260 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



It is made up principally of farmers. They propose to 

 think and act for themselves. If the laboring man was to 

 remain silent on questions of political economy, take what 

 was given them and ask for no more, there would be none 

 of this hue and cry against them which the ring bosses and 

 a subsidized press raise at each election. 



So long as the professional politician was allowed to 

 do the thinking for the laboring masses everything went 

 along smoothly. But when they assert their right to think 

 and act for themselves without consulting the political 

 bosses, the English language is incapable of furnishing 

 epithets strong enough, and mean enough, to apply to those 

 who thus assert their rights. If the farmers and others in 

 the country see fit to withdraw their support from a party 

 which they have long trusted in the vain hope that it 

 would do something to relieve them, whose business is it 

 to question their act? Must they go to the boss of some 

 court house ring to apply for this privilege? Have the 

 farmers any independence, intelligence and manhood of 

 their own? Who is to look after their rights if they do not? 

 Of what use is the right of suffrage if they must vote as 

 dictated to by machine politicians? Is it not to secure 

 these rights that we are organized? What rights are we 

 demanding? What wrongs are .we suffering? What is 

 the nature of the evils with which we are afflicted? 

 How are we to act intelligently unless we discuss these 

 matters among ourselves? The preamble to our consti- 

 tution says that "all monopolies are dangerous to the best 

 interests of the people, " and " calculated to enslave them." 

 The National banking system is a monopoly. A trust is a 

 monopoly. These things are chartered by law. They 

 are fostered by the government. To discuss them and a 

 remedy against the evils which they impose, would be 

 intrenching upon the domain of politics. It would be the 



