People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1893 — WHAT ABOUT THE ALLIANCE? [ARTICLE]

WHAT ABOUT THE ALLIANCE?

Is It Dead, or is It Only Sleeping - Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty. This is a question that is frequently asked. A great many farmers who never would join the alliance or any other farm organization, but chose rather to align themselves with their own enemies, gloat over the apparent lethargy of the alliance. They assume that the organization is dead, and say: “I told you it would die; that is why I would not join it. I knew they wouldn’t stick together." But such reasoning is not sound. The assumption is false. The alliance is not dead. True enough there is not that zeal and demonstration that characterized its early career; many of the weak-backed and short-sighted ones who mistook the objects and scope of the organization, have dropped out They expected immediate results, and those results were looked for on lines along which the more thoughtful never expected them to come. As a rule, the more intelligent class of farmers believe in organization, not merely to look after the best interests of their class in their line of legislation, but mainly as a means of self-improve-ment in the way of reading, studying, investigation, co-operation and discussion; to become more sociable, more fraternal, and by contact and a friendly interchange of thoughts, methods and experiences, to become better farmers and better citizens. These are some of the purposes of organization. Just grant for argument sake that the Farmers’ Alliance, as an organization, is dead, the charters burned and that not another meeting in that name is ever held, will anybody claim that the influence exerted by the organized farmers dies with the means that effected if? If the Farmers’ Alliance were to dissolve to-morrow the good it has accomplished will outweigh a thousand times the trouble and expense it has cost. The farmers' organizations have set the nation to thinking. They have made their influence felt in the legislatures and congress, and even some of the great daily papers of the country are echoing the sentiments of the farmers and championing the measures they have demanded. The fact is that the lethargy of the farmers’ organization is due as much as anything else to the fact that the press of the country and politicians have acknowledged the justice of the farmers’ demands, and many of the statesmen are uttering the “calamity howl” for the farmers. The danger is that the farmers will be lulled to sleep by the “wordy interest” the politicians are taking, only to have the chains riveted a little tighter when found in a disorganized condition. Don’t be deceived by the wily politician or the treacherous plutocratic press. “By their actions and not words only, shall they be known.” Look at the actions of the present congress and the different state legislatures; if they are earning their salt, we fail to see how. What is the benefit of soft words and good promises if no good actions are ever performed? It is plain that the farm organizations are a necessity. Education is the foundation of the great walls of defense that are to protect and preserve the liberties of the nation. The alliance is a school which, if well attended, will make the farmers free men. It will educate them in the line of practical farm work, in the principles of political science, and will make them conscious of the fact that they are as intelligent and as important a factor in this republic as any other class. The alliance may be, and evidently is, to some extent awaiting results of the great awakening; to see the course of political events, and whether the known will of the people will be regarded, but the alliance is not dead; the best men are still in the organization. The weakkneed have fallen out. As the brick mansion rises on the ruins as the frame building or the log hut so will a more permanent and more effective organization arise on the ruins of the alliance if it should go down. —St. Louis Journal of Agriculture.