300 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL. 



our interest and to the nation thousands of millions of dollars. If the machinery and 

 funds necessary for the collection and distribution of such incalculably valuable fore- 

 warnings are lacking, it will be a shame to our representatives if, with an overflowing 

 national treasury and a sufficient corps of trained scientists lacking employment at 

 their disposal, the machinery and funds are not forthwith provided; and, as agricul- 

 turists, we demand it. 



" We repeat it, that we entertain no purpose to assume an attitude of hostility to 

 any of the great interests of the country; least of all do we entertain any purpose 

 of assailing any actual vested right legitimately belonging to any of the great trans- 

 portation companies; but we are deeply sensible of the vital importance to all agri- 

 cultural interests of cheap, steady, and safe transportation of their products to the 

 great markets of the world. In furtherance of this great national desideratum, we 

 shall favor at all times any State and national policy which shall foster the creation 

 and improvement of such great commercial highways as, for example, the Mississippi 

 River and the ship canals across the Delaware and Florida peninsulas. Such, we 

 feel, would be a better direction to give to the surplus of swollen revenues, thus 

 employing some of our surplus and idle labor, than the anticipation of the demands 

 of the public creditor by this generation. 



"Space does not permit me to enter into elaborate details; but why should we 

 not demand and receive appropriations from the national treasury for the protec- 

 tion of our imperilled interests, aggregating hundreds, yea, thousands of millions, of 

 taxable values? Does the Constitution stand in the way? Do we not know that 

 peaceful machinery is provided whereby we who are a majority of all the people of 

 all the States may alter or even abolish that instrument, and that our right to do 

 so is ' inalienable, indefeasible, and indisputable ' ? Look at the shoal of proposed 

 amendments to the Constitution of your country thrust with unseemly haste upon the 

 national legislature the very first day of the current session, proposed amendments 

 which can in no case take higher rank than mere political and partisan schemes, and 

 say that we must sit down powerless to protect our rights ! 



"In furtherance of purposes such as I have feebly and imperfectly set forth; in fur- 

 therance of every purpose which has for its object the advancement of the great 

 calling we pursue, the National Agricultural Congress was itself called into existence. 

 In furtherance of these great purposes and aims, we earnestly and respectfully invoke 

 the action, co-operation, and cordial sympathy of every farmer of every section of this 

 vast country the home and the domain of the foremost, the mightiest, and most 

 progressive nation on earth." 



The next meeting was held at Nashville, and certain rules were adopted 

 governing representation. At this meeting seventeen States were repre- 

 sented. The next meeting was held at New Orleans, with nineteen States 

 represented. Resolutions calling upon Congress to grant radical reforms 

 were passed, and a general determination prevailed to work for their 

 adoption. The next meeting was held in Washington, District of Colum- 

 bia, January, 1887, which made an impression upon Congress, then in 

 session. The next meeting was held in Chicago, after which I retired, 

 and Colonel Kolb of 'Alabama was chosen president. It is believed that 

 this Congress was the forerunner of the Alliance, and prepared the way 



