The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 10, No. 46, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 12, 1891 Page: 5 of 16
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Ñov. 12,1801.
SOUTHERN MERCURY.
NO RETREAT.
7
Victory or Death.
miss maud jones.
It is no wonder that the growing
oppressions which have affected
the laboring classes in America for
the past 25 years, has developed
an organized effort to break the
shackles that bind them. The
Grange, the Farmers Alliance, the
Knights of Labor and various other
organaiztions of labor are but the
cumuli which portend the coming
storm.
It is worse than idle to talk
about measures being unconstitu-
tional. Constitutions may be
changed, as well as laws; and if the
policy of the gigantic corporations
is to utterly ignore the popular
will, setting every principle of jus-
tice at defiance, until the indigna
tion of, the people is wrought to
such a pitch that the day of spoil-
tion of railways will come, and
neither vested rights nor common
honesty is likely to obtain a hear-
ing, they may console themselves
with the reflection that they were
the aggressors.
No student of history, especially
of the history of the great corpora-
tions of the century, can fail to dis
cern the fate of many of our great
railway companies. One legisla-
ture after another threatens and is
cajoled or bought off. But the op-
pression continues to grow worse.
Year by year the instinct of re-
bellion grows stronger and stronger,
and it is to be hoped that the day
is not far ^distant when it will co-
here enough to make demands with
emphasis that will brook no delay.
The question has often been
asked, "What gave rise to the
Farmers Alliance?" It is easily
answered. Monopoly! This is
the answer in a nutshell. Monop
oly that wants the earth, and with
it the souls and bodies of the peo
pie who inhabit it. It demands
everything God has made, for its
own use. It would absorb Europe,
Asia, Africa, America and Aus-
tralia.
In vain has the farmer plead; in
vain has he sought relief. He has
been put off, on one pretense and
another, until "forbearance has
ceased td be a virtue; and having
learned to his sorrow, that in com
bination there is strength, he is
seeking through a counter-combi-
nation of his fellow laborers, to
consummate tbat which he knows
can never be accomplished in any
other manner.
Appeals to the legislatures and
to the courts have been met by
boodle of corporations. The far-
mers are calling a halt. Hereto-
fore they have asked fcr that which
they should have had without the
Mking. It is a peculiar condition
of affairs, that the most important
class of society, the producers, have
received less consideration, than
any other. "They have asked for
a fish and been given a serpent,
for bread and been given a stone."
The farmers and laborers are or-
ganizing for victory. They are pre-
paring to move upon the enemy.
Not in gaudy trappings of war,
with flying banners and martial
music, but silently, peaceably, and
by force of reason, and the potent
influence of the ballot.
It has entered the conflict against
monopoly, and on its banners is
inscribed its motto: "In things
essentia], unity; in all things, char-
ity." It cannot afford to turn back.
Nothing but an aggressive warfare
will win.
The fight, on one side, is waged
to retain the privilege to rob and
plunder; on the other hand, to
regain constitutional rights. To
win is to be free, comfortable
and happy. To fail, is to drift in-
to centralization, where money and
aristocracy will rule. No; we can-
not affort to turn back.
McMeans in Southeast Texas.
w. s. fall.
The occasion that inspires me, is
the second visit to our town, of
that grand old worker, Bro. C. A.
McMeans, and to say that he did
good work here, does not the half
express it. The business men of
Chireno, our ministers, and in fact,
the public generally, as well as the
Alliance brethren for miles around,
turned out to hear him. For at
least two hours he was listened to
attentively. His subject was, 1st,
the principles; 2nd, the demands
of the Farmers Alliance and Indus-
trial Union of America, closing
with a full and complete explana-
tion of the sub-treasury plan. It
was indeed, encouraging to see our
leading business men, and espec-
ially, our pastor, shake his hand
and say that they endorsed every
word he said. As he hurriedly re-
viewed some of the acts of congress,
as they pertained to the financial
policy of our government, for the
last 25 years. I noticed some of the
old Alliance brethren hurriedly
brush away tears. He proved
conclusively, to the satisfaction of
all present, that our demands re-
lating to land, money and trans-
portation, were sound democratic
doctrine, and that they were con-
stitutional, proving every word he
said, by such patriots and states-
men, as Jefferson, Madison, Web-
ster, Lincoln and JohnC. Calhoun.
