The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 1, 1918, Page 14

NN\ N N / " % o ’/%///I; i N \ N\ N N RN % S/ AN Woman’s Part in the Farmers’ Alliance A Sketch of How They Helped 25 Years Ago in the People’s Fight for | The following is an abbre- viated article written by Mrs. i Otto Mutz of Nebraska and read ] before the Nebraska State His- torical society at Lincoln, Janu- ary 16, 1918, recounting the part women had in the great farm- ers’ movement of 25 years ago. It was found impossible to get the article into the limits of the space assigned and some parts were omitted, but the most interesting portions, and ‘especially those that give the spirit of the times, were retain- ed, and will be of great interest to the wives, daughters and sis- ters of Nonpartisan league \ members, because Mrs. Mutz, { who knew the movement first hand, shows that the movement of 1890 aimed for the same goal as the present movement, and that it derived much of its power from the active part taken by women. — THE EDITOR. BY MRS. OTTO MUTZ UST why the doors of the Alliance were opened to women, I can not tell, but a per- sonal acquaint- ance with the or- ganizers leaves little doubt that :they had an inward consciousness of ', the need of women’s help in a struggle . that was so intimately related to the : ‘home. Y | The nation was passing through a |.critical period of its history. The \-pulse of business prosperity and po- } litical integrity was at its lowest ebb. { Prices of the products of the farm | were ruinous. The homes of the : people were daily being sacrificed to i satisfy the legal demands of fixed in- ‘comes. The tentacles of corporate /' power were so firmly fastened upon !| political parties that petitions for re- ., dress were unheeded. It was the . unanimous verdict of the producing | classes that “politics is a dirty pool, "and the pool must go.” . How effectively they were able to . write that verdict into law is today ' a matter of history and, lest that his- “ tory be forgotten or misunderstood, i1 want to say in the presence of this i society that the organization of the . Farmers’ alliance and the part the cswomen took in the great problem- ¢ solving campaign "set in motion by . them is the greatest single event that . in recent times had been achieved by imodern political and economic 7 thought. : |~ These were turbulent times. The ‘houses, ' dealing sledgehammer blows of truth, aroused and awakened a .mew consciousness that wrote into the ws of every state the beginning of {’a new order. : g -The Farmers’ alliance urged the ‘election of United States senators by .direct ~vote of the people, the ¢ initiative and referendum, the abol- - educational campaign in the school-’ Freedom, by One ition of the railroad pass, direct primaries, government ownership of railroads and many other laws af- fecting the homes of the people. Nearly all of these reforms are at this time enacted into law, and the women of the Alliance will never have cause to apologize for their part in helping to lay the foundation for thesg great reforms. WOMEN OF THE NINETIES TOLD WHAT THEY KNEW Am I claiming too much for the woman’s part in the Farmers’ al- liance? This must not be. History must ring true to fact. Men had their part and they played it well, but women had”“been educated in a different school. They had grown ex- perts in accounts from long economy. They told the politicians that prom- ises and performance did not balance. They demanded less eloquence and more justice. They insisted that the great West was the labor theater in which-a drama was being enacted and that the curtain would never ring down, nor the lights be turned off until an era of justice should be ush- Mrs. Peterson ered into the world for the men and women who toil. Women’s part in the Alliance, like the part of individuals in every cause, is a story of great leaders and loyal supporters. Every state had its leaders and every leader filled a spe- cial place in the great campaigns, but to Kansas we believe belongs the credit of bringing into public notice and into active work more real lead- ers among the women than any other ‘state. Will any one deny the right of Mrs. Mary Ellen Lease to the honor of being the peerless orator of the Alliance? We think not. Irish by birth, born with a hatred: of op- pression, her utterances fervid, im- pulsive, acterized by -General James® 'B. Weaver in his introduction of her at the mational convention at St. Louis 'PAGE FOURTEEN Pay for the' Wageless Years HAT does the Nonpartisan league mean to me? newal of hopes lost during the wageless years I have worked as seeii) a farmer’s wife. we will have an administration which will enforce the laws, clean up our towns, teach insurance companies what the word “insur- ance” means, give farm children a better school, and make the farm a place to live as . well as to work, by keeping some of the money for which we work and by making ‘over our products near home, thus giving us all a part in “Hooverizing” the middleman. This short, but pointed letter, had so much_ substance to it, that Mrs. Peterson was among the win- ners in the Leader’s recent contest in which women answered the question above.