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6 Farmers' Union Department ROSTER OF NATIONAL AND STATE OFFICERS. NATIONAL OFFICERS. C. S. Barrett, president, Atwater, Georgia. J. E. Montgomery, vice-president, Gleason, Tenn. R. H. McCullough, secretary-treas urer, Beebe, Ark. L. N. Holmes, chaplain, Bernice, Louisiana. STATE OFFICERS. Georgia Headquarters—Barnesville.. R. F. Duckworth—President. W. P. Quinby—Vice-President. J. L. Barron —Secretary-Treasurer. J. L. Lee —State Organizer. G. M. Davis —Lecturer. J. G. Eubanks —State Business Agent. Alabama —I. A. Worley, president, Guin, Ala.; E. J. Cook, secretary-treas urer, Pell City, Ala. Arkansas —J. B. Lewis, president, Jonesboro, Ark.; Ben L. Griffin, secre tary-treasurer, Conway, Ark. Indiahoma —J. A. West, President, Shawnee, O. T.; B. C. Hanson, secre tary-treasurer, Shawnee, O. T. Louisiana —L. N. Holmes, president, Bernice, L,; J. W. Boyett, Jr., sec treasurer, Tanhill, La. Mississippi—J. M. Bass, president; Hazlehurst, Miss.; G. W. Russell, sec retary-treasurer, Hazlehurst, Miss. Tennessee —J. E. Montgomery, pres ident, Greenfield, Tenn.; J. T. Brooks, secretary-treasurer, Atwood, Tenn. Texas —E. A. Calvin, president. Dal las, Texas ;.B. F. Chapman, secretary treasurer, Dallas, Texas. South Carolina —O. P. Goodwin, president, Anderson, S. C.; B. F. Earl, secretary-treasurer, Anderson, South Carolina. “DON’T GO INTO POLITICS.” The advice of your enemies is GOOD! Don’t go into politics—but make politics come to you—you farmers, who feed and clothe the nation. Your work conjures up “the living spirit within the wheels” that make the progress and prosperity of the na tion. Politics is “the science of govern ment” and the science of government is the registration and reign of laws that secure “equal rights and equal opportunities to all men, and deny special privileges to any man, or com bination of official favorites.” You have known all that since the genial politicians first began to pluck at your coat sleeve when you went to town, or followed you home and chas ed you around the calf lot trying to tell you of his burning love for you and yours! You have known that a big ma jority of every state legislature since Father Adam began to caucus with satan has been elected by the votes of farmers. You have known that since the foundation of this government the greater part of every congress has been made up of men who never would have warmed a seat in that body had the farmers of their districts refused to vote for them. You know that ninety-seven per cent of all directly beneficial legisla tion, both in state legislatures and in congress, has always been for special interests, or to promote other forms of Industry and commerce than farming. The national bankers do not vote THE POWER THAT WAITS Dy SAN W. SNALL I stood beside the boundless ocean spread And saw omnipotence heave ’neath its breast — Saw more than water, waves and deep unrest — Saw moving there the pulse of God o’erliead ! What wonder men have never lost their dread Os that vast pow’r whene’er it makes request? When ships sink down, and fleets fly east and west To harbor lives, and mourn the myriad dead? So stand I by the oceanic fields That heave and billow ’tween our bord’ring seas ’Neath the strong working hands of God-like men, And hear them groan as singly their rich yields Are seiz’d by law-bred thieves! I cry: “Yet these Have pow’r to save themselves! Oh, God, but WHEN ?” much, for all of them bunched to gether could not elect one congress man. They only furnish the cam paign boodle to buy venal votes. They go into politics, all right, and get what they go after! The manufacturers who reap un righteous millions through the protec tive tariff, do not vote much. There are not enough persons engaged in manufacturing establishments in the United States to elect thirty congress men! But the protected manufactur ers go into politics every time, and furnish campaign corruption funds, and practice damnable coercions upon their employes “to make them vote right!” The transportation people of the United States are all together far less than half the number of agriculturists, yet see how they go into politics and “run the government” as their own! Os course, “the farmers ought to have their social organizations,” but — “never, never go into politics!” That would be the unpardonable sin against God and crime against the other interests that are in politics up to their mouths! They keep those useful political organs—mouths, smellers, ears and eyes—above the tide so that they can “catch on” to all that is going! The Farmers’ Union and all other faimers’ organizations should surely keep out of politics —for the farmer. But did you ever have one of your Democratic politicians tell you to keep out of his Democratic politics? Did you ever have a Republican poli tician tell you how unbecoming and fatal to you it would be to keep out of hi* Republican politics? Say, Farmer, can you see through a ladder? If you can, why stand still looking through It? WHY NOT GET ON TO IT AND CLIMB? S. W. S. