ouis convention read
like a party platform and, indeed, became the basis of the platform of
the People's Party in 1892, they were little more than a restatement of
earlier programs put forth by the Alliance and the Wheel. They called
for the substitution of greenbacks for national bank notes, laws to
"prevent the dealing in futures of all agricultural and mechanical
productions," free and unlimited coinage of silver, prohibition of alien
ownership of land, reclamation from the railroads of lands held by them
in excess of actual needs, reduction and equalization of taxation, the
issue of fractional paper currency for use in the mails, and, finally,
government ownership and operation of the means of communication and
transportation.

The real contribution which this meeting made to the agrarian movement
was contained in the report of the committee on the monetary system,
of which C. W. Macune was chairman. This was the famous sub-treasury
scheme, soon to become the paramount issue with the Alliance and the
Populists in the South and in some parts of the West. The committee
proposed "that the system of using certain banks as United States
depositories be abolished, and in place of said system, establish in
every county in each of the States that offers for sale during the
one year $500,000 worth of farm products--including wheat, corn, oats,
barley, rye, rice, tobacco, cotton, wool, and sugar, all together--a
sub-treasury office." In connection with this office there were to be
warehouses or elevators in which the farmers might deposit their crops,
receiving a certificate of the deposit showing the amount and quality,
and a loan of United States legal tender paper equal to eighty per cent
of the local current value of the products deposited. The interest
on this loan was to be at the rate of one per cent per annum; and the
farmer, or the person to whom he might sell his certificate, was to be
allowed one year in which to redeem the property; otherwise it would be
sold at public auction for the satisfaction of the debt. This project
was expected to benefit the farmers in two ways: it would increase and
make flexible the volume of currency in circulation; and it would enable
them to hold their crops in anticipation of a rise in price.

The Northwestern Alliance also hesitated to play the role of a third
party, but it adopted a program which was virtually a party platform. In
place of the sub-treasury scheme as a means of in