also:

area has reflected its See also:peculiar interests " (Prof. F. J. See also:Turner). That this idea must not, however, be over-emphasized, is admirably enforced by observing the great See also:mass of farmer radicalism that has, since about 1896, become an accepted Democratic and Republican principle over the whole country. The Farmers' movement was the beginning of widespread, effective protest against " the menace of See also:privilege" in the United States. American See also:periodicals, especially in 1890-1892, are particularly informing on the growth of the movement; see F. M. See also:Drew in Political Science Quarterly (1891), vi. p. 282; C. W. See also:Pierson in Popular Science Monthly (1888), xxxii. pp.

199, 368; C. S. See also:

Walker and F. J. See also:Foster in See also:Annals of American See also:Academy (1894); iv. p. 790; Senator W. A. Peffer in See also:Cosmopolitan (1890), x. p. 694; and on agricultural discontent, Political Science Quarterly, iv. (1889), p. 433, by W. F.

Mappin; v. (1890), p. 65, by J. P. Dunn; xi. (1896), pp. 433, 6or, xii. (1897), p. 93, and xiv. (1899), p. 444, by C. F.

Emerick; Prof. E. W. See also:

Bemis in See also:Journal of Political See also:Economy (1893), i. p. 193; A. H. See also:Peters in Quarterly Journal of Economics (1890), iv. p. 18; C. W. See also:Davis in See also:Forum (1890), ix. pp. 231, 291, 348.

End of Article: FARMER, RICHARD (1735–1787)

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