COLORED FARMERS' ALLIANCE. 291 



and the payment by each member of the Alliance of a small sum in the 

 form of tuition. Very many Alliance academies and high schools have 

 been opened in various sections of the country. In not a few com- 

 munities the people, impelled by the higher cultivation of their social 

 instincts, have built new places of worship, while the intellectual and 

 moral grade of their pastors and teachers has been immeasurably 

 advanced. 



The relation of the colored people in the South to their white neigh- 

 bors had been long a question of the last importance to both races. 

 There were not wanting those who believed in race conflict, race war, 

 and even race extermination. These beliefs and opinions were shared 

 by some of the best people on both sides, as, perhaps, painfully inevit- 

 able results which must follow from existing conditions ; but there were 

 others who were in apparent haste to put their views into practical 

 operation, and who, if judged by their own testimony, were ready to 

 baptize their prejudices in the blood of their fellow-beings, and dishonor 

 themselves by the destruction of their country. The Alliances, both 

 colored and white, were organized from the first largely with a view to 

 the suppression of all prejudices, whether national, local, sectional, or 

 race, and to create conditions of peace and good will among all the 

 inhabitants of our great nation. On this account the " race question " 

 was from the beginning a matter of profoundest interest to the order. 

 At the first practicable moment steps were taken looking to the peaceful 

 solution of that much-vexed and intricate problem. 



December 3, 1889, the representatives of the Colored Farmers' Na- 

 tional Alliance convened in the city of St. Louis. During this session 

 they were visited by committees of fraternal regard from the Farmers 

 and Laborers' Union, the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association, and the 

 National Farmers' Alliance. These visits were acknowledged with the 

 utmost good will, so that the messengers from the several brotherhoods 

 were looked upon rather as ministers of light and salvation. Like com- 

 mittees were appointed from our body to visit and bear our good will 

 and fraternal greetings to these several organizations. 



Again, in Ocala, Florida, at which place their National Council was 

 held in December, 1890, they were visited by committees from the 

 Farmers and Laborers' Union, and by officers of the Knights of Labor, 

 and by members of other labor associations. They appointed com- 

 mittees to each of these bodies, as bearers of their good will and 

 fraternal regard. They further proposed the holding of a joint meeting 

 by these committees to form an association or confederation of the 

 several orders represented, for purposes of mutual protection, co-opera- 



