THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE. Ill 



scale, thereby eliminating the loss and risk that attend the credit busi- 

 ness, and getting the benefit of wholesale prices. The hope of ultimate 

 success from this line of effort depends upon the ability to enhance the 

 price of what we have to sell, and diminish the price of what we have 

 to buy, thereby increasing the gains. The ability to do this, it is usually 

 argued, depends upon the amount of devotion each member will exer- 

 cise in favor of the object. This line of argument also holds, that if 

 each would be willing to make enough sacrifices of prejudice, and time, 

 and money, they would be certain to succeed. And yet if we admit all 

 that is claimed in this direction, we must still realize that there is a 

 limit to the power that can be enforced by these methods. For 

 example, we cannot reduce the price of the commodities we purchase 

 any below what it costs to manufacture them, neither can we raise the 

 price of the produce we have to sell above a certain limit, without a 

 tendency to have the demand supplied from other sources or by substi- 

 tutes. The probabilities of success, therefore, by the business methods 

 alone, will depend upon the power thus wielded being equal to or 

 greater than the tendency to depression that has proved so powerful in 

 the past. 



Still another method of advocating organization as a means of in- 

 creasing the profits of farming is, that by organization a united effort 

 can be brought to bear upon the authorities that will secure such 

 changes in the regulations that govern the relations between different 

 classes *of citizens as are necessary to secure equal rights, equal privi- 

 leges, and equal chances. Those mentioned, as advocating the second 

 or business line of teaching as the remedy, seem to have drunk a little 

 deeper at the fountain of thought and wisdom than the first class of 

 teachers mentioned ; and those of the third class, now under considera- 

 tion, seem to have pursued the investigation even further than the 

 second class. They recognize the generally known and universally 

 acknowledged maxim of political economists, that a general rise in 

 prices always attends an increase in the volume of the circulating 

 medium of the country, and a general fall in prices always attends a 

 decrease in its volume ; and that the regulations governing the relations 

 between the different classes of citizens in this country empower a 

 certain specified class to issue over one-half of the circulating medium, 

 and permit them to withdraw from circulation any or all of such money 

 at their own pleasure, thereby allowing said class to regulate, as they 

 may choose, the volume of circulating medium in the country, subject 

 to a limit of about forty per cent ; that is to say, should they choose to 

 retire all their circulation, they would reduce the volume of the circu- 



