300 



FARMERS' ALLIANCE, THE. 



posin<y such penalties as shall secure the most perfect 

 compliance with the law. 



3. We demand the free and unlimited coinage of 

 silver. 



4. We demand the passage of laws prohibiting the 

 alien ownership ct'land, and that Congress take early 

 steps to devise some plan to obtain all lands now 

 owned by aliens and foreign syndicates, and that all 

 lands now held by railroad and other corporations in 

 excess of such as are actually used and .needed by 

 them be reclaimed by the Government and held for 

 actual settlers. 



5. Believing in the doctrine of equal rights to all 

 and special privileges to none, we demand that taxa- 

 tion, national or State, shall not be used to build up 

 one interest or class at the expense of another. We 

 believe that the money of the country should be kept 

 as much as possible in the hands of the people ; and 

 hence we demand that all revenues national, State, 

 or county shall be limited to the necessary expenses 

 of the Government economically and honestly admin- 

 istered. 



6. We demand that Congress issue a sufficient 

 amount of fractional paper currency to faciliate ex- 

 change through the medium of the United States 

 mail." 



Amendments were incorporated calling first 

 for the experiment of Government control of all 

 means of transportation and communication, and 

 for absolute ownership if this plan proves inade- 

 quate, and providing that every national and 

 State lecturer of the Alliance, and every State 

 Alliance organ, must support the St. Louis and 

 Ocala platforms, or suffer suspension ; second, 

 that no candidate for a national office shall re- 

 ceive the support of the alliance unless he ap- 

 proves its national platform in writing. After- 

 ward an approval was given to what is known as 

 the Sub-treasury bill now before Congress. 

 This bill provides that whenever a county can 

 show that over $500,000 worth of wheat, corn, 

 oats, and cotton has been raised, a sub-treasury 

 shall be established within its limits, to enable 

 the farmer to deposit his produce, whatever it 

 may be, and receive therefor in Treasury notes 

 80 per cent, of its value. These notes, issued to 

 pay for corn or wheat or whatever product is de- 

 posited, shall be legal tender. The bill appro- 

 priates $50,00^,000 to carry out the sub-treasury 

 scheme. One of the leaders of the Alliance ex- 

 plains the Sub-treasury bill in this way: "Stripped 

 of all that is calculated to confuse, the sub- 

 treasury plan contains but one principle, and 

 that is a safe, certain, and efficient method of 

 giving a flexibility to the volume of money 

 which shall exactly equal the flexibility or vari- 

 ations in demand, and thereby secure a uniform- 

 ity of price on a basis of the prices now current 

 at the highest season of the year. Prices now 

 reach highest during that season in which money 

 is most plentiful, and money is most plentiful 

 during the summer months; because, the prod- 

 ucts of the previous year's agricultural effort 

 having been consumed, money is liberated from 

 that channel, and flowing into all channels of 

 t rade, money becomes cheaper, which means that 

 general prices increase. The two terms are prac- 

 tically synonymous, and it matters not which 

 you say, that money has become cheaper, or that 

 the prices of commodities have risen. A de- 

 crease in the purchasing power of a dollar means 

 an increase in the price of everything else when 

 its price is expressed in dollars. Under this 

 sub-treasury plan, whatever prices are estab- 



lished during the summer season, when the 

 whole volume of money is engaged in trade and 

 the smallest possible amount invested in the 

 products of agriculture would prevail through- 

 out the whole year that is to say, cotton, which 

 commonly reaches 11 or 12 cents a pound in 

 July, would remain at that price and not drop 

 to 7 cents in October. The reason for this is 

 very simple, but plain and conclusive. As the 

 products of agriculture are prepared for market 

 they will not absorb money to handle them from 

 the other channels of trade, but will leave the 

 volume of money in use undisturbed, to be used 

 just as it has been used before harvest, and 

 whatever additions to the the volume of money 

 are made necessary by the increased demand for 

 its use created by the marketing of the crops 

 will be met by an issue of money by the Govern- 

 ment, thereby keeping the volume in an exact 

 balance with the demand ; and since there would 

 be no contraction in the relative volume of 

 money during the autumn months, there would 

 be no decline in price. Therefore the legitimate 

 cause for the decline in prices would be re- 

 moved." 



The Alliance also pronounced against the Fed- 

 eral Elections bill now pending in Congress, but 

 the Colored Farmers' Alliance approved the bill 

 and urged its passage. The national convention 

 also discussed the forming of a third political 

 party, on a more tangible basis than hitherto, 

 composed of the Alliance, the Knights of Labor, 

 and certain other smaller parties which have 

 hitherto acted independently of the leading po- 

 litical parties. A call was issued for a national 

 conference, at Cincinnati, in February, 1891, to 

 further this object. 



A Citizens' Alliance was also formed by the 

 National Alliance for the purpose of establishing 

 local citizens' alliances in the cities and large 

 towns of the country. The branches of the Farm- 

 ers' Alliance in several of the States, in the clos- 

 ing months of 1890, announced themselves in 

 favor of plans not fully agreeing with the plat- 

 form of the National Farmers' Alliance. In 

 Minnesota the leaders of the Farmers' Alliance 

 repudiated the sub-treasury plank of the Ocala 

 convention. In North Dakota a platform was 

 adopted favoring the Australian ballot, primary 

 elections, the lending of money by the Govern- 

 ment on real-estate security at a low rate of in- 

 terest, free and uniform text-books in public 

 schools, woman suffrage, Government ownership 

 and control of railroads and telegraph lines, 

 Government institutions for the care of invalid 

 old soldiers, extermination of saloons, and tariff 

 legislation that will reduce the duties on neces- 

 saries, increase them on luxuries, and admit raw 

 materials free. In South Dakota the Farmers' 

 Alliance favored an amendment to the State Con- 

 stitution forbidding sales of public-school lands; 

 a uniform series of school-books, to be furnished 

 by the State at cost ; a fair English education 

 for every child ; the Australian ballot system ; 

 arid such legislation as will forever prohibit the 

 employment of armed bodies of men, other than 

 our State militia, at the call of the Governor of 

 the State. It demanded that railroad passenger 

 rates be fixed at two cents a mile ; that railroad 

 commissioners be elected and empowered to make 

 freight schedules for all State traffic; that the 



