Year: 1873

The True Character of the Movement


It would seem that the momentum Sc.
cured to the Farmers Movement IN the
winter and spring, is to be sufficient to
keep 1t IN active motion until the more
leisure season of fall and winter. Contra
ry to the predictions of the opposition,
and of those of little faith, the meetings,
| discussions, and writings, as well as the
work of spreading the organization, con-
tinue unabated during the months usual
ly devoted to active farm labor alone. A
crowning impetus is to be given on Inde-
pendence Day.


Brain and muscle are working together
this year in way and to an extent that
they never before worked in the history
! OF farm life IN this or any other country.
To doubt the good result is to deny the
benefit of thought, of intelligence, of So
! cial and intellectual intercourse, of con-
tact of minds occupied with like questions
and governed by kindred interests. Those
who profess to look upon this great upris-
ing as an exhibition of numbers and
brute force merely, and who see in it but
the threatening of storm that is to over
turn existing institutions, disorganize So
ciety and play havoc with the financial
and political condition of the country,
have but feeble comprehension of the
causes which have given rise to it, or little
knowledge of the intelligence of the bet
ter half of the people of the nation, and
exhibit sad want of faith In their patri-
otlsm and honesty of purpose. If to
attempt to increase the intellectual power
of the masses, to develop business capaci-
ty and independence, to multiply the
pleasures and benefits of higher social
life, to right gigantic wrongs and secure
exact justice to all men, to rebuke and
root out corruption in political life, to
rid the nation of its drones and secure q
just reward to labor and only Just tribute
to capital, is to bring these dire results,
then Is the movement a delusion and a
snare. But until the laws of the
universe lose their immutability this can
not be the case.


As in every reform movement that
takes hold upon the masses, there will be
connected with it unbalanced, fiery spirits
that would counsel rash and uniustifable
acts under the honest but pernicious be-
lief that the end would Justify the means;
but the great mass of the farmers, the
descendants of the early fathers Of the
Republic, educated in our common schools,
which we have as a nation always looked
uP " Will DIlOC anu reverence, anu lIOul
infancy trained up in habits of economy
and industry under the teachings of the
Christian religion class from whose
heaithful BODILY and mentally ranks the
business and professional intellect of the
cities has yearly been recruited-are wise
and moderate and true.


We call for an examination of the rec
ord of their deliberations, as the press has
set them forth, in their meetings during
the past few months, to their resolutions
and speeches, and to their daily walk and
conversation, IN proof of this assertion. 1t
Is a peaceful revolution they seek. 1t is
by and through courts and legislative
bodies that they expect relief and claim
reform. Nothing but that madness and
blindness that precedes destruction, in
the opposition, can precipitate any other
revolution upon the transportation or
any other question.


The approaching Fourth of July cele-
brations will furnish an overwhelming
| demonstration of the dignity, the nebili-
ty, the intelligence, the charitableness,
the sobriety, and yet the determination
of those who participate. We ask care
full study of the proceedings on that day
| by the timid, the scoffers and the doubt
ers, as well as by those whose narrow
vision has not yet taken in this new move
ment as one of the vital, living powers
of the day. From them they may learn
much, and in them find food for reflection
that will be at once interesting and profit
( able.