The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1891-07-03
RISING SUN, CECIL COUNTY. MD. FRIDAY, JULY

ance where the executive officers were
not Already the Alliance has retired
Senators ingalls,, of Kansas, and Hamp-
ton, of South Carolina. In Georgia,
owing to a peculiar combination of cir
cumstances, the Alliance legislature
failed to elect its nominee for senator;
but General Gordon, VINO was eIecre0,
has since pledged himself to the support
of Alliance measures by joining the
order.
To South Carolina and to Kansas the
Alliance leaders point as the most strik-
ing demonstrations of their power in the
late election. They say the contrasted
results of the voting in those two states
make perfectly clear the non partisan
nature of their organization. In South
Carolina they were completely trium-
| phant in naming Tillman for governor.
In Kansas they fell about ten thousand
short of electing Willetts, their guber-
| material candidate, but they accom-
| plished their chief object in capturing
| the legislature, and thus providing for
the retirement of Ingalls, from the senate.
In the new house the strength of the
farmers has been variously estimated.
The officers of the Alliance say that thir-
ty-five members elect are actually mem
bers of their order, and that others,
enough to make fully fifty in all, are dis
tinctly Alliance men. Indeed, they de-
clare that the country will be astonisned
| by the strength of the support which Al
lance measures will get in the Fifty-sec-
ond congress.
In one thing the Alliance officers are
disappointed. They expected to secure
| the balance of power in the house. That
they failed to do so, they say, is because
they underrated the strength of the
farmers movement through the country.
They punished the politicians in many
! places more severely than they intended.
They did not anticipate the revolution
in New England and New York state
which the members of the Farmers
league wrought. They did not expect
the Patrons of Industry in Michigan to
overturn things there, and finally they
had no idea of the size of the club which
their own members of the great Repub-
ican states of the west were going to
use on the leaders of the dominant par
ty. In the south, where the Alliance is
the strongest, the result was what had
been expected. The work there was
done in the primaries, and in almost all
the states strictly within the old party
| Democratic lines.
1t happens, therefore, that while the
Alliance has a larger direct representa-
ton in the Fifty-second congress than it
expected to secure, it has failed to place
its men in the potent strategical position
which would command the issue of all
the struggles between the parties. Fail
ure in this respect is a great disappoint-
ment for many reasons. Not only does
it deprive the farmers of tremendous
| power in shaping the legislation of the
next congress, but it leaves them with
out the chief weapon which they ex-
| pected to use to compel one or both the
old parties to make sweeping concessions
| to them in the platforms of 49,
President Polk is very clear in his own
mind about the causes of the great SUR
prise on the 4th of November This is
| the way he sums it up:
81 am morally certain of the reasons
for it. We shall have to look beyond
/ the Mckinley tariff bill-it was not that.
We must look beyond the Lodge bill-it
was not that. We must look farther
than. any and all of the political ques-
tions which have been obscuring the real
issue for nearly twenty years. 1t was
the oppression of the financial system of
this country upon the masses of the peo-
| pie. They have just found out what the
matter is. They are thinkers today il
they never were before. They have
scratched away all the rubbish of the
negro question, of tile bloody shirt, OF
the tariff and of the federal control OF
elections, and they have at last got dowH
to hard pan. 1t is the dollar that is
keeping the people down today. 1t is
the money power, the rule of plutocracy,
and the people will have no more of it.
"The slogan henceforth is to be finan-
cial reform. The national banking sys-
tenn must go. The farmer and laborer
must have chance to get what money
they need upon the security of their real
property, privilege which is denied
them today. The issue from now on is
to be square one between the manhood
of America on one side and the great
American dollar on the other. And
tell you right now that unless the lead
ers of the great political battles to come
recognize the real issue and make it,
there are going to be terrible times in
this country. The people will not suffer
the real issue to be obscured any longer.
The people Of this country are going to
rule it.
"Sectionalism cannot pull them apart
any longer. Why, if my own father
were candidate for office today, and
upon the stump he should abuse
Yankees, would refuse to vote for him
if it was the last act of my life. Pm sick
of that rot and rubbish-heartily sick
and tired of it. The only men who can
secure popular support are those who
understand the great economic questions
of the day, and who are in full sympathy
with the people in the battle for their
rights against the oppression of the
money kings"
!. v.
THE oCAI.A CONVENTION.
q The national convention of the ALI