The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-03-08
AN r SIS.
.osmen Should Not Allow Party
zoa1 to Injure the Organization.
,r,cE SEC. TREAS N. @. f. S. A.

n,cr SEC. TREAS N. Q. f. S. A.
Raleigh, N. O., Feb. 81, 1892.
IN RRETHREN:-"W What shall the
E ESnt he for the Alliance in 1922
Con weigh this question calmly7
u Lon SOW, so shall you reap. A few
ago the Alliance was unheard of
Nth Carolina. Four years ago it
! "oined such Roadway in the State,
u ,6Sb only one year old here, that the
Du;5dant of the State Alliance, Capt.
D Alexander, came nea being
octod Governor, though he was OPP
ed nearly solidly by the whole press
fba STATE. Two years ago, through
! campaign of education, it sent four
4 ;to members to the United States
on%ress. and two others elected
EToJ02od TO the support of our demands.
maiOrity of the legislature elected
&c Alliancemen, a United States
Tonaeor chosen after he had pledged to
S,,nort 0ur demands and hundreds of
DoT1ptv offices filed by our household.
Tovnr has any organization been edu-
coted so rapidly; never has an organi-
ootion gained so many victories. What
:, the Outcome2 Two years ago your
STorite measure, the ~Sub-Treasury
Lon was introduced into Congress by
Eon1Iast. but it was contemptuouslv
Id on the shelf. We had no friends
IN the halls of Congress. To day how
:. tn We find more than half a hun
drpd congressman standing manfulIy
FOR our rights, most of them of our own
Order. They are introducing bills in
o1r behalf and are battling heroically
tn have them made into law. For the
first time in half a century the work
ing people, the masses, have had bills
introduced in their behalf, and have
had champions in Congress who have
dared to face plutocratic power for
relief of the people, But will these bills
Introduced be made into law? 1t is
nossible some of them may, but not
probable. and why? Because our
Strength there is yet too weak to cope
with the combined forces of those sent
there by moneyed corporations and
s~vndicates to Illustrate any laws for the
relief of the people.
What is to be done? Must we by one
unlucky throw of the dice los all we
have gained, cause our beloved Order
to be rent in twain, and leave no organ
lied body to dispute the onward march
of tyranny and oppression? Shall we
bv our headlOng zeal, Incorporate
haste destroy all hopes OF the perpetu
ity of a republican form of government,
and permit a monarchy to be estab
lished Over our children? God forbid
that we should do tins. Yet we find
that some true, Jealous, but incautious
brethren, r urging the Alliance to
take a fatal plunge over a dangerous
precipice of which they are unaware,
and where nothing but destruction
awaits it. We find that in a few of
our Lodges partisan political meetings
have been held which the brethren
know is positively against the Consti-
tuition of the State Alliance of North
Carolina. The Alliance can never be-
come partisan, because its COnstitu-
ton orders us In accepting members to
guarantee them that their religious or
political creeds arenOt to be questioned.
To endorse any party in u Lodge
room is partisan, for the Alliance of
North Carolina holds among its mem
bers Democrats, Republicans, PrOhibi-
tionists and the Peoples party, Let
US see what the trouble would be if we
let politics into our Order. We will
take for example a Sub-Lodge of sixty
male members, thirty-two of whom are
Democrats, ten Republicans, eight
Prohibitionists and the remaining ten
were for Independent action or the
Peoples party. At a regular meeting,
all the members being present, a resC-
luton was introduced and passed by
the thirty-two Democrats that here
after this Lodge should endorse the
Democratic party, and that all the
members should vote the Democratic
ticket; what would be the result? The
remaining members would be driven
from the Order. 1t would break up
the Lodge. Such has been done in
few instances in this State.
: Therever partisan politics has been
Permitted to make Roadway In the
Alliance organizations in a county,
there you Will find the weakest Ali
order.
Brethren. as an ~Allianceman, as
your Secretary-Treasurer, who has
only the good of the Order and the
country at heart, and whose fingers
rest upon the throbbing pulse of the
whole Alliance organization In our
State, | send this greeting to you, to
warn and beg of you to halt and think
before it il too late. The plutocratic
powers through their allies and agents,
have well nigh caused many Of you to
take the fatal plunge over that dark,
fathOmIess abyss. They have driven
some of you to believe, through their
misrepresentation and prosecutions of
our Order and it's officers, that the only
Is through a partisan political
course, and that you should O~straclse
all other Alliancemen who will not
the same fatal step. Are we such
towards that a few men in North Caro-
lima who hate the Order and it's officers,
can force us to such an extremity, force
us to abandon what we have already
in u grasp, a complete victory for
our p%rinciples9 What matters it to us
the name of the party we affiliate
with, so we can save our homes and
freedom for ourselves and %posterity,
even if we differ at the ball Jt box as
In the heat mothOd Of ano1rino these