Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-03-13
ALLIANCE AND GRANGE.
THEY KEEP ORGANIZING.

A Neighbor-in-Law to the Alliance that
is Growing in Southern Illinois.
A week in Southern Illinois has won
derfully impressed me with the excel
ence Of Egypt. spent part of day at
Mt Vernon, which is headquarters for
the Farmers Mutual Benefit Associa-
tion," and everywhere you hear people
using the significant title F. NJ. B. A.
This society is a secret farmers organi-
zation exclusively, and it is also incor-
porated. 1t means business from the
word go. 1t has its agents, buyers,
stores, ETC., and is endowed with all the
symptoms of active life. 1t buys its
binders at S112.50 and sells to its MEM
bers at S125, while we in Northern Illi-
nois pay $50. This is single instance,
but it illustrates the principle. 1t allows
its store-keepers ten per cent margin,
and it goes through the store
keepers books to verify that ten
per cent If a merchant kicks it allows
him to kick. 1t says: ''We mean you
personally no i'll, but farmers who have
to pay ten cents for sugar and buy it
with twenty-cent corn and fifty-cent
wheat should know that no one bleeds
them and should dispense with as many
middle men as possible"
No man who loves the farm or the
farmer can object to the methods of
this society. No man can join that So
ciety unless he is a farmer, actual and
honest. AS their society is secret some
kick, but when it is known that the Sc
crecy is only to keep out thieves and
frauds and other politicians but little of
the old objection remains against it's
secrecy. As to its success it
is unbounded and unparalleled.
There are over 1000 organized
branches in Illinois. The day 1 was at
Mt. Vernon there were 1877 applications.
It made me wish that we at the north
could join hands. like the name AL
lance best and if our southern brethren
would leave off association and call it
Farmers Mutual Alliance" think it
would sweep the State.
Our northern society is open to the
world. Too open, 1 fear, for our own
good. There is no way so healthy to
drop a politician as to receive his appli-
cation and quietly black-ball him. We
can't do that under our open order. He
finds out who refuses him and acts
accordingly and he scares off lots of
men.
Open order killed the Grange of 1872
8. 1t, too, is secret now, and it is doing
good work. If we don't keep out the
cheap town politicians they will keep us
out. l hear that our people are propos-
ing to join the National Secret Farmers
and Laborers' Union. am against that
move, and l don't think that three or
four men now running the Farmers
Alliance up here can deliver the goods
if they attempt the change. We don't
want this kind of deal. 1 copy from
their application as follows:
1--WE, the undersigned, being either
farmers, farm laborers, country me-
chanics, country physicians or country
ministers of the Gospel, and believing
in the existence of Supreme Being,
hereby apply for charter for
a subordinate Farmers Alliance
to be called" ETC., etc. Now don't go
this, and as have had no chance to tell
our people so l say it now. l am against
it. 1 stand for Farmers Alliance"
Call it any thing, but it must be Farm
ers' Alliance, and l give you notice that
l no longer write Farmers with small
''f.' use capital letter, because the
Farmer is a capital man. want him to
have capital society.
am helping to organize our farmers.
60 without pay anywhere to stir up
the brethren. Ii they want an open So
ciety. open it is. If secret, and 1 can
help them out, then secret it is, but 1 am
against amalgamation. Let our farm
ers alone, and let them learn that to
control legislation, town, county, State
and National, needs them all united,
and don't need any parsons on the list.
H. II. Haaff, in Western Rural.