The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 22, 1918, Page 4

for “disloyalty” charges—the “sedition.” know about them! secret “alliances,” at which they tried to organize to protect their homesteads. They met in secret. They had doorkeepers whose duty it was to warn the farmers of the approach of railroad agents who were seeking to break up local organizations and intimidate the farmers. In the end the profiteers won and the 15,000 farmers had to move off or pay the railroads fancy prices for the homes the United States had promised them at $1.25 an acre. But the old “alliance” idea of protecting their rights did not die. From Oswego, Kan., a few years later, a farmer by the name of Campbell sent to some farmer friends in New York the idea of how the Kansas farmers organized “alliances” to save their homes from plunderers; and from New.York that plan of organization spread westward again, and broke forth anew as the “northern” Alliance in Illinois. From Parsons, Kan., there went another farmer to Texas and he took into that then wild land the Kansas idea of organization, and in 1879 the “south- ern” Alliance, springing from this idea imported from Kansas, came to light in Texas, later united with the Farmers’ union of Louisiana and became - the great political movement of the Kansas farm- ers and all other farmers about 1890. FARMERS’ POLITICAL FIGHT STARTS IN COWLEY COUNTY And right there in southeastern Kansas came the rejuvenation of this idea which brought political victory to the farmers for the first time—right on the soil where the first “alliances” of 1868 were formed to protect the farmers from the railroads. It was in Cowley county that its first outright po- litical efforts broke forth, and it was in Cowley county that Kansas farmers like a tidal wave over- threw their oppressors and put farmers in power." This winning in Cowley county was in 1889, and was the signal to all of Kansas that the dark ages of Kansas history were over. The idea spread like wildfire, just as the Non- partisan league idea has spread from North Dakota. The local business men, who formed one faction of the Republican party and tried to down the farm- ers, were bewildered by this sudden overturning of their supremacy. The farmers were jubilant. One paper commenting on the phenomenon said (Just as the surprised big business press of 1918 said after the North Dakota farmers won their historic campaign): “We knew this movement was growing but were rather surprised at the result. The movement was very well handled, but we don’t know whether it will continue.” . But it did continue. Many counties formed in- Corn stacked beside the railway in central Kansas last year. cause farmers could get nothing for it and had to have fuel. “Yes, the farmers of Kansas did burn corn, and by the light of that burning corn they read the history of the Republican party. in Kansas.” They tried to prove the old Farmers’ alliances “dislo ~ then $235,000,000 worth on file. dependent farmer tickets that year and took pos- session of their county governments by storm. Henry ,Vincent, a crusading reformer from Iowa, who was a big figure in the movement for years, and whose brother, also a radical, is now living in Omaha, Neb., joined in the first call for a political convention, and one of the Vincents went to Texas, where secret organization methods had been de- veloped, and learned to become an “organizer,” as he would be called today. The Knights of Labor united with the organized farmers, and thus began . the strictly political uprising of farmers and or- ganized labor which for years threatened to be- come a permanent power in this country, AND WHICH WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE PROGRESSIVE LEGISLATION THAT THE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES HAVE ENACTED INTO LAW DURING THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY. In that same year - in which Cowley county showed the farmers’ how strong they were when organized, the “northern” and “southern” Alliances came together in Kansas, joined hands on the ground where their ‘ancestor had been born in 1868, and became the national organization of the farmers. These big events had been casting their shadow over Kansas for some years before they burst into solid organization. As far back as 1886 /the Kansas labor bureau had.made an investigation that showed some astounding facts. The bureau found that the farmers of Kansas were making on an average only 85 cents a month over their actual living expenses; that many farms had passed into - the hands of loan sharks; that there were many mortgages on file covering household goods for . sums like $25 to $50 and that the interest charged for these mortgages was 10 per cent a month, and in some cases as high as 375 per cent a year. The average annual interest on these mortgages was 147 per cent. : Four years later more complete figures dealing with land mortgages showed that by that time the ‘big moneyed interests had the Kansas farmers by the throat and were slowly strangling them to death. Two-thirds of the farms of Kansas were mortgaged by 1890. The average interest on farm mortgages was 9 per cent, and of these there were Chattel mortgage interest rates ranged mostly between 40 and 375 per cent. 2 And farmers were unable to pay these mort- gages. X in one term of court. In another county there were 6,581 mortgages on file. In another county 83 per cent of the assessed value of all property was mortgaged. Many farmers, in order to avoid the legal expenses of foreclosure, had abandoned their © o PAGE FOUR . . yal” and “seditious,” although there was no war 30 years ago when this first great farmers’ political rebellion had its start. But they went back 30 years to get a war as a basis é)ivil war. The old prejudices between the North and South had not d%ed out. The “bloody shirt” was waved at every election. So the opposition to the great farmers’ movement of the ’90s, just like the opposition today, saw an opportunity, by using hate and prejudice, to tar the farmers and their leadqrs with They claimed the farmers’ movement of those days was really a new rebellion of the South against the North—that the movement was disloyal and seditious because some of the “leaders” had been identified with the Confederate cause in 1860-65. This became a campaign issue. And the other tricks they used—you will want to The story starts on page 3 of this issue and no reader of the Leader should miss it. In one county there were 426 foreclosures. Years ago Klnéas also produced millions of bushels Quizzed by politicians about this, Jerry Simpson, th farms and moved away to free land further west. In 1890 alone there were 2,650 farms thus deeded over to mortgage companies without an effort of their owners to save them, and in all there were more than 10,000 farms, aggregating 1,696,000 acres, lost to farmers in this way and through foreclosure. These conditions parallel closely those in North Dakota where the League movement started, but in North Dakota the farmers are mortgaged for $200,000,000 instead of $235,000,000. Senator Plumb of Kansas in the United States senate, re- counting other disadvantages under which the farmers labored, declared that Kansas farmers were losing $40,000,000 a year through swindling methods in marketing their grain—bosom com- panion to the well established fact that North Da- kota farmers were losing $55,000,000 a year through similar and allied causes prior to the organization of the League. v “GET BETWEEN PLOW-HANDLES”— “GO AND SLOP THE HOGS” Even before these conditions had arisen the farm- ers of the nation had become active in many states through the Grange and different independent party movements, seeking to improve their lot. Kansas farmers had joined in these earlier scat- tered attempts and frequently united with laborers at the polls and had been ridiculed for it. One of their governors had made himself famous among them by saying: . “Get between plow-handles, you old hayseeds, and send your plow-shares deeper—there’s .your remedy.” This was uttered by Governor George T. Anthony, 20 years before the Kansas farmers took the bit in their teeth. It was uttered several years before similar famous advice was given to the farmers of Iowa, when the big reactionary newspaper of that state told the farmers “to go home and tend to their ‘garden sass’ and leave the making of laws to the. lawmakers.” : And it preceded by nearly 40 years the now fa- mous advice of the legislative floor leader of North Dakota, who, angered at the farmers because they gemanded beneficial laws, told them in the capitol in Bismarck “to go home and slop the hogs.” In one form or another, this same advice has al- ways begn handed to farmers who showed the de- termination to vote for their economic and political welfare instead of for that of the dictators of big business. And in Kansas this attitude of the poli- ticians helped (just as three years ago it helped in North Dakota) to cpen the farmers’ eyes. One thing that made such an attitude especially vivid in Kansas was because this particular governor was e great Kansas leader of the farmers, retorteds % 5 of corn that had to be burned instead of ‘coal, be- . That’s why the People’s party won' { ] h