THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE. 1 3 1 



Resolved, That C. V. Gardner, F. F. B. Coffin, A. N. Van Dorn, E. B. 

 Cummings, Alonzo Wardall, and Mrs. Elizabeth Wardall be received 

 and seated as delegates from South Dakota, and that a charter for the 

 Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union of South Dakota be issued to 

 said persons and their associates. That Walter Muir be received and 

 seated as a fraternal delegate from the State of North Dakota. Adopted 

 unanimously. 



On motion, the city of Jacksonville, Florida, was selected as the place 

 of holding the next regular session. 



Committee on Land made the following report, which was adopted : 



Your committee on land submit the following report : 



The total number of farms in the United States is about 5,000,000 ; 

 1,280,000 are rented. Since 1880 there has been an increase in farm 

 renting to the extent of twenty-five per cent. It is evident to the most 

 ordinary observer that the farms are passing out of the hands of those 

 who cultivate them. It cannot be urged that this is the result of incom- 

 petency or idleness on the part of the tillers of the soil, for statistics 

 show that the wealth of the country has, during the past twenty-five 

 years, increased more than one hundred per cent. No other nation has 

 ever shown such an enormous increase of wealth in the same length of 

 time. All this increase of wealth is the result of the active energies of 

 the producers. It is a peculiar condition, that the producers of all this 

 wealth have gradually grown poorer ; but still the cold, hard fact stares 

 them in the face that they are not only not living as well as they should, 

 but their farms are gradually slipping from their grasp. 



The natural and inevitable result of this accumulation of wealth into 

 the hands of the capitalists, and at the expense of the producers, is the 

 establishment of a land aristocracy on the one hand, and tenant farmers 

 on the other ; such a system as has obtained in many of the European 

 countries. 



Your committee have had neither the time nor the facilities to pre- 

 pare as extensive a report as the importance of the subject demands. 

 From the best and most reliable authority we can obtain, the amount of 

 mortgaged indebtedness resting upon the farms and homes of the peo- 

 ple is not less than $16,000,000,000. The interest on this vast sum, at 

 eight per cent per annum, is $1,280,000,000. This is the annual tribute 

 which the farmers of this country are paying to Shylocks. The im- 

 mensity of this vast sum can the more readily be realized when we con- 

 sider that it exceeds the value of the entire wheat, corn, and cotton 

 crops of the United States for one year. Nor is this all. Other forms 



