The Globe-republican. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1889-1910, 1900-08-30
Eow the Farmers Alliance Was
Worked.

Wonder if the members of the once
powerful Farmers Alliance ever re-
fleet upon the scheme by which dem
ocratic politicians, assisted by allies
inside the alliance, worked them till
the alliance ceased to be a danger =?
1t is story of most devilish perfdy-
Never, in any age or any land has
there been more dastardly betrayal of
confi1ing people by the leaders they
trusted and believed to Ice 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 it re-
Iates to Kansas, and for whatever
statements here made, for which there
are public facts confirmation, we
have the statements of men and vIo-
men who have been in the ranks of
the alliance all these years and are
there yet or who have been near the
porulist throne since 1892 For there
has been a populist throne in Kansas
1t exists to-day and is still occupied
bv the same monarch who long ago
ssWrithed 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 a landslide against the republic
an party alone. But in the southland
the alliance stood solidly with the
democratic party, which, in the south,
is the party of aristocrats such as
would make Eng1and's nobility seem
s'the plain people, by contrast Then
came conferences and then the or
ganization of the Citizens Alliance,
which let in the politicians of the
cities, then alliance with the
Knights of Labor, which let in some
more politicians, and then came Il call
for national convention to organize
a new political party. The conven-
ton was held at Omaha in July, 1892.
Whatever may be mans political
views, he cannot avoid admiring the
grandeur of that convention far as
many of its delegates were concerned
They 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 Ioftiness, however great
may have been the practical mistakes
and the delusion. Emerson has
said truly that ''every great and com
Inanding moment in history has been
the triumph of some enthusiasm and
there are republicans who are rePub-
Hcans still who We're fairly swept off
their feet by that magnificent specta-
Gle of devotion to cause believed to
be right and even holy. These rePub-
Hcans are glad that they were
held back by party ties, for the trea-
son of the managers of that grand con-
vention was as devilish the senti-
ment of the mass of delegates was
divine Remember that the national
democratic convention had already
been held and Cleveland nominal ted,
so that the Omaha convention had in
view, when it spoke of 1.-The controlling
influences dominating both these par
ties the democratic 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:
''We have witnessed, for more than
a quarter of Il 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 doTninating
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 Il plundered people with
the uprOar of u sham battle over the
tariff, so that capitalists, corporations,
national banks, rings, trusts, watered
stock, the decentralization of silver,
and the oppression of the usurers may
ia11 be lost sight Of They propose to
sacrifice our homes, lives and children
ION the altar OF Mammon; to destroy
the multitude in order to secure cor
Eruption funds from the millionaires-
There We're plenty of republicans in
that convention. Most of the earnest
delegates We're republicans wSo had
gone with the alliance. But they still
loved their old party and glorified 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 ?
Mould you have remained hour
with the new party if you had sus-
.pected that within "a hours the lead
Fers 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
without a care for the measures pro-
posed in the new platform? Walter Q.