CHAPTER XIV. 



THE FARMERS' CONGRESS. 

 BY COLONEL ROBERT BEVERLEY, THE PLAINS, VIRGINIA. 



THIS organization was the first serious effort to organize the farmers of 

 the United States for the purpose of influencing national legislation. 

 All efforts, heretofore, had been confined to State organizations. It was 

 organized in 1875, at Atlanta, Georgia, with General W. H. Jackson of 

 Tennessee, President. It made but little progress from that time until 

 1879. At this meeting C. J. Hudson of Mississippi was chosen Presi- 

 dent, and I was selected as Vice- President. Louisville, Kentucky, was 

 chosen as the place of next meeting. At this meeting, Mr. Hudson 

 being in poor health, I was elected President. Fully realizing the lan- 

 guishing condition of agriculture, I immediately issued the following 

 address : 



" To the Farmers of the United States: 



" At the recent meeting of the National Agricultural Congress at Louisville, Ken- 

 tucky, honored by election to the presidency of that body, the duty devolves upon 

 me of issuing this brief address explanatory of the aims and purposes of the organiza- 

 tion, this earnest appeal to every farmer in the Union to extend to us his active and 

 cordial sympathy and co-operation. Everything which can affect the dignity or pros- 

 perity of agriculture is a subject of national importance, and is entitled to the respect- 

 ful attention of the government of the nation, so often vauntingly declared to be 

 ' the government of the people, by the people, and for the people ' ; yet the fact is 

 utterly and scornfully ignored that the tillers of the soil are a clear majority of all the 

 people. 



"The ultimate aim and purpose of the National Agricultural Congress is twofold; 

 viz.: First, to arouse agriculturists themselves to a realization of this great fact; 

 and, secondly, to enforce a recognition of it upon the representatives of the people 

 who have been delegated to administer the State and national governments. It is a 

 fact which admits of no dispute, that no prominent and influential statesman in any 

 department of the national government either possesses, or apparently desires to pos- 

 sess, even a superficial knowledge of agriculture in any of its aspects, relations, or 

 interests. This great business, by which a majority of all the people live, and through 

 which all have their bread, is practically unrepresented in any department of the 

 people's government. In the executive branch they have a commissioner who ranks 

 only with the clerks of other departments; in the Senate they have one, and in the 

 House of Representatives twenty-seven members in a body of more than three hun- 

 dred. When we propose to remedy this improper, unreasonable, and unjust state of 

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