290 THE FARMER AS A COOPER ATOR. 



understand that their choice must be between a society of this 

 kind or no organization for educational and social purposes. 



The "Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union," in its 

 present form, grew out of the amalgamation of a number of 

 societies of farmers,* which grew up as the result of the Grange 

 movement. They w^ere nearly all, I think, started during the 

 wave of excitement which accompanied the triumphant prog- 

 ress of the Grange, and, in the main, represented the most 

 ** radical " element of the farmers. A '' radical " is one who has 

 mastered but one side of a question. f The founders of all 

 these societies were very much in earnest, and believed that 

 reforms could come, in a free country, only by means of 

 political action. The proposal of the Farmers' Alliance and 

 Industrial Union, therefore, was to bring pressure to bear upon 

 existing political parties, and, failing of results there, to organ- 

 ize a political party of their own. The result, as is well known, 

 was the organization of a new part}^ The regulations of the 

 Farmers' Alliance are as strictly non-partisan as those of the 

 Grange. In practice it was, during its years of greatest success, 

 a secret political organization. | If, as was seldom 'the case, 

 some overscrupulous member objected to "political" discus- 

 sion, it was easy to close the meeting of the "Alliance," open 



* Among these were the " Agricultural Wheel," founded about 1876; the 

 "Farmers' Alliance," founded in 1873; another "Farmers' Alliance," founded 

 in Texas; the "Farmers' Union," founded in 1887; and perhaps others. A 

 final amalgamation of all these societies was eflPected in 1889, under the name of 

 the " Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union." At one time its membership 

 was said to be nearly 3,000,000. 



f There are at least two sides to all questions, and those who have fully- 

 comprehended what can be said on all sides of a subject, are apt to be much less 

 positive in their opinions than those who have studied but one side. It is the 

 radicals, however, who are the cause of most reforms. They usually get less 

 than they ask, because they ask too much, but it is their work which gets some- 

 thing to be done. 



J This is true so far as my experience goes. I have always made it a rale to 

 "join " any local society which would bring the neighbors of my community 

 together for any purpose. When the Alliance fever reached us, I "joined " 

 with the rest. There was nothing in its declaration of principles which I could 

 not approve. I did not approve its practice as it then was in our state. 



