The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-06-23
BY
Two Revolutions in Which They Were
Successful.

Cypress the People Re
mOrSeIeSsly Avenged.
It is hard to believe that the quiet,
long suffering and conservative farmers
are ever revolutionary in their ideas
and methods. They submit to a great
deal of oppression and plundering, but
it is dangerous to crowd them to the
wall. In at least two great modern
revolutionary movements the farmers
took the lead and came out on top. In
England, in 1881, the farmers and the
masses generally had scarcely any
rights that were respected by the gov
erning classes. The story is too long
to tell in detail, but something like a
farmers Alliance was organized with
| Wat Tyler at the head.
The movement spread to the towns
and cities, and the people yer soon
banded together to resist unjust taxa
ton and oppressive laws. The country
men with their town allies got together
in a compact body and swept over the
land like a prairie fire. From county
to county and from town to town they
pushed their rapid march until they
reached London, where, after losing
their leader in a skirmish, they dis
persed when the King had made them
certain promises. The government
succeeded in Furnishing many of the
prominent ring leaders, but the solid
fruits of victory rested with the revo-
lutiOnists.
From that time for about a century
English farmers and workingmen had
the use of as much land as they could
cultivate, and were free to combine to-
gether for self-protection. That period
was the golden age of England. Then
there was no poverty. All were well
fed, well clothed and well paid. After
that, in the sixteenth Century, the mo-
nopolists, q privileged classes, forcibly
gained control, and the concentration
of wealth in the hands of the few
plunged the many into poverty.
Another farmers revolution was the
one in France in the latter part of the
| eighteenth century. The French coun-
trymen we're az much oppressed as
their English brethren were in the
fourteenth century. They organized
local societies with a central society,
and in the course of a bloody carnival
of several years duration brought
their king and queen and thousands
of their oppessors to the guillotine.
Generations of suffering made them
u~nreasonably violent, and they gave
France what is known in history as
the Reign of Terror" Yet this revo-
luton was a great triumph for democ-
racy. It greatly modified monarchical
rule in Europe, and paved the way for
the present French republic, under
which the farmers are the most pros
porous people on the face of the earth.
These two revolutions were essen
TALLY farmers movements. There is
much in them that will shock the
readers of to-day, but it should be
remembered that in those days the
people did not have the ballot to right
their wrongs, and they had to resort
to force. In both England and France
these popular upheavals resulted in
substantial victories for the farmers.
The uprising in this country at the
present time of the agricultural popu-
lation recalls the historic events which
we have briefly outlined. Like the
tillers of the soil in England and
France, our farmers are kept down by
unjust taxes, oppressive laws and mo-
~nopolists, who, in their way, are dan
gerous as the feudal barons of old.
But our people, armed with the ballot,
understand the power of organized
action, and they know the full signif
canoe of the supremacy of numbers.
Yet, while this great struggle for
reform is thoroughly peaceful and in
the interests of peace, it bids fair to be
as sweeping a revolution as the others
that we have mentioned.
The cause of the united farmers is
the cause of democracy. 1t is an effort
to restore a government of the people,
for the people and by the people, with
equal rights for all, and special privil-
eyes for none. 1t is a cause that will
win, and its triumph will be all the
more glorious because it will be a
victory of peace, a victory of honest
labor, won through ballots instead of
through bayonets, won at the polls
and not on battlefields. This hurried
glance at the past is suggestive. It
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