—THE EDITOR. heroie, “every sentence a thunderbolt of truth, she was char- - Who Participated “The Queen Mary” of the reform movement. Mrs. Eva McDonald-Valesh, for- merly Eva McDonald, lecturer of the National alliance, who during one cf our campaigns in Nebraska deliver:d the oration of the Fourth of July at the Alliance picnic at Wahoo, said in &n address later at Springfield, Chio: “I intend to speak for women’s part in reform until the prejudice that would relegate her to the four square walls of home is dead.” It has been well said that the Farmers’ alliance was the product of the spirit of the democratic West. Here it was given . birth; z«ad from the spirited agitation the conservative East began to inquire of its meaning and its purposes. To Mrs. Annie L. Diggs belongs the credit oi placing the Alliance cause before the entire nation in her thorough and painstak- .ing magazine articles. MAN’S LIFE BOUND UP WITH SOCIAL ACTIVITIES Interwoven with every activity of men must be found an opportunity for the cultivation of the social side It means the re- It means that MRS. H. L. PETERSON, Bowbells, N. D. of life. Man is a social being and the cultivation of the social side of his life is as necessary to his happi- ness and wellbeing as the cultivation of the things that make for his ma- terial welfare. : These things never were forgotten by the women of the Alliance. The social meetings were subjects of “the mast - careful - study. Indeed,. they furnished " the cement that sealed many life friendships and leveled many prejudices, and nothing was more helpful in the social meetings than the Alliance songs composed by Mrs. Florence Olmstead of Kansas and Mrs. J. T. Kelley of Nebraska. These stirring songs, filled with re- ligious reform sentiments and right- eousness, made a lasting impression wherever heard. 3 The history of batt'es fought and won too often’ idealizes the leaders and minimizes the part taken by the men behind the guns. Let this no{ be true of the women’s part in th¢ Allitance movement, for just as truly .- as our armies now going to the firin lines of France know that the la; argument in war is the man behin the guns, it is true in every batt of reform. Everywhere women we in the thick of the fight. They printe mottoes for banners, they marched iy processions, they advised in commit tees, they organized glee clubs, an nothing could have been more t than the saying of Josh Billing‘fi, “Wimmen is everywhere.” { How well do I remember when our Honest John Powers, early in the '90s, was announced to speak at the Al liance -picnic to be held at the wes end of Keya Paha county, near the village of Norden. The grouni selected was one of those beautiful evergreen scented. canyons on - the sunny Niobrara river. From ou home it was 30 miles, but in the lives of our people, not overfull of such stirring events, everybody must go, even though the sacrifice it called for seemed great. Processions from local . alliances came from every point in X the county. Glee clubs, wagonloads of people, whole families out for a day at the great Alliance picnic. What a picnic dinner and what a speech! I do not wonder even today-that the people rallied to those stirring ap- peals. It was the promise of a better day and they rallied to the promise. But the one crowning event of those stirring times in northwest Nebraska was a joint celebration on the Fourth - of July between Brown, Rock and Keya Paha counties ‘with that old warhorse of reform; General James B. Weaver, as the orator of the day. The celebration was held at the Good- rich grove, about the center of the county east and west and at a bridge across the river into Rock county. Nearly every lccal alliance from each of the counties came in procession and long before the noon hour it seemed that even the great grove would fail in capacity to hold the people. It was the same old- story of meetings beinz held in every part of the state, only perhaps with in- creased enthusiasm. Weaver’s speech was a gem of patriotic fervor and original wit. The woods resounded with approving cheers. Enthusiasm was at its hizhest, and even at this time, after the lapse of so many years, those men grown gray with the storm of many winters and the toil of many summers, refer to that great Alliance dcelebration as “The Weaver Meeting.” The Alliance days are past. The history of those old .days is written only in a fragmentary way. The older men and women of those days have joined that innumerable host in a land yvhere greed and extortion-and self- ishness need no curbing by political . and social revolutions and the younger people are today facing a new menace. Only a slacker could stand idly on _ the sidewalk and criticize as the army of workers marches by.. P e S a3 T '3 A Make 12 ounces of bread do where = i 16 served before.