The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-06-13
LETTER FROM MARTIN COUNTY
DARDEN's, N. @.

DARDEN'S, N. @.
Mr.. EDITOR:-It has been nearly -
months since l have asked space in
your valuable paper to communicate
with the brethren, and would not
trouble you now were it not that I fear
that you and the brethren Will think
that the Alliancemen of old Martin
county, including myself, are all dead
or have given up the fight.
Brethren, I have been hard at work
in an adjoining county since the new
year began and have not been at home
to attend my Sub Alliance but twice,
but I am glad to say she is alive and
kicking as usual. She kicked vigorous
ly on election day, for out of one hun
dred and forty votes polled at our box
on that day the Alliance and reform
party get one hundred and three. We
We are in the field yet with III sleeves
rolled up, and we are going to kick
both ways next time until that her
m~aphrodite on all vital issues that hold
the reins Of government, both State
and National, shall fulfill it's mission
either for better or worse.
The boodlers and usurpers that dis
grace the legislative halls of this State
and Nation are now in the zenith of
their glory. And great is the glory of
Babylon, but Babylon fell and so will
the so called democracy. All through
the last campaign democracy's doleful
cry was, we haven't had a chance; only
give us chance, and now the chance
has come, the boon has been granted,
or perhaps, taken. VIII there be a
change for the better2 No. For
twenty years with more or less power
or chance they have been a kind of
stool pigeon, a nonentity standing still
sucking it's fingers and crying for
Office, and when it got Office it excused
it's inertness, duplicity and rascality
by pleading the baby act. No chance.
1t was then what you might style a
great big laundering, blubbering, bla-
tant baby boodlcr. 1t is now the reek-
ing, sweltering, wallowing hyperbole
of everything disgusting, possessing all
the meanness, ~rascality and corruption
that was possessed by the Republican
machine, with less boldness and
s~hrewdness. 1t followed along at the
tail end of the Republican crowd for
twenty years trying to get ahead of
the procession with the one vital issue,
give us a chance, until they got it. The
Peoples party got a move on it and
made it show its meanness, and it will
next time move it back to it's old style
of begging and sucking its fingers for
want of a chance.
The brethren who read this will
think, no doubt, that I think the Dem
ocratic party will steal. I don't say
they will steal, but if I was a chicken
and lived near some few whom I could
name I should roost pretty high. He
who would stoop to put ballots in the
wrong box in order to count them out
would steal anything else.
The III Of reform, from my stand
point, was temporarily defeated in the
late fight; but, brethren, 1 can say
with Bro. Butler that we are not
whipped. While we are to some extent
disappointed we are not in the least
discouraged. If we maintain our
organization, as we have heretofore,
non partisan and educational, a suff-
Gent number of the people will come
over to us. The corrupt ~pretenses of
the opposition will bring them ruin.
Already the people are SO vigilant that
to fool them is getting to be a costly
proceeding. For the first time in thirty
years the people have forced pIutoc.
to dive deep down into it's pocket
and appeal to the cupidity and poverty
of our ignorant and in some cases helm.
less people to save it. I heard a very
prominent Democrat lamenting the ne