PURPOSES OF THE ALLIANCE. 259 



This is evidenced by the fact that the organic law has from time to time 

 been changed, and very materially changed. -The statutory law has, 

 at every meeting, been more or less modified and changed to meet new 

 conditions as they arose. There is no way to avoid the conclusion that 

 this great- movement does not depend upon the wisdom of those who 

 started it, upon the peculiar features of the organic or statutory law first 

 enacted, or since modified and changed ; neither does it depend in any 

 great degree upon the intelligence, energy, wisdom, foresight, or capacity 

 of its officers. The greatest mistakes have failed to retard its growth or 

 development. The most serious misconception of its objects and pur- 

 poses, by those acting in the most responsible positions, has in like 

 manner failed to interfere with its grand onward march. The fact must 

 therefore be recognized, that it is the highest evolution of modern 

 development ; that it is one of a series of steps in the evolution of mate- 

 rial progress, in which the power, force, and benign influences of organ- 

 ization shall reach their height. This must evidently be true, because 

 this organization contemplates securing the co-operation of far the most 

 numerous and most conservative and most intelligent class in the 

 universe. 



This view of the genesis of the Farmers' Alliance is also calculated 

 to give a correct and acceptable conception of what may be expqeted 

 of the movement as it reaches higher stages of development. If this is 

 a correct conception of what the Farmers' Alliance is, then it follows of 

 necessity that it will, as time progresses, be recognized by the farmers of 

 this country as a great reserve force for good, a sinking fund of power, 

 a savings bank of force and energy, a great, a powerful, and yet an 

 invisible and ever-present something to which they can apply for power 

 to overcome unjust conditions that may arise at every emergency. The 

 co-operation of the conservative, the good, the honest, and the deter- 

 mined, must mean, when properly carried out, the enforcement of 

 justice, equity, and equality. 



This conception of the purposes of the order places it above any 

 local or fleeting issue that may be presented, no matter how fierce the 

 conflict may become. It is a co-operation by agriculturists for good 

 and right, for equality and justice. Business contests or political fights 

 may be incidental to these great ends, but they can never supplant them 

 as the objects of the order ; and herein lies the certainty of perpetuity, 

 since good and right, equality and justice, are everlasting principles, and 

 present a perpetual issue with error, vice, oppression, and discrimination. 

 It is the old issue in which the Divine Master gave up his life as an 

 example of the devotion due to principle, and on this issue the Alliance 



