The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1890-02-18
FRANK AND
From far off Kansas.
CHASE, Rice Co., Kansas,
L. % 1000

NJO1a IL 49, -.
Bro-When we separated in St.
Louis it was agreed hat on
reaching home l should write you;
Rut on reaching home was compelled
to start for Portland, Oregon, to the
bedside Of a very sick son after only
one davs' rest. This excuse for delay
I'm sure will satisfy you. So l will
come now to the question. You re-
member that when we parted you re-
ferred to my holding your hand wLiie
addressing the audience over which
YOU had the distinguished" honor to
preside iE~Exposition Hall. Please
hermit me to state that time vas too
~nrecious for me then had | been able
to do so to fully express IN words the
pleasure it afforded me to grasp, as 1t
were, the whole South by The hand n
.~fraternal union. l felt and believed
and still believe from the demonstra-
tion of that immense audience, that
every man present had put aside, and
forever, all feeling except that In
favor of our flag, our united country,
our prosperous and happy people.
And as that was in its truest sense a
representative body of men selected
from among the wealth-produclng
classes both North and South, L feel
that it was certainly a most fitting
time and place for such a feeling to
become master of the situation. So
little has been said in any of III as
semblies, either legislative or other
wise, since the war on questions OF
National Importance that has not
tended to foster rather than Danish
and bury sectionalism and bitter feel
ing. So little discussion in a friendly
way of the real wants and wishes of
all our people as a whole, and tending
to harmonic discordant elements, that
| am unavoidably forced to the con-
clusion that since the signing Of the
Declaration of Independence no body
of men has ever been convened as a
deEberative assembly, who have had
the prosperity and happiness Of all
classes of our people so much and so
sincerely at heart as that organization,
the Farmers Alliance and Industrial
Onion of America. Such demonstra-
tions of good will are not strange, my
brother, when we remember that these
men who assem- bled in St. Louis had
met each other before in deadly com
bat on many a bloody battlefield,
where they had left their fathers,
their brothers and their sons in the
cold embrace of death. Men who,
though n o fault of their own but that
they followed trusted leaders. By
leaders with energies bent to evil and
their wn selfish greed, they had been
thus betrayed. And for the last
twenty-five years by this same class of
leaders have been led further and
further apart instead of nearer to-
gether. l say, how can demonstra-
lions of joy be considered strange
when such men as these throw off the
shackles which have sc long kept
them apart, and come together again
in fraternal union?
I will admit that all our summer
resorts are visited regularly by people
from all section of this great country;
that our interstate commerce is going
o with little seeming interruption
and that the North, South, East and
West send delegates to the National
Congress where they r supposed to
legislate in the interest of the people,
but in reality endeavor by every pos.
sible means to keep the embers of
strife and discomfort so stirred that
partisan sectional bitterness and it's
attendant evils have permeated, en-
feebled and so blinded our people that
we have well nigh lost every vestige
of the liberty for which our fore
fathers fought, and without which no
people can be a unit in deed and in
truth. If a better state of feeling is
not fostered, it can only be a question
of time when serious consequences
must follow. The rising generations
of the two sections will take up and
enlarge upon the present alleged
wrongs and this in time must in.
evitably end in disaster. For in
stance, the race question is now at
tracing general attention and must
be disposed of. Ny opinion is that
the people of the South realize the
fact fully; that it behooves them to
make just as good a man out of the
colored man as they possibly can, and
I believe interference on the part of
untruthful politicians through the
medium of a subsidized and corrupt
press does now and will continue to
retard such a result. You people of
the South know too much to act
otherwise than in the light of reason,
humanity and justice toward the col
ored man, and when an occasional
wrong is perpetrated upon them your
better people will e to it that the
perpetrator is properly punished.
This, my brother, is the light in which
I have viewed this matter ever since
the war. and if all lovers of peace.