12 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



and resided in New York City. Several families who were members of this 

 league, or alliance, went from this section during our controversy, and set- 

 tled in Texas, and a man by the name of Tanner, who lived west of this city, 

 is said to have organized the first Alliance in Texas, as a trade organization, 

 which was one of the features of this movement ; and hence we hear it said 

 that the Alliance originated in Texas and New York at the same time, while 

 the facts remain that it originated in Kansas; 



" This Alliance never did take up the questions of money, transportation, 

 and land, and confined itself to purchasing its supplies at wholesale, and was 

 an open organization, both north and south, consisting of discontented local 

 alliances which sprang into existence in different parts of the country, east, 

 west, north, and south ; but there was no central organization ; in other 

 words, it was without a head, and that is the case yet in some localities. 



" In the spring of 1875 we got our decision from the Supreme Court of the 

 United States, setting aside the patents granted to the railway companies to 

 the Osage ceded lands, and opening them to pre-emption settlement. Many 

 of us were very poor at this time, having spent what little we brought with us 

 in the fight for these lands, and the price of all property was greatly depressed 

 in consequence of the panic of '73> brought on by the contraction of the 

 currency. As a sample of the prices prevailing for property at that time, I 

 remember of husking my corn and hauling it sixteen miles to Parsons with 

 my team of oxen, and then could not sell it for ten cents per bushel in cash, 

 and had to get it stored until such time as it would sell, or haul it back. I 

 preferred the former. In this dilemma we began to say that the government 

 ought to give us this land, or make some arrangements by which it would 

 loan us money to pre-empt with. Finally the government came to our aid, 

 and allowed us to pay $50 on the quarter section, and gave us one, two, and 

 three years on the deferred payments, by paying $50 a year and 5 per cent 

 interest. This was virtually a loan of $150 on each quarter secftan at 5 per 

 cent interest, and this was the first 5 per cent money the people of Kansas 

 ever borrowed, and this is the first instance that I now call to mind where 

 the government has ever loaned its money to the people. But it demon- 

 strated the practicability of such a system, and in 1876 I issued a circular, 

 and set forth the system that New York had adopted in loaning its school 

 fund to the farmers, upon real estate security, and demonstrated the practica- 

 bility of such a system for the United States. 



" I selected one post-office in each county of the United States, and sent a 

 few of these circulars, to be handed out by the postmaster, and I had the 

 satisfaction of seeing farmers' clubs springing up in all parts of the country. 

 This circular is the first, so far as I am informed, ever written and circulated 

 since the Constitution of the United States was adopted, advocating govern- 

 ment loans to the people, upon real estate security." 



This statement bears the marks of candor and directness, that 

 will no doubt convince many of its truthfulness. Be that as 

 it may, it discloses an attempt to correct economic evils in that 



