The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1890-06-10
LETTER FROM HEREFORD
COUNTY.
Cur Platform.
CoMo, HEREFORD Co., N. {

Mr.. ED1ToR:--It is high time for
the farmer and for the laborer to take
a bold stand in advocacy of their
rights. A great deal of uneasiness
is felt in political circles in regard to
the Alliance becoming a factor in
American politics. 1t has given no
uncertain note of it's attitude through
it's President in his mastery speech
before the Senate Committee. That a
revolution is impending, he who runs
may read. What the issue of this
volcanic upheaval is to be, yet re-
mains to be seen. In my reading of
history and it has been extensive
and tlorough-I find no parallel to
this grand, though quiet movement.
1t S the first time In all history that
the farmers, laborers and mechanics
have come to the front and demanded
a peace sul recognition of their exist
ence and of their rights. The strug
giles between money, with power to
Cypress and the producing class, have
been from time immem rial fierce and
bitter. They gasped and fretted be
meath the yoke until in frenzy and
despair they arose in fury and bathed
the land in blood. The aggregation
of wealth in the hands Of a privileged
and protected few, with the inevitable
consequence, their comparative exemp-
ton from taxation, was the direct
cause of the French Revolution, the
bloodiest picture in the book of time.
Up to it's outbreak the titled nobility
of France and the clergy owned nearly
all her fair domain; they rolled in
gold; they dined sumptuously and re-
posed on silken touches, while the
peasantry went barefoot and starving.
The nations wealth was in the hands
of a few, while the poor bore the full
burden of taxation. The people run
mad, and being uneducated, fairly
rioted in blood. Taxation, unjust
and discrimin ating, inaugurated the
revolution of '76. There were no
telegraph wires in those days to flash
intelligence; no newspapers to educate
the people, and like maddened beasts,
they turned upon their tormentors
and trampled them in the mire.
The same cause decapitated Charles
1. and sent his grand son, England's
Legitimate King, a wanderer upon the
earth, to die in a far distant land,
neglected, poor and despised. The
hand writing is again on the wall, and
it needs no Daniel to give it interpre
tation. Those only cannot see it who
are blinded by goli dust and swollen
out of all proportion by monopolistic
c~onceit. 1t is widely different now.
Newspapers are published in every
village, and the school master is
abroad in every hamlet. The mass of
the American laborers can read; and
what is better, they d. read, and are
reading. From the everglades Of
Florida to Maine, and from ocean to
ocean, this great leaven of humanity
is being fully worked. Their demands
are not voluminous and they are not
partisan; they eschew on the one side
the negro question, and on the other
the bloody shirt. They clamor for
the demolition of no party, for the
resembling of no Republican or Demo-
cratic ruling. The movement, call it
the Alliance if you will, has no quarrel
with either party. Our platform is
broad enough and deep enough to &C.
commodate and give room to every
farmer and laborer in this broad
land. They allege no long roll Of
grievances, requiring a skillful hand
to sift-to adopt the good and reject
the trivial and worthless. They have
briefly stated their demands. 1t is a
reading Of all time, that revolutions
never go backward. Some allege
that this class of men have not intelli-
gence enough to frame laws and make
laws, but still the poor beetle upon
which we tread in corporal sufferance
finds a pang as great as when a giant
dies. This great upheaval of the
laboring class is a premonition of a
salutary reform and that radical in the
matter of finance, and the passage of
the Sub Treasury bill will effect it. 1t
may be sneered at, ridiculed as
Utopian, pronounced unconstitutional,
yet if not in this, still in the next
Congress it will become a law. The
demands of a vast majority in this
enlightened land cannot and will not
be ignored. 1t is supreme folly for
any politician to make Roadway
against this total wave, for it's resist
less force will sweep away any barrier
in opposition. We are a law. abiding
and patriotic people, we have made
the government what it is, u axes
felled the forest, and our plowshares
have made gardens of wild woods.
We have borne long and patiently.
We have made the $4,000 mill own.
ers, the boss miners, the merchants,
the railroad magnates, m1llionaires,
and now we only desire legislation to