This being the first explanation
and defense of the sub treasury
plan, publicly stated, that we have
ever heard in Chireno. I felt that
it was right our brethren abroad
should know how we re-
reived it. You may inform them
through the columns of your most
excellent paper, that we accept
them, and in '02 can be depended
on to assist at the ballot box, ia
defending them.
Bro. McMeans' visit warmed us
up, strengthened and revived us,
and prepared us to go forward with
renewed energy, determined to be
found doing our whole duty.
Bro. McMeans went from here
tó Black Jack, where his audience
was considerably larger than at
Chireno, and his effort equally as
good. He had lectured there
some months ago, jand the
people receivéd and heard him
gladly. We consider him a strong,
courageous and true man, in fact,
the right man in the right place.
Let the good work go on.
SENATOR MORGAN'S ERROR.
We copy from the November
Forum the following from Hon.
John Morgan, United States sena-
ator from Alabama:
It is a melancholy thought that
the purposes and principles of
the Farmers Alliance should be
thus abused by selfish politicians
who have crept into its secret
counsels. There was nothing
wrong or unjust, unpatriotic or un-
wise in this organization as it was
originally established. Neither
was it wflak in its influence on pub-
lic policy. It was a powerful or-
ganization for political resistence
to political wrong or injustice. It
was inspired with the thought in
which the higher liberties of the
people have often had their birth,
the redress of grieviances. It was
made necessary as a means of re-
sistance to legalized monopoly, to
legalized robbery, to trusts that
sprang up eveiywhere to choke
down business rivalry and honest
competition, and to the accumu-
lated advantages given to corpora-
tions and combines by the legisla-
tion of the country. It was the
first grand effort of the farmers to
combine in resistance to others
who had combined for aggression
upon them; and its failure, if it is
destroyed by a misplaced confi-
dence in its political leaders, will
result in weakening, if not dissi-
pating an influence that would
otherwise have blessed the coun-
try. The sincere defenders of tbe
people against the aggressions of
monopoly, trusts and combines,
armed with the control of taxation
and finance, will miss the power-
ful support of the Alliance, when
its noble mission has been degrad-
ed into a disreputable hunt after
office.
It is still more melancholy that
a man honored as Senator Morgan
of Alabama has been, should so far
forget himself as to deliberately
místate facts, yet it is so. The Alli-
ance has not changed its declaration
of purposes, or its methods of en-
forcing them. The leaders of the
Alliance now have been its
leaders for years. They are
not and have not been office seed-
ers. They are practical farmers.
Some of them have been recently
elected to high national offices
without their own seeking. Why
not? Does an Allianceman abdi-
cate his rights and duties as a citi-
zen because he joins the or-
ganization? The statement
that "selfish politicians have
crept into the counsels of the
order" is untrue. No new mem-
ber of the organization is now in
high official position. If the Alli-
ance was originally powerful, wise
and patriotic, it is more so now.
The trouble is that just so long as
Alliancemen were content to im-
plicitly obey the commands of the
party boss, the Alliance was the
salt of the earth. The indiscrim*
inate political trading bosses,
out of which the Alliance
man reaped nothing but poverty
finally aroused, their Anglo-Saxon
blood, and caused them to inves-
tigate and know the reason
of existing conditions.
Every partisan boss-ridden
newspaper in Texas has published
the call issued by a small coterie
of disgruntled Alliance men, for a
meeting at Corsicana on the 2Gth
inst. For years these same pa-
pers have published everything
they could lay thtir hands on cal-
culated to confuse and disrupt the
Farmers Alliance. Yet nearly
every one of them assert that they
are true friends to the order, and
at the same time refuse to publish
anything calculated to build it up.
Cnn such papers expect to palm off
rot of this kind on the people?
Would they attempt it if they be-
lieved the members of the Alliance
had common sense? Do they ex-
pect the people to conuinue to kiss
the rod that smites them.
The plutocratic newspapers of
the North are replete with aser-
tions that "the Alliance in the
South is dying out." Here in
Texas, in 1888, we had 120 or-
ganized County Alliances. At our
August (1891) meeting 156 County
Alliances were represented, each
county reporting an increased
membership,since the last meeting.
Seventy-eight charters have been
granted to new sub-Alliances. All
other Southern states are in sub-
stantially the same "dying" con-
dition.
4 J. S. Bradley is giving the
bosses trouble in the 11th district
and it is said Lanham is afraid to
meet him Educate your constit-
uency, Colonel, or you may loose
your job.
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 10, No. 46, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 12, 1891, newspaper, November 12, 1891; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185438/m1/5/: accessed July 12, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .