The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1903-10-13

Alliance has no right to go outside it's sphere o,J
try to reform the whole world; it can only fail
in the endeavor and create dissension in its own
ranks as to the proper course to pursue Thu
Alliance, for example, may properly ask for tho
enforcement of the anti-monopoly law against
the Tobacco Trust; that is a matter directly Of
fecting the welfare Of the farmer. But it wanId
not be right to arrange a general political plat
form of antitrust legislation and ask the ALL
ance as a whole to support it. That is a matter.
about which individuals differ, and the Alliance
can only insist that its members carefully study
the problem, and work in their respective politi-
cal parties for the solution each member thinks
wisest."
Quite in line with this utterance is the editori-
al of the Country Gentleman itself, apropos Of
some of the resolutions of the Farmers Con-
gress.
owe cannot imagine" says Editor Tucker
what special interest the farmers of the coun-
try, as distinguished from the rest of the com
munity, can be supposed to have in such ques-
tions as the income tax, the referendum, the
election of United States Senators by popular
vote, and the admission of Oklahoma; and it
seems to us exceedingly unwise for the Congress
to commit itself on these or other matters which
concern us as citizens and not distinctively as
farmers. If the Farmers Congress will devote
itself with undivided energy to securing what
ever the farmers need, as farmers, it can accom-
plish Immense improvements. If it is going to
undertake reforming all the evils of the body
polite, it needs no prophet to anticipate the re-
suit. We should take a lesson from the trades
unions; suppose they tackled the political ques-
tions referred to above-in which, be it noted,
every workman in every trade has just as much
direct interest as has any farmer-what would be
the ultimate result on their solidity and their
power? %
Our position then is that strictly agricultural
organizations should not act officially on strictly
political neutrality-suspicious. of public policy
affecting all classes of people alike. If any mat
ter peculiarly affecting the interests of the farm
er has gotten into politics-such as the appoint
ment of a VIGOROUSLY inefficient Commissions
of Agriculture, about which the State Alliance
declared itself in 1898; the confscation of a
farmers tax to aid a general State institution,
against which the Alliance protested this year;
the extension of rural free delivery, very proper
ly endorsed by the recent Farmers Congres8-f
such matters as these, we say, happen to have
a political cast, let us not dodge them on that
account. But we repeat that if we go out OF our
sphere and try, as a farmers organization, to re-
form the whole world, we shall only bring con-
tempt for our efforts and weakness for our or
ganizatioh.
Our principle may be illustrated by taking the
church as an example. The church is a religious
institution just as the farmers organizations are
agricultural institutions; it's sphere is limited
just as theirs are limited. On all strictly moral
and religious questions the church should de-
clare itself without equivocation; even if it have
a political cast, a plainly moral question should
be squarely faced. The various denominations IN
Raleigh, for example, have just entered actively