The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1900-08-31
How the Farmers Alliance Was
Worked.

ocratic politicians, assisted by allies
inside the alliance, worked them till
the alliance ceased to be danger?
1t is story of most devilish perfidy.
Never, in any age or any land, has
there been more dastardly betrayal of
confiding people by the leaders they
trusted and believed to be true. Aye,
some who are even yet believed to be
true, because their treachery has never
been fully revealed. We propose to
Show this treason, chiefly as 1t re-
lates to Kansas, and for whatever
statements here made, for which there
are public facts as confirmation, we
have the statements of men and wo-
men who have been in the ranks of
the alliance all these years and are
there yet or who have been near the
,populist throne since 1892. For there
has been a populist throne in Kansas.
1t exists to-day and is still occupied
by the same monarch who long ago
i''Writhed his Shiny way to place and
power"
In 1890 there was a great uprising
of the alliance in Kansas. Col. Polk
and Congressman Livingston, from the
sunny south, came to Kansas and
urged the alliance to take political
action as an independent party. The
farmers of Kansas did it, and there
was landslide against the republic
an party alone. But in the southland
the alliance stood solidly with the
democratic party, which, in the south,
lis the party of aristocrats such as
would make England's nobility seem
,'the plain people" by contrast. Then
came conferences" and then the or
.ganization of the "Citizen's Alliance
which let in the politicians of the
lcities, then an alliance with the
knights of Labor, which let in some
more politicians, and then came call
for a national convention to organize
q new political party. The conven-
tion was held at Omaha in July, 1892.
Whatever may be mans political
views, he cannot avoid admiring the
grandeur of that convention so far as
many of its delegates were concerned.
IThey endured privations to get there
and launch the new party from which
they hoped the noblest results. The
spirit of the convention was almost
divine in its loftiness, however great
may have been the practical mistakes
and the delusion. Emerson has
said truly that every great and COM
lmanding moment in history has been
the triumph of some enthusiasm and
there are republicans who are repub-
licans still who were fairly swept off
their feet by that magnificent specta-
Gle of devotion to cause believed to
be right and even holy. These repub-
licans are glad now that they were
held back by party ties, for the trea-
son of the managers of that grand con-
vention was as devilish as the senti-
ment of the mass of delegates was
divine. Remember that the national
democratic convention had already
been held and Cleveland nominated,
so that the Omaha convention had in
view, when it spoke of ''the controlling
influences dominating both these par
ties" the democratic as well as the
republican party of that very year, and
with the candidates then nominated by
them with this fact recalled, read
this part of the preamble of the Oma-
ha platform;
"IYe have witnessed, for more than
a quarter of a century, the struggles
of the two great political parties for
power and plumber, while grievous
wrongs have been inflicted upon the
suffering people. We charge that the
controlling influences dominating
both these parties have permitted the
existing dreadful conditions to develop
without serious effort to prevent or
restrain them. Neither do they now
promise us any substantial reform.
They have agreed together to ignore,
in the coming campaign, every issue
but one. They propose to drown the
outcries of plundered people with
the uproar of sham battle over the
tariff, so that capitalists, corporations,
national banks, rings, trusts, watered
stock, the demonstration of silver,
and the oppression of the usurers may
all be lost sight of. They propose to
sacrifice our homes, lives and children
on the altar of Mammon; to destroy
the multitude in order to secure cor
ruption funds from the millionaires."
There were plenty of republicans in
that convention. Most of the earnest
delegates were republicans who had
gone with the alliance. But they still
loved their old party and gloritied in
its history and grand achievements.
Does any one suppose they would have
consented to that Indictment if it had
been against their own party alone?
Would you have remained an hour |
with the new party if you had sus-
pected that within "a hours the lead
ers would accept the democratic party |
as an ally and unite with it for the
sole purpose of using the new party, |
born in the midst of enthusiasm, for
defeating the republican party and
a care for the measures pro-
posed in the new platform? Walter Q.
I