AS A POLITICAL FORCE 83 



radical resolutions on the transportation question, and asserted 

 " that the power of this and all local organizations should be 

 wielded at the ballot-box, by the election of such, and only 

 such, persons as sympathize with us in this movement." 1 The 

 legislature was in session at this time, and was considering a 

 revision of the railroad laws to overcome the objections of the 

 supreme court. 2 In order to insure the enactment of effective 

 laws on this subject, the executive committee of the newly 

 organized State Farmers' Association issued a call for a State 

 Farmers' Convention, to be held at Springfield, the capital 

 city, April 2, 1873, " for the purpose of attending to our interests 

 in the Legislature, and of giving that body and the Governor 

 to understand that we mean business and are no longer to be 

 trifled with; and that while we have no disposition to infringe 

 upon the rights of others, we demand that protection at their 

 hands from the intolerable wrongs now inflicted upon us by 

 the railroads which they have a constitutional right to give 

 us." 3 



The principal work of this convention, which was opened 

 with speeches by Governor Beveridge and ex- Governor Palmer, 

 was the adoption of a series of resolutions setting forth its ideas 

 concerning railroad legislation, but these were followed by other 

 resolutions relating to competition in lake transportation and 

 the protective tariff, which furnish the first important indica- 

 tion that the movement was to spread out from an agitation 

 for railroad regulation into a full-fledged political party, with 

 views to express on a variety of questions. These resolutions, 

 which were said to be the result of efforts of Democratic politi- 

 cians to capture the movement and of railroad men to nullify 

 it by throwing the blame for high charges upon the policy of 



1 Prairie Farmer, xliii. 316, 364, xliv. 9, 12, 25 (October, i872-January, 1873); 

 Chicago Tribune, 1873, January 16, p. 4, January 17, p. 8, January 18, p. 2; 

 Periam, The Groundswell, 232-262. 



2 Illinois, Senate and House Journals, 1873. T ne pages of the Chicago Tribune 

 and the Prairie Farmer at this time are filled with resolutions of fanners' meetings 

 on the railroad question. For example, see resolutions of a Livingston County 

 convention of farmers, in Chicago Tribune, January 10, 1873, P- 5- 



8 Prairie Farmer, xliv. 100 (March 29, 1873); Chicago Tribune, March 21, 1873, 

 p. 2. 



