ses of the order had become considerably more
comprehensive than they were when it was getting under way in 1881.
First place was now given to a plank favoring the free coinage of silver
and the issuance of "all paper money direct to the people." The demand
for railroad regulation was accompanied by a statement that "the
ultimate solution of the transportation problem may be found in
the ownership and operation by the Government of one or more
transcontinental lines"; and the immediate acquisition of the
Union Pacific, then in financial difficulties, was suggested. Other
resolutions called for government ownership and operation of the
telegraph, improvement of waterways, restriction of the liquor traffic,
industrial education in the public schools, restoration of agricultural
colleges "to the high purpose of their creation," and popular election
of Senators. The national body does not appear to have attempted, at
this time, to force its platform upon candidates for office; but it
urged "farmers throughout the country to aid in the work of immediate
organization, that we may act in concert for our own and the common
good."

The culmination of this general movement for the organization of the
farmers of the country came in 1889 and 1890. The Farmers' and Laborers'
Union and the Northwestern Alliance met at St. Louis on December 3,
1889. The meeting of the Southern organization, which was renamed the
National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, was attended by about a
hundred delegates representing Indiana, Kansas, and every Southern State
from Maryland to Texas, with the exception of West Virginia. The purpose
of the two orders in holding their meetings at the same time and place
was obviously to effect some sort of union, and committees of conference
were at once appointed. Difficulties soon confronted these committees:
the Southern Alliance wanted to effect a complete merger but insisted
upon retention of the secret features and the exclusion of negroes,
at least from the national body; the Northwestern Alliance preferred
a federation in which each organization might retain its identity.
Arrangements were finally made for future conferences to effect
federation but nothing came of them. The real obstacles seem to have
been differences of policy with reference to political activity and a
survival of sectional feeling.

With the failure of the movement for union, the Southern Alliance began
active work in the Northe