UNRECORDED HISTORY. 13 



State, at an early date. The movement thus inaugurated con- 

 tinued to increase in strength, and finally culminated in the 

 campaign of 1890. There is not a single one of the many 

 great States organized into this grand agricultural demand for 

 " Equal rights to all and special privileges to none," that would 

 take from Kansas an iota of the credit she may justly claim. If 

 this Alliance Movement originated in Kansas, well and good ; 

 she has proved herself worthy of that honor. 



The history of the movement in New York has been given in 

 another chapter, and will doubtless be read with interest in con- 

 nection with the above. It is to the Alliance in Texas that the 

 attention of the reader is invited. To the brethren in Texas 

 belongs the credit and everlasting honor of placing the Far- 

 mers' Alliance before the country and the world. To them the 

 toilers of the earth can bow in gratitude, for originating, through 

 distress, organizing under great difficulties, and perfecting with 

 consummate wisdom, the most powerful reform organization that 

 has ever been known in the history of the race. All hail to the 

 grand State of Texas, the mother and protector of the Alliance ! 



The wave of civilization and development swept the world, 

 from east to west ; and when it reached the western border, it 

 was reflected back as a great reform movement. It is the reflex 

 wave of a higher civilization which promises to improve all exist- 

 ing countries, as the present civilization improved upon barbar- 

 ism ; the difference being that the march of civilization apprised 

 the world of the use of power, and this great reform movement 

 is to teach the world the power of justice. 



The credit due to those who participated in the first struggles 

 of the Farmers' Alliance is not as great as the present size and 

 importance of the order would indicate. It was started as a 

 local organization, for local purposes, and has developed by the 

 work it has been called upon to perform. The earliest concep- 

 tion of its object seems to have been to organize landowners to 

 resist the efforts of land-sharks, who set up fraudulent titles to 

 their lands, and brought suit to either dispossess the owner or 

 secure from him a payment for a compromise. A great amount 

 of land litigation of this kind was rife in Texas, on account of 

 grants claimed to have been issued by the Mexican government, 

 prior to the independence of Texas. 



