FARMERS' ALLIANCE AND INDUSTRIAL UNION. 151 



mortgages on the homes of our people, bankrupts those 

 who are forced to borrow, paralyzes our industries, and 

 produces hard times and great privations among the 

 masses. 



"It is impossible to have an equitable adjustment of 

 capital and labor so long as money is contracted below 

 that which is adequate to the demands of commerce, 

 hence, if we would correct the abuses and powers that are 

 now prostrating and enslaving onr industries, lift the 

 mortgages from the homes of our people, restore peace and 

 prosperity to our now paralyzed and almost ruined agri- 

 cultural and laboring people, we must have a circulating 

 medium in sufficient volume to admit of transacting our 

 business upon a cash basis. 



' ' I would therefore recommend that you demand at 

 the hands of the law-making functions of our nation a 

 monetary system that shall conform to the interest of the 

 producing and laboring classes as well as the speculator 

 and usurer. 



"That the coinage of silver be as free as gold, and 

 that gold and silver be supplemented with treasury notes 

 (which shall be a full legal tender for all contracts) , in a 

 sufficient amount to furnish a circulating medium com- 

 mensurate to the business necessities of the people. 



LAND. 



"There is, perhaps, no question that demands more 

 serious attention at this time than the present condition 

 of our land. 



* ' From its many resources flow all the wealth of our 

 nation; and upon its proper and just distribution depend 

 the prosperity, contentment, and happiness of the yeo- 

 manry a class upon whom all nations must largely 

 depend for strength and support. 



" During the greatest prosperity of Rome, about 85 

 per cent, of her population owned titles in land. It was 



