The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1890-07-22
MISSION OF THE ALLIANCE.
What it has Done---What it Should Do
and What it Will Do.
Como. Hartford Co, N. c

COMO, Hartford Co., N. @,
Mr.. EDITOR: We presume it is a
fact somewhat strange and startling
in its nature that the peasants of our
country have the audacity to come to
the front and demand a recognition
of their humble existence and to set
forth in their plain Vernacular the in,
tolerable burdens, which threaten to
strip them of their homes and make
them tenants and serfs of a privileged
few. The Alliance is founded upon
eternal principles of truth and justice,
and like those of revelation, they need
to be iterated and reiterated until
they find a Judgment in the heart and
brain of thore whose condition men
tai, moral and physical, it is her holy
mission to ameliorate. Indeed the
mission of the Alliance is a high and
holy one in this fair land of ours.
She proposes to visit every household,
no matter how humble, and bring in
her train, the bright eyed goddess of
education, in order that the cobwebs
of ignorance may be swept away so
that her children may know their
rights, and knowing them, dare main
tain. She has sounded the bugle note
of alarm, and like a Waterman upon a
lofty tower, she sees the rapid advance
of a storm charged with ruin and
freighted with death, and she bids US
prepare to meet it. The tentacles Of
the octopers are feeling for her throat,
but, like Lyilliat, she will succeed in
dealing the monster his death blow.
Various and varied are the means
employed to do her harm, + spread
dissension and SOW seeds Of disunion
in her ranks. Ridicule, sarcasm and
biting irony have been used, but these
have only walked from sequ9stered
hooks and private n a host of
combattants, who, in intellect, are the
peers of their d~etractors. Our press,
if not in money, still in brain power,
is equal to theirs, while its tone, far
removed from slang, v~ituperation and
fierce partisan spite, scars immeasur-
ably above them. We are not nor do
we intend to hurrah for men or for a
party, but for this principle which
covers the whole ground of the argu-
ment, equality to all and special priv
lege to none. 1t is high time to cry
halt to the extravagant expenditure
of money wrung from the hard earn.
ings of an impoverished people. Mil
lions of our fair domain have been
oiven to colossal railroad mOnopolies.
Every class Of industry is protected
and highly protected by legislation
save that of farming. None but a
tyro in political economy a be
hoodwinked by a seemingly protec-
tive tariff upon some agricultural
products. A tariff upon any prodUc
ton of the soil which is greatly in
excess of home demand, is a simple
absurdity, and for the plain reason
none is imported. Imagine a ship
load of wheat from the Crimea offered
for sale in Chicago. Picture a heavy
arrival of Egyptian or Indian cotton
bulled and beared in New York. Let
fancy revel over a mighty herd of
swine from the Hercynian forest
squealing to be slaughtered in Cincin-
natl.
Sugar and rice are at present grown
upon a circumscribed area, and the
production of these two being less
than the home demand, a tariff upon
these benefits whom shall we say,
why, the octopian sugar trust and
perhaps in a small degree the pro
! ducers of the same.
AS a mass the farmers of this coun-
try, in it's length and breadth, desire
no protection, but only a fair and un-
trammeled market, home and abroad.
Many are greatly exercised and fear
hat the Alliance is drifting into poll
tics. In the start it would be well to
settle the meaning of this much
abused word. 1t is a Greek word and
means nothing more or less than a
citizen. Do those who fear this
movement by the Alliance, interpret
"politics" to mean a scramble for
Office and to the victors belong the
spoils Or do they translate it to
mean that when the party lash is laid
that all ebay seeders" must fall into