Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1890-11-13


NorthWost and the Importance 8of
ths resutts tines have be6n accom-
plished through its agency.
The Alliance finds ready and EN-
ger opponents among disgrnntled
Democrats, andits mission has been
made the target of misrepresenta.
ton, but when that Organization is
measured by what it has accom-
Plished3 in tho Republican States, BY
the power and influence it has OK.
erted in politics, its importance to
the South cannot be oyerestimated.
the io5oI1a Of the organization in
the campaign that has just closed is
remarkable for the unity, harmony
and persistence with which it has
pressed its purposes. In the South
II has practically merged ;;tssclf In
tho Democratic party. In the West,
the stronghold of the Republicans,
the Alliance did not merge with the
Democrats. 1t did better. 1t made
a squareout fight Of it's own, and
aided the Democrats by crippling
the Republicans.
Take, for instance, the State of
Kansas, where the Republicans had
a majority of $4,000, larger than
that of Pennsylvania. 1t was to OPP
pose and overcome this tremendous
majority that the Alliance was or
ganized in that State. 1t could not
join the Democrats, for then the old
sectional cry would have been raised,
but it went into tho State with q
platform of principles practically
Democratic in heir origin and pur-
pose, and in a very short time rovo-
lutionizcd the Republican party.
.This'result can only be appreciated
at its full worth by the people of the
South. .:
1t is a noteworthy fact that the
Republican farmers of Kansas, as
soon as they had imbibed the Demo-
cratic principles of the Alliance, be-
came exceedingly bitter against their
old party, and they have managed to
demoralize and defeat it. Thus the
Alliance has accomplished in Kansas
in a campaign of thirty days what
the Democrats could not have &C.
complished in a campaign of thirty
years. TO the Republican farmers
OF Kansas tn" very name "Demo-
crat" has been lor more than twenty
five years the synonym of "rebeI,"
"traitor" and "copperhead." 1t has
been tho key to unlock the store
house of their sectional preiudiccs.
1t is a pity that this should be 80,
and yet, in discussing results, it CON
stitutes a fundamental fact that can
not be ignored.
The Alliance movement, however,
has served to divert these Republi-
can farmers from their war memo
ries and their sectional prejudices,
and they have at last discovered that
the practical Democracy, which is
the basis and strength of the ALI
ance platform, is better suited to
their condition, their hopes and their
aspirations than the bitterness and
strife of Republican partisanship.
Their point of view was so changed
that, when Colonel Livingston, of
Georgia, and Colonel Polk, of North
Carolina, Democratic A%lliancemen,
went into Kansas and took part in
the campaign, their speeches were
checred to the echo by audiences
that had for twenty-five years and
TrHGh been voting the Republican
ClcKeC straightout and without dcvia-
ton. The canvass made by Messrs.
Polk and Livingston was necessarily
brief, but they crowded a good deal
of effective work into the space of q
few days, and there can be no doubt
that the speeches they made did a
great deal of good.
We have alluded to the amazing
results in Kansas merely to show the
nature and extent Of the Alliance
movement among the Republican
farmers in the West and Northwest.
1t. shows beyond question that the
Alliance has a political mission in
that region. Its mission, and one
that it is carrying out with a success
that has no parallel in the history of
our politics, is to teach the Rcpubli-
can farmers to think for themselves
and to discuss politics freely, fairly
and unbiased by sectional preiudices.
Some of our Democratic friends
in Georgia and elsewhere deem it to
be their duty to antagonize tho ALI
ancc movement. Il would be better
for the whole country, in our opinion,
if all Democrats--espccially South
ern Democrats-would work in har-
mony with the Alliance, and thus
aid it i'll ~rcdeeming the Rep blican
farmers of the West and Northwest
from the evil effects of q narrow and
blind .ng spirit of sectionalism.