The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1892-06-03

to assure its readers that this made it
certain that the southern alliance lead
ers were unfriendly to the peoples
party and that southern alliancemen
would solidly vote the democratic ticket.
Ks The Kansas City Journal, republican
paper, commented upon the results Of
the meeting at Birmingham as follows:
''The result of the Birmingham con-
ference of the southern alliance officials,
summed up, is that the alliance people
in the south will stay in the democratic
party and greatly enjoy seeing their
brethren in the. northwest make fools
Of themselves.
Strangely enough, however, the dem
ocratic papers in the south take an en-
tirely different view of the matter and
consider the address issued by the confer
ence to be a plain and explicit declara-
ton that alliancemen in the south
should vote the peoples party ticket.
The Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial, a
stanch democratic paper, comments as
follows upon the address, under the
caption, ''The Birmingham Ulti-
nahum"
perhaps the key to the vague and
smoky manifesto issued by the alliance
gathering at Birmingham is that it was
not intended to be understood. Just
why conference compelled by the fact
that the order was entering the cru
cial period in it's history and which
was announced to be the most impor-
tant ever held, should have satisfied
itself with such a jargon of words is
hard to understand upon any other
hypothesis than that our noble order
spoke the plain word to the brethren in
secret and issued it's manifesto for the
public at large. The aphorism credited
to various statesmen that the proper use
of words is to CONCEAL ideas appears to
have governed this conference, for
while it is not impossible to find the
real meaning Of this mass of dictionary
served up by the Birmingham confer
ence, it certainly does not float upon
the surface. The man who has the
patience to subject it to close scrutiny
will yet be rewarded with a glimmer of
the true meaning, but he will be puz-
zled by finding that different PROPOSE
tions do not compare with each other.
The address cites the fact that every
one who takes the oath or obligation of
membership is informed that it shall in
no way interfere with his political or
religious liberty. If this means any
thing it means that member of the
order is free to hold and to advocate
any opinion with respect to political
questions without respect to the action
of any caucus, convention, political
party or any other organization; that
he is under no sort of compulsion or
obligation to support any doc
trine or any platform because
the alliance has Endorsed it.
In no other way can the promise
of non-interference with political
liberty be kept. But the same address
emphatically negatives the construction
of the clause cited in the same breath
in which it was uttered. 1t declares
that the member who has been informed
that there is to be no interference with
his political opinions or political actions
must also be informed that fealty to the
principles of the order is to be the only
test of membership, that devotion to
political demands must be stronger
than party obligations and that all
who affiliate must accept as supreme
the principles Of the order It is OBJ
vious that this declaration is utterly ir-