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. THE SPIRIT OF THE FIGHT. Having put their hands to the plow in this business of enforcing the just treatment of their rights, the farmers of the South and of America should neither look nor turn back from their appointed way. The saying is trite that “everybody works the farmer.” It is the uncon scious, when not corrupt, rule of ac tion of everybody with whom the farmer has to deal, from the field hand to the high financiers of Wall street and the New York Cotton Exchange. Co-operation is the modern giant of prosperity. It has made rich and pow erful the national bankers, the insur ance conspirators, the manufacturers’ trust and the railway buccaneers of the land. Co-operation, with the like selfish sincerity and fraternity loyalty, can make the farmers of America the real dictators of honest government and honest business in this nation. Farmers are not lacking in faith. They show it supremely when they plow, harrow, sow and cultivate, and then trust God and His seasons. Farmers are not lacking in courage. They show it when the country needs defenders, and the bulk of our armies come forth from the fields and forests rather than from parlors, offices and club rooms. Farmers are not lacking in honesty. They show it in the simplicity of their dealings with each other and with the world, selling the products of their la bor —the natural outgrowths of all es sential wealth from the soil —for what ever the market will pay. If the farmer lacks any of the prime elements of perfect success in his call ing they are the wisdom of co-opera tion and the spirit of justice for his claims and his rights. Abolish our farms, and by that work we abolish civilization, government and end the history of humanity with famine and death. The farmer, then, holds the first and the final claims on civiliza tion, government and universal jus tice. What the farmers of the south, espe cially, and of the nation, generally, need today is to get into the fight for their rights. They must no longer be “dumb, driven cattle” of the merchants, the railroads and the brokers. Many ef forts have been made in the past to organize the farmers for self protec tion and for the self husbanding of their proper share of the wealth they develop. What if the efforts have not yet been fully successful —they have been schooling and effective education. The present effort, or the next, or another yet, may be the crystallization and the conquest so long sought and prayed for! Today it is the duty of every farmer who has brains enough to know his rights and courage enough to defend them to unite with the Farmers’ Edu cational and Co-Operative Union to bring to pass that condition wherein the farmers can compel the world to meet them on the highest levels of commerce and deal with them on the plainest principles of right and equity. S. W. S. THE KEY TO VICTORY. General Robert Toombs resigned from the cabinet of President Jeffer son Davis early in the Civil war, chiefly because his plan for financing the “war-born Confederacy” was not adopted. That plan was to have the Confed erate authorities purchase the surplus cotton crop of the south with Confed erate money or bonds, ship the cotton out to England and warehouse it there, to be sold for gold at prices that the English spinners and those of the con tinent would have to pay for other cot ton and for ours! Professor Shaler and other eco nomic writers since the war have de clared that had the Toombs plan been adopted the Confederacy “would not have perished from economic exhaus tion!” They freely admit that our cotton in England would have been an increasing basis of credit, and the Confederacy could have bought all the munitions it needed and compelled open ports. They say, with those things assured, Beecher’s evangelism against slavery would have failed in England, and the north never could have conquered the south. But that is not the story we want to employ ourselves with now. We cite it to exhibit a principle. The north and the world at large need the cotton of the south more to day than between 1861 and 1865. They must have it —for they cannot afford to go three-fourths naked all the time! In this day we command the world supply of cotton, and we CAN control the price. The warehouse at home in stead of in England is the key to the whole situation! Make the Farmers’ Union the cot ton confederacy, deposit your surplus cotton in the warehouse use your receipts for collateral, lending your cash assets among yourselves, and it will not be long before the whole pack of parasites who have played you for “easy marks” in the past, robbed you of your legitimate profits and laughed at your poverty, will be begging for cotton at your front doors, and saying, “Yes, Boss!” when you name your Price- S. W. S.