Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1890-09-27
Mcdowell and the Alliance.

EDITOR STANDARD: l heard to-
day Mr.. Mcdowell in vindication of.
the Farmers Alliance. Much of his
speech meets my enthusiastic endorse.
ment. His phillipics on combines and
trusts, and the laws which bred and
nurtured them, were both true and
graphic. Under those policies begun
about 25 years ago, and persisted in
ever since, he forcibly delineated the
growth of millionaire, their corners
and pilferings, and the beggary to
which their robbery had reduced and
is still reducing the masses. He
admits this ruin was common not
only to the farmer, but also to the
mechanic and men in all the honest
walks of life.
He also admits all this evil has fall
en- on the country under republican
rule and policy, and that under the
democratic administrations for the
sixty years preceding, all this was re-
versed and different. The farmer
then, and all classes, were prosperous
under the just and equal laws then
prevailing, tillers Of the soil being
most numerous, acquired and owned
most of the nations wealth.
These premises are undoubtedly
true, but how Mr.. Mcdowell or any
one else can insist from this that the
farmers only, and only a portion Of
them, and this portion allied with re-
publicans who voted for the policies
producing this distress, should in
secret councils seek redress and eX-
clude therefrom fellow sufferers, is a
point too thin for my perception.
Yet this is the conclusion he draws
from his premises. And because 9TH
er meritorious sufferers, denied a
voice in choosing remedy for the
crying evil, protest against this
wrong done them, and question the
wisdom of the scheme Of redress adop-
ted by this band of self selected So
Ions, they are decried as the farm
er's enemy, the friends of monopoly,
and anti-demOcratip
1t seems to me the premises of the
gentleman leads to but one conclu-
sion, and why the wisdom of the clan
caught onto the sub-treasury scheme
and discarded the old democratic
policies which for sixty years worked
so well, l am unable to see. Harris,
Bate, Atkins, Patterson and all
the old lights would surely have SO
advised had they been permitted a
seat in the conclave.
This scheme of a farmers deposit,
Mcdowell, president though he be Of
the Alliance, would not today dare
defend, but fenced himself with the
peuilre plea that Harris, Bate, and
other Tennessee delegates in Congress
had offered no amendment to it, OIL
substitute for it.
/ can attach no blame on a tailor
for declining to patch rotten, thread
bare garment. The logic of the gen.
tleman is again too obscure for the or
binary statesman.
But to clinch his argument in thi;
line, he gravely told the people thai
the precious metals were dug from
the earth, and our congressman haC
voted solid for the free coinage O
silver, and issuing certificates to each
owner of silver bullion, and on some
principle they should give the farmer
a certificate for his crops dug out o
the earth. The gentleman forgot
and failed to tell his audience the
Federal Government is especially
authorized, and the only power il
this country authorized to coin money
He also with facile tongue anC
laughing style made ludicrous thu
dodge under the general welfare claus,
raiders on the public crib sough
to hide their steals. 1t occurred t
the writer though if he and his ALI
ance brethren did not find similar