The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-12-10
FARMERS ALLIANCE.

Mr.. EDIToR:-In this age of steam
and electricity, men are always seek
ing newer and more fixed means of
protecting themselves against the
great arm of future which must
change the American Republic into a
home of landlords and tenants where
the rich man must rule the ballots of
those who are dependent upon him
for labor and for bread. Years ago,
on the borders of the English Govern
ment, men cornered on articles of sus-
tenance sin order to gain higher
per cent. on their supplies" Spring
ing from that beginning, capitalists of
New York, Chicago and the chief
cities of the Western world bought up
coffee, sugar, rice and the other com
modities on which the people were de-
pendent for life. These actions on
the part of the "money kings"
brought no marks of indignation
from the commercial world. But
when the farmer, "that potent factor
to the wheels Of government" started
a movement as they said "to save
their lives and fortunes" newspaper
men, ignorant of the cause, not know
ing the effect, hurled their bitter i'm
precautions upon the heads of honest
farmers with unrelenting rage. News
papers, periodicals, journals of trade
and traffic, caught up the strain, and
from mountain to mountain, gulf to
gulf, lake to lake, our "asylum for
the oppressed of all nations" re-echoed
to the warm attacks of men upon the
" scheme to rob merchants" an at
tack upon the capitalists "the cul-
mination of anarchy" and the /" be-
ginning of ruin" But the men of
modern times fail to know that there
is farmer behind this magnificent
arrangement which will either cause
change in the financial growth of
America, or the civil and political
growth. AS Gamaliel once told the
Pharisees concerning the Christian re-
ligion: Let it alone. If it be of man,
it will die of itself; if it be of God, no
man can stop it," so would say to the
world Of men of letters: Leave them
to their destiny. | an no Alliance
man. l look at it as work for farm
ers-a mastery convocation and as
semblage of the honorable yeomany of
our continent, classified with the rules
of reason made firm by an immutable
polity as eternal as the rules Of reason.
Let us take their platform analyticaliy
They believe in God There is the
platform upon which all can stand.
1t is upon this platform that the only
hope of man can rest in peace. They
prohibit the use as beverage of in
toxicating liquors. So did Jesus
Christ. They hate the abuse of trusts,
not the use of them. They believe in
the eternal right of the human race
to be free. So did Washington. They
feel that when Thomas jefferson said
1" We hold these truths as self evident
that all men are created equally" he
meant that when America should be
settled upon basis of right and prin-
ciple, we and our children should lie
down at our leisure without the fear
of molestation and held guarded by
the invincible arm of the law. And
| would have you understand, history
is but record of the victories of
Alliance over the ranks of disorder
and disagreement.
? When Scipio Africanus was thunder
ing away at the gates of Carthage,
with his brother legions in lower
Spain, every power seemed futile until
his brother came, They joined, they
allied, and then and there the King
dom founded by the ever er-prospering
hand of fair eyed Dido, sank buried
in its own ashes, its gods destroyed,
its temples pillaged and the very men
which had SO laboriously worked to
make it the "City of the East y saw
the eternal fat made sure that " in
unity there is strength"
e Leonidas, at Thermopyla. with three
hundred united souls, bravely met and
conquered the largest army beneath
the "beams of light" When Jesus
Christ took up his descent upon this
"oLb of SIM" to propitiate for the sins
of man, he sent Mummius to unite
the legions of Greece with the more