the contrary, by those who assume to speak for us, or by frank opponents. Faith will be kept with him in the future, if the South holds her reason and integrity. [Applause.]"

The above was delivered before a Northern audience; and to show that Mr. Grady was perfectly sincere in every word he said on this subject, I will now give an extract from a speech delivered by him at the Augusta, Georgia, Exposition, in 1889, which is as follows:

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“As for the negro, let us impress upon him what he already knows, that his best friends are the people among whom he lives, whose interests are one with his, and whose prosperity depends on his perfect contentment. Let us give him his uttermost rights, and measure out justice to him in that fulness the strong should always give to the weak. Let us educate him that he may be a better, a broader, and more enlightened man. Let us lead him in steadfast ways of citizenship, that he may not longer be the sport of the thoughtless, and the prey of the unscrupulous. Let us inspire him to follow the example of the worthy and upright of his race, who may be found in every community, and who increase steadily in numbers and influence. Let us strike hands with him as friends and as in slavery we led him to heights which his race in Africa had never reached, so in freedom let us lead him to a prosperity of which his friends in the North have not dreamed. Let us make him know that he, depending more than any other on the protection and bounty of government, shall find in alliance with the best elements of the whites, the pledge of safe and impartial administration. And let us remember this — that whatever wrong we put on him shall return to punish us. Whatever we take from him in violence, that

is unworthy and shall not endure. What we steal from him in fraud, that is worse. But what we win from him in sympathy and affection, what we gain in his confiding alliance, and confirm in his awakening judgment, that is precious and shall endure — and out of it shall come healing and peace. [Applause.]"

Every time the partisan politician speaks on this subject he purposely complicates and makes it worse; but thanks to an all-wise Providence for the power that now rests in the hands of the Farmers' Alliance, which has taken up this great question where the noble Grady laid it down. Until the advent of the Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union and the Colored Farmers, the negroes, as a class, have taken but very little interest in politics for several years. They lost their former faith in politics and politicians, which was very natural to one acquainted with the fact that they had always been loyal partisans, and for their devotion and zeal they had been paid off with a few appointments as postmasters in, most generally, third or fourth-class post-offices.

Since the negroes have been organized into the Farmers' Alliance, they have made considerable progress in the study of economic questions, and, judging from the utterances of their leaders, they are willing and anxious to sever all past party affiliations, and join hands with the white farmers of the South and West in any movement looking to a

betterment of their condition. The white farmers of the South, while they are more reluctant to cut loose from party, are perfectly willing and ready to take the negro by the hand and say to him: We are citizens of the same great country; we have the same foes to face, the same ills to bear; therefore our interests as agriculturists are one, and we will co-operate with you, and defend and protect you in all your rights.

In proof of the above, I will simply submit the agreement entered into by the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union and the Colored National Farmers' Alliance and Co-operative Union, at their meetings in the city of Ocala, Florida, on the second day of December, 1890, which is as follows:

"Your committee on above beg leave to report that we visited the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Co-operative Union Committee, and were received with the utmost cordiality, and after careful consultation it was mutually and unanimously agreed to unite our orders upon the basis adopted December 5, 1890, a basis between the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union and the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association; to adopt the St. Louis platform as a common basis, and pledge our orders to work faithfully and earnestly for the election of legislators, State and national, who will enact the laws to carry out the demands of said platform; and to more effectually carry it into effect recommend the selection of five men from each national body, two of whom shall be the president and secretary, respectively, who shall, with similar committees from other labor organizations, form a Supreme Executive Board, who shall meet as often as may be deemed necessary, and upon the joint call of a majority of the presidents of the bodies joining the confederation; and when so assembled, after electing a chairman and secretary, shall be empowered to do such things for the mutual benefit of the various orders they represent as shall be deemed expedient; and shall, when officially promulgated to the national officers, be binding upon their bodies until reversed by the action of the national assemblies themselves – political, educational, and commercial; and hereby pledge ourselves to stand faithfully by each other in the great battle for the enfranchisement of labor and the laborers from the control of corporate and political rings; each order to bear its own members' expense on the Supreme Council, and be entitled to as many votes as they have legal voters in their organization. We recommend and urge that equal facilities, educational, commercial, and political, be demanded for colored and white Alliance men alike, competency considered, and that a free ballot and a fair count will be insisted upon and had, for colored and white alike, by every true Alliance man in America. We further recommend that a plan of district Alliances, to conform to district Alliances provided for in this body, be adopted by every order in confederation, with a district lecturer, and county Alliances organized in every county possible, and that the lecturers and officers of said district and counties co-operate with each other in conventional, business, educational, commercial, and political matters."

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After the above agreement was entered into, the following communication was received from the Colored National Farmers' Alliance and Co-operative Union :

UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORNIA

THE RACE PROBLEM.

279

"To the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, convened at Ocala December 3, 1890: Alliance and Co-operative Union recognizes your fraternal greeting; gladly do we accept your right hand, and pledge ourselves to the fullest co-operation and confederation in all essential things."

To one who feels a deep interest in this matter, this looks more like a step in the direction of settling this question in the South than anything that has ever been done since the question existed.

"God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform," and who knows but that he has raised up a Moses, in the person of these farmers' organizations, to lead us out of these our troubles? So mote it be.

CHAPTER X.

THE POLITICAL REBELLION IN KANSAS.

BY HON. JERRY Simpson, MemBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE SEVENTH DISTRICT OF KANSAS.

IN the campaign of the fall of 1890, in Kansas, a new party sprang into power, which gained strength with a rapidity never before equalled. What was the cause that produced this sudden rebellion against the Republican party? What was the cause of the uprising of the farmers, and what is the remedy for the evils of which they complain? All these are questions pressing for answers; in fact, they must be answered correctly, and the remedy be applied, if this government is to continue to be a free government by the people. It is not always safe, perhaps, to trust a sick man to diagnose his own case; neither can you trust to quacks who profess to cure all ills to which flesh is heir with one quack remedy.

We seem to have once again entered one of those periods in which nations have been confronted with these same questions: like the riddle of the Sphynx, not to answer was to be destroyed. Never before in the history of the world were there such momentous questions; never before in the history of the world was the welfare of the human race so bound up in the solving of these problems. We must now and here settle whether or not we are capable of self government. We must grapple with, and master, this monster which has eaten up the substance of the producers of wealth in every land. The voters of Kansas are the best representatives of the agricultural class of a half-dozen of the best agricultural States in the Union; they have come West to better their condition; they are a part of that great throng which is always pressing ahead into new countries, trying to escape the oppression of the men who live off their labor; but they find that in Kansas, as in other States, it is impossible to get from under the load which is continually being shifted upon their shoulders, and which grows heavier from year to year. They have found that, in the last twenty-five years, the country, under the control of the great Republican party, has passed into the hands of the money power, the capitalists of the country, who have doubled the oppression of the agricultural classes. Having cried in vain for relief through the Republican and Democratic parties, they are at last driven