118 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



launched by the farmers of the Northwest. The 

 founder of the National Farmers' Alliance, or the 

 Northwestern Alliance, as it was called to distin- 

 guish it from the Southern organization, was Mil- 

 ton George, editor of the Western Rural of Chicago, 

 who had been instrumental in organizing a local 

 alliance in Cook County. This Alliance began issu- 

 ing charters to other locals, and in October, 1880, at 

 the close of a convention in Chicago, attended by 

 "five hundred, representing alliances, granges, 

 farmers' clubs, etc., " a national organization was 

 formed. The constitution adopted at this time de- 

 clared the object of the order to be "to unite the 

 farmers of the United States for their protection 

 against class legislation, and the encroachments of 

 concentrated capital and the tyranny of monopoly; 

 ... to oppose, in our respective political parties, 

 the election of any candidate to office, state or na- 

 tional, who is not thoroughly in sympathy with the 

 farmers' interests; to demand that the existing po- 

 litical parties shall nominate farmers, or those who 

 are in sympathy with them, for all offices within 

 the gift of the people, and to do everything in a 

 legitimate manner that may serve to benefit the 

 producer." The specific measures for which the 

 promoters of the Northwestern Alliance intended 



