People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1896 — Organizing Hie Alliance. [ARTICLE]

Organizing Hie Alliance.

The editor of,this paper is a firm believer in farm organizations and we are more than pleased to note the perfection to which the F. A. & I. U. has brought its order. The following was written in reply to a private letter from a prominent citizen of Indiana, and we are glad to give it to our readers that they may know what is being done and where to apply to ge this order in our midst in increased numbers: Mr. J. B. F , Dear Sir:—Your favor is here and I was glad to hear from you. In my work in Wabash county I have learned that the county Assembly F. M. B. A. withdrew from the State Assembly, believing that that body was almost on the point of closing up its business. Those members may have been misinformed, but they withdrew and I shall organize tonight an Alliance of probably about 40 members by combining the membership very largely of two local Assemblies with a few who never joined that order. It was not, and is not now my purpose to interfere with the F. M. B. A. where they aro occupying the field, unless they desire to make a change. But I would like to consult with your people as to the advisability of consolidation in one order. In many respects the aims of the two orders are identical and their methods similar. No order is superior to the F. M. B. A. as a social order, while I incline to the opinion that perhaps our trade advantages in the F. A. & I. U at present are perhaps superior to that of theF. M. B. A. However, in this I may be mistaken. But we have one decided advantage, i. e. our Beneficiary Department or life insurance. This is a combination of the best features of other successful fraternal orders, and since those orders owe their success and longevity to their beneficiary work, may we not infer that this feature added to the social and trade departments, will produce a permanent and a growing and highly profitable brotherhood? Wabash county has mai y orders and hundreds of members, but many of them admit to me that our system is the best of all, and members are coming from other good and sound orders to join with their wives in the Alliance where trade benefits, life insurance and social enjoyment may be secured in the same order. It is no exageration to say that the saving made in our trade department will several times pay the cost of a $2,000 life insurance certificate, so that we may fairly say that the life insurance really costsour members nothing. If you will furnish me the names and addresses of the secretaries of your local assemblies in your county, I will correspond with them and perhaps arrange to meet your delegates in the next county assembly and explain our system to them. Mail will always reach me at 37| West Market street. Indianapolis, Ind. Fraternally yours, C. V incent, Organizer and Lecturer of F. A. & L U. This journal has no hesitancy in recommending the farmers to patronize their own order, composed of the men of their own class, and an order that excludes from membership all the dangerous occupations that crowd other fraternal orders. The death rate is sure to be lower in a farm organization and hence the insurance will be better and safer—[Editor. The course pursued by the minority wing of the demacratic side of the Kentucky legislature is likely to create much bad feeling, not only in the minds of Kentucky democrats, but in the minds of all democrats who believe in fair play and majority rule. The idea of six or eight democratic members of any state legislature bolting the regular party nominee, and carrying their opposition so far as to leave their state, with but one representative in the United States Senate is really something new in democratichistory. Mr. Blackburn was the choice of over* 50 democratic members of the late Kentuck.y legislature. There was not a day from Ihe timethe first vote was taken on senator, bat what Blackburn could have been elected had the obstinate gold bug minority voted for hin». Blackburn’s only offense to the wee wing was bis pronounced sliver views. Democrats of Indiana and many other states would not look at this matter so seriously if it were only something' that affected Kentucky; if it were only a state fight, but we know that the powers at Washing' ton used everything to overthrow the will of the majority. I Any other candidate with Blackburn’s silver views, would have received the same treatment by Cleveland, Carlisle &Co If this is what democracy means, if the will of the majority, the exceeding large majority, is B ot to rule in the councils of our party, then the quick er we disband and give the country over to the republicans and populists, the better. Old Democrat.