The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-03-15
THE FARMERS ALLIANCE.
EXTRACTS FROM THE ADDRESS OF THI
SECRETARY OE THE NATIONAL
FARMERS ALLIANCE.

FARMERS ALLIANCE.
Necessarily he (the tarmer) works
alone. His family or his hired hand
are his only company. Even on the
largest farm each man tolls for the
most part alone. The great crops OF
wheat and corn that pour themselves
along the great lines of our railroads,
that Gil the great elevators OF the me-
tropolitan cities to overfowing and
pour their golden currents into the
holds of ocean steamers and fill the
marts of all nations, enriching the trans
portation companies, the brokers, man
ufacturers and the retailers and feeding
a hungry world are produced by the
farmers, each one working alone. If
all these lone toilers should cease for
one year what then? General insolv-
ency, the failure of banks, of-merchant
princes, of great transportation COM
panies, the closing Of factories, children
crying for bread. starvation in the great
cities and general collapse and ruin.
All this great fabric of prosperity is
sustained by the lone toiler who from
day to day labors alone, his team his
sole company from morning till even
ing with the exception Of his hour at
noon.
The farmer has no natural leader.
Standing on his own broad acres he ac-
knowledges no natural superior among
his own profession. Under few obi
cations to, and but little dependent on
his neighbor, he does not take kindly
to the farmer who proposes to guide
him. His isolation makes him inde-
pendent in one sense and dependent in
another. 1t deprives him of training
as a leader, it does not give him the
training of a follower. It makes him
dependent on stranger against whom
he has no prejudices, but who not
knowing his real wants and best in
terests is not capable Of giving him safe
leadership even If he were not tempted
continually to lead him astray.
The farmers isolation is more in
tensifed by the character of his occu-
patton. 1t is not merely an isolation
by space but by the necessities OF his
work. His day is required in the field,
his evening demands his presence on
the farm. This is especially true OF
farmers who combine stock farmiBg
with grain farming. Chore time is as
imperious in its demands on the farmer
as meal time on the farmers wife.
Then he must be at home or his labor
be in vain.
When the townsman's work is done,
whether in store or shop or mine and
the evening meal is over, he is ready
for the ward meeting, or the caucus,
or the literary, or prayer meeting, or a
visit to his neighbor's house. 1t is not
so with the farmer No matter how
intimate is the friendship between
neighboring farmers they seldom spend
an evening with each other.
All this explains why farmers do not
hang together. They do not have that
daily intercourse or at least that fre-
quent interchange Of thought and opin-
ion that 10 essential to entire harmony
of feeling and purpose. The tendency
of isolation is always to lead men to
attach undue Importance to non-essen-
tials. and hence trifing differences of
opinion repel them from each other
and drive them to dependence on lead
ers in other professions, and generally
to their political leaders who have for
the most part other ends in view than
the welfare of agriculture. His poll
itical paper becomes the farmers
leader. He is saturated with its
thought and hence he becomes violent
partisan. fighting battles in which he
has no earthly interest. and deemiag a
different phase of opinion on matters
that have no particular concern to him,
damnable heresy. In ancient times a
narrow river separating those that lived
on its opposite banks made them NOR
tai enemies. In modern times party
names, the strife to put some candidate