76 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



"13. That in view of the fact that the delegates to this body represent a 

 majority of the cotton-producers of the cotton belt of America, which belt 

 produces over two-thirds of the cotton of the whole world ; and in view of the 

 further fact that two-thirds of the cotton in the cotton belt is demanded and 

 used for export to a foreign power, which fixes the price on every pound of 

 our cotton ; and in view of the fact that the said power is debarred from 

 returning to this country a single yard of manufactured cotton, thereby mak- 

 ing said power interested in crowding down to the lowest figure the price of 

 cotton, we hereby demand that the United States Government adopt a speedy 

 system of reduction of the import duty on manufactured cottons, in such a 

 way as to do justice to this, the greatest of all classes of producers. 



" 14. We demand such a revision of the tariff as will lay the heaviest 

 burdens on the luxuries and the lightest on the necessaries of life, and as will 

 reduce the incomes from imports to a strictly revenue basis. 



"15. That as a remedy against the unjust accumulation and encroachment 

 of capital, we demand a graduated income tax. 



" 1 6. That as upon the intelligence of the people depend the stability and 

 perpetuity of our own free government, we demand for the masses a well- 

 regulated system of industrial and agricultural education. 



"17. That we oppose the continued influx of pauper labor from the mon- 

 archies of Europe, whose anarchic views and communistic doctrines are 

 breeding discontent and disloyalty to law, order, peace, and good government, 

 and, by an overplus of worthless labor, reducing our own laboring classes to 

 starvation ; we therefore demand more stringent laws to prevent this country 

 being further used as an asylum for the communists and paupers of other 

 countries. 



" 1 8. We demand that the constitutions, both State and national, be so 

 amended as to provide for the election of United States Senators by direct 

 vote of the people." 



The meeting closed amid universal satisfaction, and a general 

 determination to take the order into all the cotton States. In 

 fact, the formation of the cotton-growing States into one grand 

 agricultural organization was as much as the most sanguine 

 expected. It was argued that the cotton belt of the United 

 States produced seven-tenths of the cotton of the world, and 

 that the producers of the raw material, through combination, 

 could force prices to where they would return a fair profit on 

 production. Such a position was logically correct, and no doubt 

 could be made effective. It was with this idea that many of 

 the States joined the organization. However, it soon began to 

 appear that the wheat and cattle raisers of the West were in the 

 same position, and dominated by the same power. A sort of 

 fellow-feeling was engendered through mutual distress, that 



