The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1893-06-15
ALLIANCE ANNUAL MEET.
The Weather Prevents a Very
Large Attendance.

Farmers Alliance of Redwood county
at Longbottom's grove last Thursday
was not as great success as other
picnics have been, partly owing to the
very disagreeable and threatening
weather in the forenoon, and partly
owing to there being no speaker pres
emit, other than local speakers who
have been heard so very frequently
during the last year.
Shortly after one o'clock the clouds
commenced disappearing and farmers
and others appearing. The few who
brought baskets made an attack upon
them, and shortly afterwards James
Longbottom and Andrew Stewart
placed flag over the speakers stand,
and the crowd assembled around.
President Leonard, of the county ALI
ance, called the meeting to order and
introduced the sage of the place, Mr..
Jas. Longbottom, who made the
speech Of welcome. This was done in
logical and eloquent manner. The
next address was by Andrew Stewart,
and it was general in its character.
During the course of his remarks, he
said:
We celebrate to-day the fourth an
nual picnic of the Redwood County
Alliance. The comparatively small
number present is not due to any lack
of interest in the principles which the
Alliance or Peoples party represents,
it is rather due to the terrific winds
and threatening storm of this fore
We are representatives of the found
alton class of this country. By our la
Dor the world is clothed and fed. In
exact proportion as the farming class
. prospers or suffers wills every legiti-
mate trade and business prosper or
suffer. The agricultural class is the
most conservative in American poll
tics. Our urban population may be-
come dissipated, immoral and corrupt,
but if our institution shall continue to
be fed and nourished by the healthful,
invigorating blood of our rural popu-
lation our Republic is safe. There is
something significant in the fact that
this new and mighty political revolu-
ton has enlisted the most conserva-
tive class in American politics. In the
absence of any other argument this
should carry weight to the thinking
and unbiased mind.
| We advocate nothing new or revol-
utionary in character, we would sim
ply return to first principles of gov
eminent. The founders of our gov
eminent opposed class privileges
jefferson and jackson thnndered
against the national bank; the Demo
cratic platform down to 1860 contained
the principle that Congress had nc
right to charter a national bank. II
you would be Jefferson Democrat OF
a Lincolnian Republican support ou1
party. The free coinage of gold and
silver were so manifestly just that
neither old party dared to declare
against them till 1873. The Repub-
} lican party is responsible for giving
us the beauties of the income tax
Against primitive Republicans OF
Democrats we. have nothing to say
but they have drifted away from the
rocks upon which their founders
placed them into the seas where self
seeking, bargaining, gambling, poll
ticians' scheme and plot to secure and
divide the spoils of Office. We are en-
gagged in an irrepressible conflict to.
day; a conflict in which we have plu.
tocracy on the one hand and human
: ty on the other. There is a power in
: this country greater than Uncle Sam
It is that of an arrogant, dictatorial
moneyed oligarcfy. The N. Y. Trib
tune is authority for the statement that
! the eastern capitalist can by combin
ing defeat any decision of congress
in a hours notice. This should con
Germ us not as the partisan but as the
citizen and with ballot in hand We
should come to the rescue, or our Re
public dies.
The Swiss Initiative and, Referen
dunn System was the theme of Jane
Arnold's address. In other words tn
Swiss-people have the say as to wha
subjects shall be considered, and at
ter passed by the Legislature, decid
whether they shall become laws b
I vote. Mr.. Arnold favored the system
in this country. He pointed to exist
ing laws that would not have been, b
said, had they been left to the people
He censured President Cleveland 70
his course on finance. Seven years ag
he thought him alright, but he wa
captured by a uniformed city girl an
through her introduced to the 400 a,
istocracy of New York, and throug
! that class placed in the claws of tn
gold bugs of Wall street. He said tha
the soldiers were blind when the